From Social Contract to Economic Contractualism: How Commodification of Citizenship Transforms the Contemporary Understanding of State Membership and National Belonging

Following the European debt crisis of 2012, many EU member states have promulgated a series of investment visa programs aimed at attracting foreign capital to mitigate the vicious effects brought about by a period of stalling economic growth and austerity measures. On the other hand, high net-worth individuals and global investors are attracted to countries like Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain in seeking the advantages that an European residence permit would offer, namely enhanced mobility and special privileges of access in an increasingly globalized world (Ammann, 2020). Public policies formulated on the basis of selective inclusion vis-à-vis the Golden Visa programs have been instrumental in re-defining the scope of political acceptance that are paving a path for global high-capital investors that ultimately lead to citizenships. To reiterate the statement made by Shachar, being granted citizenship in a wealthy, developed, Western nation amounts to winning the ‘birthright lottery’ (Shachar, 2009; Pogonyi, 2021). However, many are routinely overlooking the paradoxical state behaviours that simultaneously securitize and externalize foreign migrant workers and refugees, despite their contributions across social and economic life, while also neglecting the implications for local working-class livelihoods, particularly as access to basic necessities such as housing continues to become a major factor of vulnerability for this demographic. (Valadas and Góis, 2014). Similarly, across the Atlantic in the United States, Donald Trump’s proposal of a ‘Gold Card’ program reflects the same kind of logic, leading to the commodification of American citizenship, prioritizing or perhaps “favoring” wealthy foreign nationals as ‘assets’ to the US economy (Surak, 2025). This shifting dynamic from the classical liberal or cosmopolitan-based approach to immigration toward a more economically and financially driven policy agenda inflict broader implications for political and legal status, democratic legitimacy, as well as social cohesion in the evolving boundaries of membership in Western liberal democracies (Williams and Blackburn, 2025; De Blij, 2009; Amante and Rodriguez, 2020). In light of the current migration trends of Europe and North America, this paper seeks to examine the embedded paradox in social contract theories of Western liberal democracies, and the contemporary transformation as such driven by economic contractualism and financial logics (Krippner, 2005). Derived from the ‘consent’ of the governed to ground the legitimacy of state power, classical social contracts were once the foundation for democratic rule and liberal pursuits. In the current era, it is witnessed that the idea of this hypothetical agreed-upon ‘contract’ can be altered, expanded, or perhaps breached to accommodate the few and exclude the rest in times of financial turbulence, social transformation and political changes through discourse and policies. The defining notion of citizenship is central to political science and sociological debate as it reshapes who gets to access justice, rights, and equity. In both Europe and North America, the financialisation and neoliberal paradigm has penetrated the state level, producing a differentiated, privilege-based forms of citizenship defined by mobility and fiscal advantages, raising critical questions about how capital can in turn bypass public consent and dictate policy making.