Ethics of Commodified (Golden) Citizenship

The concept of citizenship has changed dramatically since the term was first used in ancient Greece. Recent citizenship debates have focused on the implications of commodified citizenship and growth of the “golden visa” market as these new schemes raise ethical and constitutional concerns. Paid-for citizenship schemes undermine the traditional notion of citizenship often marked by solidarity, rights and duties. Paid-for citizenship contradicts contemporary citizenship’s essential principle of equality. Therefore, the core challenge for Turkey and other countries offering paid-for citizenship is the unethical implications of distinguishing refugee/immigrant populations by financial capability in acquiring citizenship. While Turkey does not grant full-fledged refugee status to non- European people and limit duration of their stay in Turkey, Citizenship by Investment programmes offer the rich people –including non-Europeansan opportunity to acquire Turkish citizenship. So, the new citizenship programme in Turkey is paving the way for discrimination based on the socioeconomic status of individuals. What’s more, this actually tends to push the citizenship concept into a narrow understanding despite the expansion of the modern citizenship concept towards more inclusive rights reaching beyond the boundaries of nation states. Taking this into account, this paper aims to illustrate the discrepancies between paid- for citizenship and refugee policies by highlighting the ethical questions arising from citizenship by investment programmes in Turkey.