Citizenship and Residence Sales: Rethinking the Boundaries of Belonging

Citizenship and residence by investment is a fast-growing global phenomenon. As of 2022, more than a third of all countries in the world offered paths to membership in exchange for a donation or investment into their economies. Yet we know little about how these programmes operate and debates in academia and the wider public are often misinformed by sensationalist cases. This book offers a multidisciplinary exploration of both citizenship and residence by investment on a global scale. Bringing together the expertise of leading legal scholars, economists, sociologists, political scientists, and historians, it provides an informative and empirically grounded assessment of the origins, operation, key causes, and the legal bases of the investment migration programmes. By so doing, the volume demystifies citizenship and residence by investment and takes a critical postcolonial global perspective, addressing key issues in belonging, exclusion, and inequality that define the world today.

Dimitry Kochenov leads the Rule of Law research group at CEU Democracy Institute in Budapest and is Professor at CEU Legal Studies Department in Vienna, as well as associate of EU Program at Princeton University. He has taught citizenship from Princeton and Rome to the College of Europe, co-convened an Oxford seminar on Citizenship for Sale, served as the founding chairman of the Investment Migration Council (Geneva), and advised international institutions and governments, including Dutch and Maltese. His Citizenship (2019) has been reviewed in the NYRB.

Kristin Surak is Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the London School of Economics. She is the author of The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires (2023). Her research on golden passports, international migration, nationalism, and political sociology has been translated into a half-dozen languages.