The evolution of the meaning of nationality
captures some of these transformations.
Historically, nationality is linked to the bond
of allegiance of the individual to the sovereign.
It dates from the European state system
even in some of its earliest elementary forms
and describes the inherent and permanent
bond of the subject to the sovereign: ‘No
man may abjure his country.’ Traditionally
this bond was seen as insoluble or at least
exclusive. But while the bond of insoluble
allegiance was defensible in times of limited
individual mobility, it became difficult in the
face of large-scale migration which was part
of the new forms of industrial development.
Insoluble was gradually replaced by exclusive,
hence singular but changeable, allegiance
as the basis of nationality. Where the doctrine
of insoluble allegiance is a product of medieval
Europe, the development of exclusive allegiance
reflects the political context in the second
half of the nineteenth century (Rubenstein and
Adler, 2000). This is when state sovereignty
becomes the organizing principle of an international
system – albeit a system centred on
and largely ruled by Europe.2