Rogue Specters: Cuba and North Korea at the Limits of US Hegemony

Abstract

The United States continues to label North Korea and Cuba “rogue states” of unique international distinction even though their economic, political, and military power has declined steadily since 1990. The authors argue that persistence of the label and accompanying US behavior is best understood by expanding upon a Schmittian frame of analysis to demonstrate that the designation of rogue state determines the normative weight given to certain behaviors, rather than the other way around. Examining the distinctive mode of politics practiced by North Korea and Cuba shows that they do pose threats to the United States, but not in the ways traditionally recognized by liberal states. Rather, through the anomalous role they play in the US-led system, their relentlessly polemical political discourse, and their excitable speech and ideological unmasking, they highlight the primacy of the political dimension determining their relationship with the United States and the contradictions underlying the universalism of US hegemony.