Reforming Citizenship, Remaking the People: Nationality Law and Boundary‐Making in Contemporary Nationhood

This article examines contemporary citizenship reforms as institutional mechanisms through which states remake the boundaries of the people. Nationalism studies have long analysed the symbolic construction of nations, while citizenship studies have explored status, rights, migration and inclusion. Yet nationality laws remain under‐theorised as legal‐political technologies of people‐making. Drawing on a qualitative, comparative and legal‐institutional approach, the article analyses four empirical blocks: the United States, Germany, Finland and Benin‐Ghana. It argues that citizenship reforms and disputes cannot be understood simply as movements towards openness or closure. Rather, they operate through four strategies of boundary‐making: restriction, liberalisation, selective integration and diasporic reconnection. Internal re‐hierarchisation is treated as a transversal dimension. The article contributes to nationalism and citizenship studies by showing how citizenship law participates in the legal, political and symbolic production of the people.