What Are Golden Passports? with Professor Kristin Surak

Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Society & Culture, Comedy, Education, Self-improvement

4.9 • 21.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Your passport tells a story of where you’re from—and where you’re allowed to go. But what if you wanted to rewrite that story? Professor Kristin Surak joins us to discuss the world of golden passports, where millionaires and billionaires buy citizenship to countries they’re not from—and are often not living in—in order to navigate travel perks, business opportunities, and even scandals. If you thought all passports were created equal, you’re in for a trip. Kristin Surak is Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the LSE and the author of The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires (Harvard University Press 2023). In addition to her academic work, she writes for popular outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Guardian, and comments regularly for the BBC, Bloomberg TV, and Sky TV News. You can follow her on Twitter @KristinSurak and on TikTok @goldenpassports. To learn more about her work, check out her department page. Follow us on Instagram @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram @JVN. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Find books from Getting Curious guests at bookshop.org/shop/curiouswithjvn. Our producer is Chris McClure. Our associate producer is Allison Weiss. Our engineer is Nathanael McClure. Production support from Julie Carrillo, Anne Currie, and Chad Hall. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com. Curious about bringing your brand to life on the show? Email podcastadsales@sonymusic.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Getting Curious.
0:06.9	I'm Jonathan Banness and every week I sit down for a gorgeous conversation with a brilliant
0:11.0	expert to learn all about something that makes me curious.
0:15.0	Every time you cross into a country, you have to present your travel documents, honey.
0:19.3	We're out here doing it all the time.
0:21.2	Maybe it's a passport or a visa.
0:23.5	Maybe it's both.
0:24.8	Those documents tell a story of where you're from and in some cases where you're allowed
0:28.8	to go.
0:29.8	But what if you wanted to rewrite that story?
0:32.1	What if you wanted to make like Natasha Beddingfield staring at the blank space before you?
0:38.3	Enter the Golden Passport.
0:40.1	Today, millionaires and billionaires around the world are buying passports.
0:45.3	Those passports give them perks like travel access, business opportunities, and even a way
0:50.6	to sneak around with a second family.
0:53.3	Ula-la!
0:54.3	Kristen Siric is Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the London School of Economics.
1:00.0	She is the author of the Golden Passport, Global Mobility for Millionaires, published by Harvard
1:05.1	University Press.
1:06.1	Yes!
1:07.1	Kristen, first of all, how are you?
1:09.6	Great.
	...

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