Clemson, SC – Clemson Emeritus College is pleased to present a lecture by Dr. Kristin Surak, Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, titled, “The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires,” on March 20, 2024, (Wednesday), 10:00 am to 11:30 am. This is a hybrid program meaning people are welcome to join us in person in the Seminar Room at The Emeritus College located at the corner of Westinghouse and Lebanon roads in Pendleton, SC Room (511 Westinghouse Rd. Pendleton, SC).
Dr. Surak will share her research and book “Golden Passports: Global Mobility for Millionaires” (Harvard University Press, 2023). Citizenship has become a hot commodity. Now over a dozen countries allow wealthy individuals to naturalize in exchange for a set donation or investment, and more than 50,000 people use such citizenship by investment programs acquire “golden passports” each year. Through six years of fieldwork on four continents, Kristin Surak discovered how the initially dubious sale of passports has transformed into a full-blown citizenship industry that thrives on global inequalities. A groundbreaking study of a contentious practice that has become popular among the nouveaux riches, The Golden Passport takes readers from the details of the application process to the geopolitical hydraulics of the citizenship industry. It is a business that thrives on uncertainty and imbalances of power between big, globalized economies and tiny states desperate for investment. In between are the fascinating stories of buyers, brokers, and sellers, all ready to profit from the citizenship trade.
Prof. Surak joined the London School of Economics in 2020 as an Associate Professor in Political Sociology who specializes in the politics of global mobility. Her research on elite mobility, international migration, nationalism, and Japanese politics has been translated into half-dozen languages. She publishes in major academic journals and writes for popular outlets, including the London Review of Books, Washington Post, The Guardian, New Statesman, and Wall Street Journal. She also comments regularly for global sources, such as the BBC, Bloomberg TV, Huffington Post, Channel News Asia TV, and Sky TV News.
She has held several internationally recognized positions, including Richard B. Fischer Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University, Sainsbury Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for Japanese Arts and Cultures, and Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. She is a Lifetime Fellow of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge and an Academic Peer of Hitotsubashi University and has been a visiting professor at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and at New York University in Abu Dhabi. The American Academy of Political and Social Science has recognized her scholarship, which has been funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Japan Foundation, Fulbright-Hays Foundation, and Leverhulme Foundation, among others.
Please contact Victoria Musheff at vmushef@clemson.edu for the Zoom link to attend Dr. Kristin Surak’s seminar online.
