Stigma and challenge: Positioning of rogue states in the post-Cold War American order

As the U.S.' self-claimed role of order-making following the Cold War has been gradually undermined since the invasion of Iraq, investigating the agency of actors challenging U.S. authority and the Western-liberal normative order has gained importance. This study aims to investigate how Iran, Libya, and Syria were stigmatized by the U.S. through labels such as "rogue state" to determine the boundaries of the normative order of the post-Cold War World, and the strategies adopted by these actors to counter the stigma. To this end, it seeks answers to the following questions: In what historical context did the anti-imperialist and anti-American state identities that shaped the objections of Iran, Libya, and Syria to the normative order emerge? How did the U.S. stigmatize Iran, Libya, and Syria in order to draw the normative outlines of the new world order after the Cold War? How did Iran, Libya, and Syria manage this stigma? What were the costs and benefits of Iran's, Libya's, and Syria's stigma management strategies? To answer these questions, the study examines the global system as a stratified, hierarchical social sphere, using the analytical frameworks of Erving Goffman's stigma concept adapted to the discipline of international political sociology and drawing on a theoretical perspective at the intersection of historical sociology, symbolic interactionism, and constructivism. Applying comparative case analysis and process tracking methods, the study interprets causality mechanisms to establish a new narrative, and examines how deviant identities are constructed in selected cases. The study contributes to the stigma theory by developing an analytical framework to overcome the norm-interest dichotomy. Research findings reveal the direct and indirect effects of the agencies of Iran, Libya and Syria on the rise of China and Russia, and the dimensions that affect the recent crisis of the Western-liberal normative order.