Pariahs, Outcasts and Rogues: the Limitations of Popular Labels

Abstract

Like all human societies, the community of states has always had its nonconformists. By challenging commonly accepted standards of behaviour, these countries placed themselves at odds with others (supposedly) playing by the rules. Being ostracized from the society of respectable or rule-abiding states was often the penalty for dissident behaviour. Because outcast status has been the exception rather than the rule in international politics, scholars in this discipline have on the whole not thought that aberrant state conduct merited systematic, comparative inquiry. The major exceptions to this neglect were cases where a challenge to the prevailing international order caused a full-scale interstate war. Napoleonic France, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany all broke the rules that underpinned the international status quo – and earned themselves the wrath of others.