Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This work extends Weber’s discussion of social status and of caste to the global level. I identify the existence of a global caste-like system organized around citizenship and maintained by nation-states through a regime of laws and cultural practices. Nation-states affect persons’ life chances by holding a monopoly on bestowing citizenships. Citizenship-based castes display high levels of inequality in terms of survival chances, freedom of movement, wellbeing, and rights at the least. 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. 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. Nationalism and universalism serve as the civil religion justifying the citizenship caste system. Borders are spaces of distinction displays and purity rituals.