About
Kristin Surak is Associate Professor of Political Sociology at LSE. Her research on global mobility, nationalism, and Japanese politics has been translated into over a dozen languages. Her most recent book, The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires (Harvard University Press 2023), provides the first ethnographic analysis of the global market in the sale of citizenship to the wealthy and has been covered by the BBC, NPR, Foreign Affairs, The Economist, and other news outlets around the world. She has held several internationally recognised positions, including Richard B. Fischer Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University, Sainsbury Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for Japanese Arts and Cultures. She is a Lifetime Fellow of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, and has been a visiting professor at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and New York University in Abu Dhabi. The American Academy of Political and Social Science has recognised her scholarship, which has been funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Japan Foundation, Fulbright-Hays Foundation, and Leverhulme Foundation, among others. She comments regularly for the global media, including the BBC, Bloomberg TV, Huffington Post, Channel News Asia TV, and Sky TV News and her reserach has been covered by the New York Times, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Foreign Affairs, Evening Standard, Al Jazeera, Le Monde Diplomatique, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Asahi Newspaper, and other media outlets in over 30 countries.
Key expertise: Political Sociology; Japan; Elites; International Migration; Investment Migration; Golden Passports; Nationalism
Research
Kristin's research on elite mobility, international migration, nationalism, and politics has been translated into over a dozen languages. In addition to publishing in major academic and intellectual journals, she also writes regularly for popular outlets, including the London Review of Books, Washington Post, the Guardian, New Statesman, and the Wall Street Journal. Her book Making Tea, Making Japan: Cultural Nationalism in Practice (Stanford University Press 2013) received a Book of the Year Award from within the American Sociological Association, and her most recent book, The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires, has been covered in the media in more than a dozen countries.
Kristin is part of the Politics and Human Rights research cluster.
Publications
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Teaching
Kristin teaches courses on Global Mobilities: International Migration and Politics and Society.
Engagement and impact
Op Eds and Blogs
2025. Surak, Kristin. “There’s No Golden Lining for Trump’s Gold Card.” LSEAPP American Politics and Policy Blog. 11 March.
2024. Surak, Kristin. “Japan’s Ruling Party Takes a Heavy Blow.” Jacobin. 17 November.
2023. Surak, Kristin. “The Global Trade in Passports is the Latest Boom Industry Catering to the Superrich.” Jacobin. 1 October.
2023. Surak, Kristin. “Turkish Citizenship is a Hot Commodity.” The Wall Street Journal. 8 September.
2023. Surak, Kristin. “Staatsbürgershaft für 250.000 Dollar.“ Tagesspiegel. 18 August.
2022. Surak, Kristin. “How the Shocking Assassination of Shinzo Abe Could Change Japan’s Constitution.” Evening Standard. 8 July.
2021. Surak, Kristin. “Are Golden Visas a Golden Opportunity for Economic Development?” LSE Business Review. 26 May.
2021. Surak, Kristin. “Who Wants to Buy a Visa?” LSE European Politics and Policy Blog. 26 May.
2020. Surak, Kristin.“How COVID-19 will transform the market in investment migration.” Globalcit. 3 June.
2018. Surak, Kristin.“No Sex, Please.” Verso Press. 11 July.
2017. Surak, Kristin.“Hoping Against Hope: Japan’s Snap Elections.” International Politics and Society. 11 October.
2016. Surak, Kristin.“Serious About Relocating From Trump’s America? Here Are Your Exit Options.” The Washington Post. 15 November 15.
2015. Surak, Kristin.“受け入れにも積極的に” [Towards a Positive Reception (of refugees)]. Dōshin. P. 8, 23 November.
2015. Surak, Kristin. “Japan’s Battle for Peace.” Jacobin. 1 October.
2014. Surak, Kristin. “Shinzo Abe’s New Mandate.” The Diplomat. 21 December.
2014. Surak, Kristin. “保守化の懸念” [Concern About Increasing Conservativism]. Dōshin. P. 6, 17 December 17.
2014. Surak, Kristin. “The New Japanese Nationalism.” Jacobin. 19 August 19.
2014. Surak, Kristin. “Abemania.” OpenDemocracy. 9 July.
Other Print Publications
2025 Surak, Kristin. “Passports for Sale.” Jacobin Magazine. Issue 59: 122-126.
2022. Surak, Kristin. “Shinzo Abe Obituary.” The Guardian. 8 July.
2021. Surak, Kristin. “International Letters.” Sidecar. 1 January.
2020. Surak, Kristin. Review of Citizenship 2.0: Dual Nationality as a Global Asset by Yossi Harpaz. American Journal of Sociology. 126(3).
2019. Surak, Kristin. “Shinzo Abe and the Rise of Japanese Nationalism.” New Statesman. May 17: 22-25.
2019. Surak, Kristin. Review of Cultivating Femininity by Elizabeth Corbett and Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan by Taka Oshikiri. American Historical Review. 124(4):1440-1442.
2018. Surak, Kristin. “Japan’s Womanomics.” Jacobin Magazine (30): 60-4.
2016. Surak, Kristin. “Global Citizenship 2.0: The Growth of Citizenship by Investment Programs.” Investment Migration Working Papers, IMC-RP 2016/3.
2016. Surak, Kristin. “Kosmopoliten: Der Handel mit Staatsbürgerschaften als globales Geschäftsmodell” [Cosmpolites: The Trade in Citizenship as a Global Business Model]. Lettre International (115): 19-22. (Extended version of “Our Citizenship is Expensive!”)
- Translated into Romanian (“Cosmopoliṭii,” Lettre Internationale, (101-102) 2017: 37-41.
2016. Surak, Kristin. “Our Citizenship is Expensive!” London Review of Books. September 22:39-40.
2016. Surak, Kristin. “Back to Baku.” Los Angeles Review of Books. 4 August.
2014. Surak, Kristin. 「お茶の専門家から文化の専門家へ―家元制度の成立」[From Tea Specialists to Culture Specialists: The Formation of the Iemoto System] Wochikochi. Magazine of the Japan Foundation.
2014. Surak, Kristin. “Culture, Nation, and the Tea Ceremony.” Center for Comparative Japanese Studies Annual (10). 133-37.
2013. Surak, Kristin. “Karaoke im Liebeshotel.” Lettre International (101): 132.
2012. Surak, Kristin. “Die Ethnizitätsindustrie.” Lettre International (97): 114-8. (Extended version of “The Business of Belonging”)
2011. Surak, Kristin. Review of Japanese Women, Class, and the Tea Ceremony: The Voices of Tea Practitioners in Northern Japan, by Kaeko Chiba. Pacific Affairs 84(3): 580-1.
2010. Surak, Kristin. “Family Reunification in Europe and East Asia.” EUI Review (4): 17-8.
2010. Surak, Kristin. Review of Diaspora Without Homeland: Being Korean in Japan, Sonia Ryang and John Lie, editors. Pacific Affairs 83(4): 797-8.
2003. Recchi, Ettore, Damian Tambini, Emiliana Baldoni, David Williams, Kristin Surak, and Adrian Favell. “Intra-EU Migration: A Socio-Demographic Overview.” PIONEUR Working Paper No. 3.