CES Conversations on Europe. Can the EU Shut Down the Sale of Citizenship? Unpacking the Geopolitics of the Global Market in Golden Passports

Citizenship has become a hot commodity. Now nearly a dozen countries allow wealthy individuals to naturalize in exchange for a donation or investment, and more than 50,000 people use such “citizenship by investment” programs to acquire “golden passports” each year. If the sale of citizenship has grabbed headlines, much less is known about the geopolitical powerplays that define this global market. We typically think of citizenship as a status that secures rights within a country. However, the value of citizenship by investment usually hinges on the rights that citizenship secures outside the country, including visa-free access and business opportunities. This grants third countries and supra-national powers substantial influence over how other states admit new members. Indeed, the European Union has become a key player in this scene, and the European Parliament and European Commission have called for an end to these programs. Will they succeed? Drawing on eight years of fieldwork in eighteen countries, this talk lays bare the operation of the global market in golden passports, focusing on the geopolitical powerplays that both define and disrupt these global flows.

Kristin Surak is Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the LSE and the author of The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires (Harvard University Press, 2023). Her research on elite mobility, international migration, nationalism, and politics has been translated into a half-dozen languages. In addition to publishing in major academic and intellectual journals, she also writes for popular outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, and comments regularly for the BBC, Bloomberg TV, and Sky TV News.

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