Abstract

This article presents an interpretation of the notion of citizenship that focuses on the conceptual transition that has occurred with the rise of modern constitutionalism, with special reference to the specific connotation that citizenship takes on in the Constitutions adopted after the Second World War. According to this approach, the modern principle of territoriality should imply that all the people who co-exist in a given territory should be holders of the juridical circumstances enshrined in the Constitution. Hence, not only is the citizen of the State who is the recipient of the active and passive juridical instruments, but all those who are affected by the efficacy of the Constitution, foreigners included. In the light of this interpretation the author introduces the concept of "Constitutional citizenship" as foundation of State citizenship itself.