272 K. Henrard both terms to describe the relationship between an individual and the state, but in reference to different legal forums: citizenship would concern the national legal forum, whereas nationality the international legal forum.9 As will be explained more fully below, non-legal disciplines distinguish between various dimensions of citizenship,10 one of which concerns the legal bond between an individual and a state, the others capture substantive citizenship. In this article the term ‘nationality’ is used when referring to the legal bond between an individual and the state, while ‘citizenship’ denotes the broader term, also including the other dimensions of membership. Importantly, throughout the rescaling of citizenship over time, in the sense that citizenship was defined in relation to varied politico-territorial structures (city-polis, empire, nation-state etc.), there have always been alternative scales of citizenship. In the words of Diener: ‘communities of belonging and obligation have existed outside and across the dominant politico-territorial structures of all eras’.11 This reality of intersecting, multiple levels of community12 and membership is ever more visible at present with power shifting away from the state to the local, regional and supranational level,13 translating into multi-level governance. The historical conceptual enquiry first turns to the shifting spatialities of the polity or political community (2.1), to subsequently elaborate on the meaning and underlying rational of ‘membership’ (2.2). 2.1 The Changing Spatialities of ‘Political Community’14 As was already highlighted above, historical accounts of thinking in terms of polities, of politico-territorial structures and membership thereof reveal that the contours of the polity have rescaled over time in a non-linear fashion.15 Strikingly, while there have always been alternative ‘communities of belonging and obligation’, the most central reference points for citizenship have had a geographic basis.16 Remarkable differences in the scale of the relevant territorial structures can be noted. 9 Rubenstein (2004), p. 3. McMahon (2012), pp. 2–3; Bloemraad et al. (2008), pp. 154–155. See also Bauböck (2010), pp. 847– 848. 11 Diener (2017), p. 38. 12 Shachar et al. (2017), p. 7. 13 See, inter alia, Sassen (2002), p. 277. See also the exploration of a global and cosmopolitan citizenship in Rubenstein and Adler (2000), p. 519; Linklater (2002), p. 323. 14 In this historical overview the focus will be on Europe, because the central point of reference, the nation‑state was originally devised in Western Europe and later, more particularly after 1815 spread across the world (for a detailed discussion on the basis of an extensive dataset comprising 145 states: Wimmer and Feinstein (2010)). Various trajectories of nation‑state creation have been distinguished, such as (de)colonisation (Laakso and Olukoshi (1996), pp. 12–16), the collapse of land‑based empires, nationalist secession (Yugoslavia, Mexico), and unification movements (Germany, Yemen). Wimmer and Feinstein identify an ‘imitation process driven by the extra‑ordinary success and global dominance of the first nation‑states’ (Wimmer and Feinstein (2010), p. 785) while pointing to the required shift in the balance of power to enable nation‑state creation: ibid). 15 For detailed accounts of these historical developments, see Diener (2017), p. 38 and Bosniak (2000). 16 Bauböck and Giraudon (2009), p. 448; Bloemraad et al. (2008), p. 154. Diener (2017) refers in this respect to the ‘dominant politico-territorial structures of all eras’, p. 38. 10 123