The Political Morality of Selling Citizenship

This project is a philosophical investigation into ethics and permissibility of states selling citizenship - for example granting residence and rights, often without the otherwise customary citizenship tests, in exchange for a large financial investment in their domestic economy. I will employ methods drawn from analytical political philosophy to examine whether there are intrinsic reasons to prevent the sale of citizenship, the bearing of principles of global distributive justice, and how supranational institutions should regulate the practice. Offering an account of the political morality of selling citizenship will advance the growing literature in this area and generate important policy conclusions.