Citizenship for sale

Abstract

The discussion focuses on one of the most visible manifestations of the neoliberalization of citizenship: the proliferation of citizenship-by-investment schemes. It contends that these schemes exceed commodification in its narrowest sense (the fact that citizenship is traded for money) and are part of a broader process of economization that, by extending the logics and metrics of the market to all spheres of human activity, rewrites in neoliberal terms the criteria required for the protection and recognition traditionally associated with citizenship. Neoliberal citizenship is thus a regime of differential inclusion based on a logic of valuation that encompasses both economic and emotional attributes regarded as valuable for the host community. This logic is applied to nominal citizens and non-citizens alike. To substantiate this argument, the chapter explores a series of illustrations from New Zealand, a country whose image of ‘social laboratory’ for progressive policies evokes the famous notion of the ‘European social model’. These illustrations are relevant to appreciating the global reach of neoliberal citizenship and how the pervasive penetration of neoliberal rationalities has been particularly pernicious in welfare-oriented democracies. The New Zealand case offers crucial insights to explore the neoliberalization of citizenship in Europe and shows how, under specific circumstances, the decisions to include wealthy billionaires and disabled refugees, while excluding disabled residents, respond to the same neoliberal rationality of value.