In much of the citizenship literature it is often considered, if not simply assumed, that citizenship is integral to the character of a self-determining community and that this process, by definition, involves the exclusion of resident ‘foreigners’. The foregoing discussion has called this assumption into question. I have argued that ‘aliens’ are by definition outside the bounds of the community by virtue of a circular reasoning which takes for granted the existence of bounded national communities, and that this process of collective self-definition is deeply political and historically dated. And although I share the view that citizenship would mean very little if citizens belonged to borderless communities, maintaining a sharp distinction between ‘us and them’ in a globalised and plural world seems to me to be quite problematic. This is not only because it screens out the various connections and ties of interdependence between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ and the responsibilities we owe to distant, and not too distant, others. It is also due to the fact that exclusionary conceptions of citizenship undermine the normative principles on which relatively egalitarian and democratic states are based. In this respect, political exclusion and the transformation of democracy into an ethnarchy should no longer be seen as necessary, albeit unfortunate consequences of a community's right to democratic self-determination. Instead, they should be viewed as contingent consequences of a historical model of citizenship and community that has taken root in the modern national statist world and which may be in need of correction in the new millennium.

The crucial question is, therefore, whether an alternative model of citizenship that is inclusive, egalitarian and democratic can be developed.