Citizenship for Sale and the Neoliberal Political Economy of Belonging

Luca Mavelli

doi:10.1093/isq/sqy004

Abstract

Recent research considers the proliferation of citizenship-by-investment schemes primarily as a manifestation of the commodification of citizenship and of states succumbing to the logic of the market. I argue that these schemes exceed mere processes of commodification. They are part of a neoliberal political economy of belonging which prompts states to include and exclude migrants according to their endowment of human, financial, economic, and emotional capital. Hence, I show how the growing mobility opportunities for wealthy and talented migrants, the opening of humanitarian corridors for particularly vulnerable refugees, and the hardening of borders for “ordinary” refugees and undocumented migrants are manifestations of the same neoliberal rationality of government. Conceptually, I challenge mainstream understandings of neoliberalism as a process of commodification characterized by the “retreat of the state” and “domination of the market.” I approach neoliberalism as a process of economization which disseminates the model of the market to all spheres of human activity, even where money is not at stake. Neoliberal economization turns states and individuals into entrepreneurial actors that attempt to maximize their value in economic and financial, as well as moral and emotional terms. This argument advances existing scholarship on the neoliberalization of citizenship by showing how this process encompasses the emergence of distinctively neoliberal forms of belonging.

Highlights

In October 2013, Malta amended its Citizenship Act to include the possibility of purchasing Maltese citizenship for a 650,000-euro fee
The physically and mentally disabled refugees taken by the United Kingdom and New Zealand should be considered an investment and the embodiment of an emotional capital instrumental to preserving and promoting a national sense of collective pride, self-esteem, and moral righteousness. This neoliberal political economy of belonging makes it possible that, while residency to an autistic child from a relatively wealthy family is denied on the grounds that he would be a burden to taxpayers, a few hundreds or thousands of disabled refugees are welcomed, despite their potential cost, as a testimony of the country’s humanity
Castles and Davidson (2000, viii) argue that “[p]orous boundaries and multiple identities undermine ideas of cultural belonging as a necessary accompaniment to political membership

Summary

LUCA MAVELLI University of Kent

Recent research views the proliferation of citizenship-by-investment schemes primarily as a manifestation of the commodification of citizenship by states succumbing to the logic of the market. I argue that these schemes exceed mere processes of commodification. They are part of a neoliberal political economy of belonging. Neoliberal economization turns states and individuals into entrepreneurial actors that attempt to maximize their value, not just in economic and financial and in moral and emotional terms. This process, I conclude, undermines political notions of citizenship grounded in reciprocity, equality, and solidarity, not by replacing these principles with economic ones but by rewriting these principles in economic terms

Introduction

Neoliberalism as the Economization of Individuals and States

Citizenship for Sale and the Limits of the Commodification Argument

The Neoliberal Political Economy of Belonging

Findings

Conclusion