Noncitizenism 15 position may at first seem to be at odds with standard liberal frameworks that do not acknowledge noncitizenship. But once noncitizenship is recognised as fundamental to those frameworks and noncitizen-vulnerability addressed, the challenge irregular migrants pose becomes less threatening. The latent citizen and/or noncitizen-vulnerability and challenge that individuals experience may well be little noticed. For the most part, this is a good thing. According to most liberal interpretations, it means that, with regard to that person, the State is making good use of the concentration of power and regulation of resources entrusted to it, while also mitigating appropriately for individuals’ surrender of power. However, a system that serves some individuals well may be experienced very differently by others. This means that in order to develop a theoretical framework it is necessary to seek out noncitizen activation and its implications for individuals, including those who are far from the State in question. Noncitizenship, like citizenship, is for the most part a dormant status, ready to be felt when it conflicts with an individual’s aims or impairs her/is capabilities. This book shows not so much how the noncitizen status is constructed, but how it is activated, and how two important aspects of this activation – vulnerability and challenge – can help us to understand the relationship of noncitizenship and its associated claims on States built upon liberal principles. Individuals can be in both citizen and noncitizen relationships simultaneously with a particular State. But is it possible for a person to be in neither a citizen nor a noncitizen relationship with any State at all? This is theoretically possible. However, the world is in fact almost entirely composed of States which hold substantial control over their territories (excepting the High Seas, for example). It is conceivable that a person could be in no relationship with any liberal State – and liberal States are the focus here. However, as has been demonstrated by scholars like Charles Beitz, the world today is substantially interrelated so that for the most part this is unlikely. Either way, this does not make a big difference to the position presented here. It is enough to note that, in the world as it is, a person is, for the most part, forced to relate in some way to some collection of States, including liberal States. And s/he must in fact relate through some combination of citizenship and noncitizenship. Where one of these is made invisible or impossible, the other is likely to become predominant. Where neither can be recognised, this puts the individual in a difficult position. Located liberalism and universalism In his 2000 book, Philosophies of Exclusion, Phillip Cole not only warns that noncitizens are absent from liberal theorising, he also suggests that perhaps they can never be included.19 For Cole, liberal political philosophy seems to build an 19 Phillip Cole (2000) Philosophies of Exclusion, University of Edinburgh Press.