Human Rights Rogues in Interstate Disputes, 1980–2001

Mary Caprioli and Peter F. Trumbore
Additional contact information
Mary Caprioli: Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Duluth
Peter F. Trumbore: Department of Political Science, Oakland University

Journal of Peace Research, 2006, vol. 43, issue 2, 131-148

Abstract: Rogue states have typically been characterized as those states that consistently violate accepted international norms of behavior. While US foreign policymakers and policy analysts have identified rogue states as those violating a narrow set of international norms of external conduct, specifically terrorism sponsorship and illicit pursuit of banned weapons, this article proposes an alternative understanding of rogue state status that harks back to earlier notions of international pariah states, isolated from the rest of international society, owing to their egregious treatment of their own citizens. Building on Galtung's concept of structural violence and feminist insights concerning the interconnectedness of violence at all levels of human society, the authors develop a rogue state index to identify human rights rogues, based on ethnic and gender discrimination and the violation of personal integrity rights. An important part of the rogue state formula developed by policymakers over the recent decades is the expectation that such states represent dangers to international peace and stability. Focusing on the recognized international human rights norms of non-discrimination and security of person, and informed by the causal mechanisms inherent in the normative explanation for the democratic peace, this article tests whether human rights rogues are more likely to become involved in militarized interstate conflicts and violent interstate conflicts. The results of the analysis show that human rights rogues are more likely to become involved in militarized interstate disputes in general, and violent interstate disputes specifically, than other states during the period 1980–2001, suggesting that policymakers must keep a close watch on serial human rights abusers, while seeking to identify future threats to international security.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/43/2/131.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:43:y:2006:i:2:p:131-148

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().