ABSTRACT
Though the idea of citizenship may be implicit in the city-states politics of Ancient Greece, making it as old as Western political philosophy, its significance as a key to understanding political problems of group membership and individual identity is characteristic of the modem eta. The rise of humanism during the renaissance brings with it a radically changed view of human agency and identity; people came to view their destinies as subject to their own individual and collective efforts rather than given by God. The French Revolution pushed the citoyen to the forefront of the political stage, replacing the subject under autocracy, signalling the freedom and equality that go with membership in a democratic polity wherein its members do not only obey but have a role in making laws and deciding other matters of the state. Membership in a new form of nation-state, a political identity demarcated by rights and obligations defined by the law, vies with previous primordial and parochial ties as a primary locus of loyalty.
