| This dissertation problematizes the foreign policy paradigm in which certain states are labeled as 'rogue' or 'outlier' regimes and as a consequence subjected to forms of exclusion and discipline. My analysis focuses on the case of Iran and its relations with the US in the post-Cold War era. I argue through this case study that an overlooked aspect of the rogue state concept and hegemon-rogue relations pertains less to how rogue states behave, which has been the focus of the existing literature on this subject, and more to what they mean to those who name them as such. I trace the historical emergence of the term as well as its performative contradictions in an effort to denaturalize the rogue concept and uncover the strategic interests involved in its deployment. The rogue figure stands simultaneously as a radical threat, subject to isolation and targeting, and at the same time exists as an objective manifestation of the 'wrong' values / 'wrong' ways of being, which functions to reaffirm the normative order and legitimacy of the hegemon. The naming of rogues, I argue, functions as an exclusionary boundary and reaffirms the neo-imperialist desire to define the encounter with others. |
