ABSTRACT
The nonviolent accession to office of these erstwhile political prisoners marked an unprecedented reconquest of public space from totalizing systems and the bureaucratic and military servants of those systems. The new leaders willingly engage in labor-intensive political craftsmanship and reject temptations to circumvent the process by force/threat of violence. The events of 1989 and their aftermath have catapulted the world into a period of constitution making and transformation of political regimes that transcends the logic of the nation-state. When the constitution of a political regime fosters citizenship as a dynamic principle of its organization—when a regime is "owned" by its citizens. Over the past fifteen years, citizenship has reemerged as a priority on the political agenda of many established democracies, which have felt the need to "redemocratize". The problems of citizenship take various forms on the political agendas of contemporary democracies, but their new visibility suggests a common link: Political issues increasingly are being addressed in terms of citizenship.
