Introduction 3 This book sits within a liberal context. It uses Seyla Benhabib’s form of immanent critique3 to examine how liberalism can be truer to its own foundations, and more internally just. The focus is on liberal democracy and States built upon these principles, as well as the language that has been used within this framework to justify global rules. Other theoretical systems are not addressed. This includes those with increasing influence in global governance. Though such an analysis would be worthwhile, there is not scope to include it here. This is a book situated within the liberal discourse, critical of it, and responding to it. As it is understood here, unhyphenated noncitizenship, like citizenship, is not a characteristic that is essential to any individual, but rather emerges as an individualState relationship within liberal democratic State construction. Noncitizenship is not a problem per se for a liberal State. Far from it. Noncitizenship is essential to a liberal political position. However, when it is neglected, constructed as (hyphen ated) non-citizenship, or inappropriately activated, then it challenges the liberal democratic State structure and those State(s) built upon liberal democratic prin ciples. Noncitizenism does not undermine solidarity movements responding to one or another mode of discrimination (gender, class, race, sexuality, age, nationality, for example). Instead, it brings them together as parts of a much broader relation ship of noncitizenship. Noncitizenism engages specifically with that sphere of political reality that ref erences the State directly. It argues that just as the theoretical and real-world cre ation of a liberal State system produces the citizen-State relationship, the noncitizen-state relationship is also produced. For the most part, this relationship may be dormant, but this book explores how noncitizenship is activated, impacting on the capabilities of affected individuals, and what this means in terms of the obligations of the States concerned. In this book, then, I start with the noncitizen.4 More than a theoretical problem Reframing the parameters of debate is urgent. While monetary wealth is not all there is to well-being, it is indicative – and particularly at its extremes. At the time of writing, an estimated 10.3 per cent of the world’s population is living on less than US$1.90 per day.5 Wealth is concentrated in a small number of States. Of the 20 States with the highest by per capita GDP in 2015, most can be loosely 3 Seyla Benhabib (1986) Critique, Norm and Utopia: A Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory, Columbia university Press. 4 There are other works that have started in this way, notably Heather Johnson (2014) Borders, Asylum and Global Non-Citizenship: The Other Side of the Fence, Cambridge University Press. However, her use of the hyphenated ‘non-citizenship’ is different from my understanding of unhyphenated ‘noncitizenship’. Another work that starts in this way is Katherine Tonkiss and Tendayi Bloom (2015) ‘Theorising Noncitizenship: Concepts, Debates and Challenges’, pp. 837–852 in Citizenship Studies 19(8), which opened a volume in which alternative approaches to the noncitizenship and non-citizenship were elaborated. 5 The World Bank (2016) Taking on Poverty: Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, pp. 5, 6.