Confronting the Citizenship’s Sacred Blood Aristocracy Principle: Quality of Nationality Discrepancies as a Factor Underpinning (Investment) Naturalisations

IF 1.5 Q1 SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY

Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences Pub Date : 2026-02-20 DOI:10.1007/s40647-026-00461-y

Dimitry Kochenov, Elena Basheska

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The recent growth of the investment migration industry is closely linked to the inequality in the rights and obligations linked to different citizenships. In a world where inequalities are spatialised, the space where one is allowed to live is the most significant determinant of prosperity, education, safety and economic success. Citizenships are keys to spaces and thus the core tool of global inequalities today: a personal legal status that opens some spaces while rendering other borders impenetrable. In the absolute majority of cases, citizenship is ascribed at birth and is never changed—global inequalities are thus mainly based on blood: the aristocracy principle. Your pedigree determines whether you will be allowed to access the spaces of opportunity. This distribution of vital resources, life chances and rights is in direct opposition to the foundational values of all liberal democratic constitutions today, but remains the sole principle known to the global system of citizenship and migration law, which persecute the ‘low born’, who are usually not white. The discrepancy between different citizenship statuses is significantly reinforced by the phenomenon of intercitizenships, which consists of the mutual co-extension of citizenship rights by the states that issue the best citizenships in the world. A Norwegian citizen has full residence rights in forty destinations, including some of the richest states in the world, while a Comorian has no residence rights in any state other than his home country. The status assigned to you at birth either makes you a victim of low-quality citizenship or, for the lucky few, part of the global aristocracy. We argue that the phenomenon of investment migration is directly linked to the profound discrepancy between the global aristocracy and the victims of citizenship: without these victims, there would be no citizenship-by-investment.

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面对公民的神圣血统贵族原则：国籍差异的质量是支持（投资）入籍的一个因素

最近投资移民行业的增长与不同国籍的权利和义务的不平等密切相关。在一个不平等被空间化的世界里，一个人被允许居住的空间是繁荣、教育、安全和经济成功的最重要决定因素。公民身份是空间的钥匙，因此也是当今全球不平等的核心工具：个人的法律地位可以打开一些空间，同时使其他边界无法跨越。在绝大多数情况下，公民身份是与生俱来的，从来没有改变过——因此，全球不平等主要基于血统：贵族原则。你的血统决定了你是否能获得机会。这种对重要资源、生活机会和权利的分配与今天所有自由民主宪法的基本价值观直接对立，但仍然是全球公民和移民法体系所知道的唯一原则，这些法律迫害“低出生”的人，他们通常不是白人。不同公民身份之间的差异被公民身份间的现象显著地强化了，这种现象是由世界上颁发最好公民身份的国家相互共同扩展公民权利构成的。挪威公民在40个目的地拥有完全的居住权，其中包括世界上一些最富有的国家，而科摩罗人在其本国以外的任何国家都没有居住权。出生时赋予你的身份，要么让你成为低质量公民身份的受害者，要么让少数幸运儿成为全球贵族的一部分。我们认为，投资移民现象与全球贵族和公民身份受害者之间的深刻差异直接相关：没有这些受害者，就不会有投资公民身份。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

3.90

自引率

10.00%

发文量

502

期刊介绍： Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences (FJHSS) is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes research papers across all academic disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. The Journal aims to promote multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary studies, bridge diverse communities of the humanities and social sciences in the world, provide a platform of academic exchange for scholars and readers from all countries and all regions, promote intellectual development in China’s humanities and social sciences, and encourage original, theoretical, and empirical research into new areas, new issues, and new subject matters. Coverage in FJHSS emphasizes the combination of a “local” focus (e.g., a country- or region-specific perspective) with a “global” concern, and engages in the international scholarly dialogue by offering comparative or global analyses and discussions from multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives. The journal features special topics, special issues, and original articles of general interest in the disciplines of humanities and social sciences. The journal also invites leading scholars as guest editors to organize special issues or special topics devoted to certain important themes, subject matters, and research agendas in the humanities and social sciences.