Citizenship as a Contested Global Caste Order: How Political Rhetoric Creates Symbolic Boundaries in World-System.

This study examines how political rhetoric can reproduce and contest global citizenship hierarchies. We draw on Ana Velitchkova's framework of the global citizenship order as a caste-like system and Immanuel Wallerstein's world-systems theory to analyze the symbolic language world leaders, particularly from the United States, use to rank nations and reinforce global inequalities among citizens of different nations. Based on qualitative discourse analysis of speeches, press statements, and diplomatic exchanges during the first year of the second Trump administration, the study reveals three recurring rhetorical processes: paternalistic interventionist framing, where the U.S. casts itself as a benevolent guardian superior to lower status states; hierarchical devaluation, where nations, especially in the global periphery and their citizens are symbolically stigmatized as inferior; and discursive contestation, where people in targeted countries reclaim sovereignty and dignity. The findings show that speech acts serve as instruments of symbolic boundary-making, shaping who is deemed a "first-class" versus "second-class" global citizen. Nonetheless, the responses of people in less powerful nations challenge the legitimacy of these hierarchies and expose the contestability of symbolic power. This study demonstrates how the political language of world leaders can reflect and shape the caste-like stratification of the global citizenship order. The study offers insight into how symbolic boundaries are drawn, enforced, and resisted in the evolving world-system.