Kristin Surak

Kristin Surak is an Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her research focuses on global mobility, nationalism, Japanese politics, and the commodification of citizenship. She holds a Lifetime Fellowship at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, and has held positions at institutions such as the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and New York University in Abu Dhabi. Her work has been funded by organizations like the German Science Foundation (DFG), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Japan Foundation.

Surak’s research explores topics such as investment migration, citizenship markets, and elite mobility. Her book The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires (2023) examines the sale of citizenship to wealthy individuals, a practice covered by major media outlets including the BBC and Foreign Affairs. She has also published on migration industries, Japanese cultural nationalism, and the political economy of ethnicity.

Her expertise includes political sociology, Japanese politics, migration studies, nationalism, and global inequality. Awards and recognitions include fellowships from the American Academy of Political and Social Science and the Fung Global Fellows Program at Princeton University. Surak frequently engages with global media, commenting on citizenship policies and migration trends for outlets like Bloomberg TV and Sky News.

Her academic contributions span empirical studies of investment migration programs, historical analyses of guestworker regimes, and cultural studies of practices like the Japanese tea ceremony as tools of national identity formation. She advocates for a critical understanding of how states and markets intersect to redefine citizenship in an increasingly globalized world.