Borders, Boundaries, and Citizenship

Abstract

Modern liberal democracies owe their stability and relative success to the coming together of two ideals which originate in distinct historical periods: the ideals of self-governance and territorially circumscribed nation-state. Self-governance defines freedom as the rule of law among a community of equals who are citizens of the polis and who have the right to rule and to be ruled. This ideal emerges in 5th-century Athens and is revived throughout history in episodes such as the experience of self-governing city-states in the Renaissance, the Paris commune of 1871, the anarchist and socialist communes of the Russian Revolution, and the Spanish Civil War.