Citizenship universalism, migration and the risk of exclusion

The aim of this article is to place the notion of citizenship within the co ntext of sociological systems theory rather than that of the normative reas oning on democratic deliberation and social integration. For systems theory , citizenship is inclusion in the political system of world society. The po litical system is segmentarily differentiated into territorial nation-state s. The organizational problem of identifying citizens by means of territorial belonging has led to an ascriptive dimension of citizenship. This status as pect of citizenship has turned out to be the main obstacle to any attempt a t departing from the concept and practice of national citizenship.