Abstract

The author examines the concept of citizenship in a theoretical-political perspective, i.e. as a concept aimed at determinig the overall political, economical and cultural conditions guaranteed to the members of an organized social group. In order to found this theoretical notion, the author traces the history of citizenship from his emergence in the Greek polis and in republican Rome, through its transformation in an non-élitarian and non-aristocratic notion in the modern age, up to the democratic-social notion of citizenship of contemporary liberal democracies. Finally, the author reviews contemporary criticism to citizenship in the name of a cosmopolitan theory of rights, that has emerged in the debate on globalization and the new rights.