At a time of rising populism and debate about immigration, leading legal academic Jo Shaw sets out to review interactions between constitutions and constructs of citizenship.

This incisive appraisal is the first sustained treatment of the relationship between citizenship and constitutional law in a comparative and transnational perspective.

Drawing on examples from around the world, it assesses how countries’ legal, political and cultural processes help to determine the boundaries of citizenship.

For students and academics across political, social and international disciplines, Shaw offers an accessible response to some of the most pressing international questions of our age.

“A broad-ranging tour de force that elegantly and uncompromisingly guides the reader through various battles of belonging, all waged under the auspices of constitutional law.” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies
“Tackles hitherto under-explored dimensions of citizenship, offering a subtle, but convincing, rebuttal of its ‘fashionable’ negative treatment, while encouraging others to join in the ship-building task.” Helen Irving, Sydney Law School in the GLOBALCIT Review Symposium
“It is liberating to read this book, which straddles so much research and yet finds its own multi-scalar analytical space…. [Jo Shaw] is signposting the freeway for future research. I, for one, will take advantage of this freeway.” Journal of Law and Society

Jo Shaw holds the Salvesen Chair of European Institutions at the University of Edinburgh and is a part-time professor in the New Social Research programme of Tampere University in Finland.