The Global Citizenship Regime as a Caste System

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Abstract

This work extends Weber’s discussion of social status, and of caste in particular, to the global level. I identify the existence of a global caste system organized around citizenship and maintained by nation-states through a regime of laws and cultural practices. Comparably to smaller-scale caste systems, this global caste system is characterized by a high degree of social closure assigning social positions—citizenships—principally by birth. Citizenship-based castes display high levels of inequality in terms of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness at the least. Underprivileged citizenship castes experience legally enforced territorial segregation with limited access to the territories of privileged citizenship castes, which exposes them to high risks of suffering and of dying prematurely. Groups of persons not fitting in its legal framework (e.g. “stateless” and “undocumented”/“illegal” persons) experience high levels of exclusion from the global citizenship caste system. The nation-state is a primary institution affecting persons’ life chances by holding a monopoly on bestowing privileged or underprivileged social statuses under the banner of citizenship. Nationalism and universalism serve as the civil religion of the global citizenship regime. Borders are key spaces where purity rituals related to the global citizenship caste system are at play.

Author

• Ana Velitchkova, University of Mississippi