ABSTRACT
Th is paper has argued that there is a ‘business of noncitizenship’ in which private entities play key roles in the construction of noncitizenship and so of the relationships between noncitizens and States. It has raised concerns with privatisation of migration control activities in ways which relocate key powers away from States and so confl ict with the assumption of States as the proper domain of competence in the construction of noncitizenship. It suggests that such privatisation weakens justifi cation for the migration control activities themselves and gives rise to peculiar governance challenges. Aspects of noncitizenship are constructed by for-profi t non-State actors outside the scrutiny and limiting mechanisms of the market (problematic for neoliberal frameworks), compromising the protection of the rights of noncitizens (problematic for liberal frameworks), the citizenries (problematic for democratic liberal frameworks) or the international community. It not only involves non-State actors using force and making decisions on behalf of States, but challenges the State’s monopoly on offi cial noncitizenship construction.
