The ‘Streetlight Effect’ in Commentary on Citizenship by Investment

Abstract

In this chapter, I highlight the problematic starting point of three key trends in the relevant literature on the sale of citizenship, demonstrating that it suffers from a ‘streetlight effect’ by inescapably privileging the claims made in the name of what theorists see as the pre-existing community, allowing such claims to trump all other concerns. The fact of the matter is, however, that when certain forms of inclusion are assessed, it is not only the interests of rich, Western societies which are at stake.