The Transnational Social Contract in the Global South

• In Event: Interrogations of Citizenship and Nationality in the Global South (Pre-Recorded)

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the massive labor migrations between states in the global south and the Gulf Cooperation Council. It has laid bare how a reliance on migration remittances substituted for the provision of basic social welfare among sending states such as Egypt, Jordan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. When cross-border mobility between global south states halted due to the coronavirus, it brought to a standstill this ‘transnational social contract’. This paper asks, what were the conditions that led to this ‘transnational social contract’ and what are its features? Why and how do poorer states in the global south outsource their citizens' “social contract” to wealthier states in the global south? More significantly, what is the political-economic rights impact of this outsourcing on the sending state? We draw from an established literature on the social contract in postcolonial contexts, which guaranteed - implicitly or not - socio-economic entitlements and rights (such as the right to emigrate) in return for political compliance (such as restrictions on civil rights). We argue that the growing inability of the postcolonial state to live up to citizenship expectations was mitigated by citizens’ opportunity to pursue short-term employment opportunities abroad. The gradual emergence of a transnational social contract did not alter the fundamental terms and conditions of citizen-state relations in the Global South; arguably, it continued to encourage societal consent to political authority, but only as long as welfare provisions and employment remained accessible either at home or abroad through emigration. We trace this argument empirically through the evolution of the social contract across the Middle East and South Asia, paying particular attention to how labor migration to the Gulf Cooperation Council states reconfigured citizenship in Egypt, Jordan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. By identifying the conditions and features of the transnational social contract, we offer an alternative assessment of the expansion of citizenship rights in the global south, not just in national terms, but as a transnational social contract that privileges international migration in securing social and economic welfare rights unfulfilled by the sending state.

Authors

• Kamal Sadiq, University of California, Irvine

• Gerasimos Tsourapas, University of Glasgow