ABSTRACT
Definitions of membership in the political community, and conditions for entry into it, have varied from country to country and from age to age. These variations have their roots in the different historical experiences and, more specifically, the different circumstances surrounding the building of the political community. Citizenship, which is the legal expression of membership in that community, has been based on both ascriptive and functional criteria. Since the biblical period and the era of the Greek city state, membership in a ‘national’ community was (as the expression itself implies) determined largely by ascription – birth, descent, and religion – because community was defined in organic terms, that is, was believed to have evolved from extended families and tribes held together by blood ties and other inherited connections. It did not matter whether the existence of such ties could be firmly established; it often sufficed to have a myth of common ancestry, buttressed by a common collective memory and a common cultural or ‘folk’ patrimony. In some cases, individuals who did not share these commonalities were permanently excluded from full membership in the community; in other cases, it was possible for outsiders to join the community as their progeny adopted the host society’s language, religion, myths, and way of life, and married into its families.
