The aim of this chapter is to challenge the concept of citizenship in the light of the main paradox of politics and democracy, consisting of the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion within a delimited territory. A reconstruction of the recent debate on social citizenship, multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism – which refers to the transformation of the welfare state, the process of European unification and the effects of globalisation – allows for the reconceptualising of the notions of marginalisation and social policy within a more complex international scenario. This factor should permit one to extend and, at the same time, to restrict the political/cultural boundaries of the nation/welfare state. Indeed, the main challenge consists of rethinking the normative basis and meaning of a ‘cross-borders’ democracy, social justice and global governance, starting from local experiences.

The cohesive/exclusive power of culture in the political domain

In contemporary western liberal states the idea and practice of social policy is a constitutive principle of the self-interpretation of legitimate political institutions, oriented towards the well-being of all citizens, a fair government and the respect for human rights. But in a nation state, social policies are mainly addressed to individuals who belong to a specific territory and who hold the right to vote. Social policies are, thus, strictly connected to domestic laws as well as local cultures and political traditions. This factor is cohesive for the inhabitants but selective for the ‘others’.

The dialectic of culture (Berger and Luckmann, 1967; Eder, 1992), as a form of exclusion and inclusion, is a constitutive but ambivalent issue characterising politics and democracy, as the ancient history of the polis and the modern tradition of the nation state indicate. For this reason, in order to reframe the idea and practices of social policy, this section focuses on reconstructing the overlapping and contradictory connections between the constitution of a community, the limits of culture and the notion of marginalisation within a specific territory.

In Greek philosophy politics was associated with the image of a polis that is protected by walls and where freedom and citizenship were granted to male individuals only, who acquired it by being born of parents in the city.