Stigma Management in International Relations: Transgressive Identities, Norms, and Order in International Society

Abstract This article develops a theoretical approach to stigma in international relations and resituates conventional approaches to the study of norms and international order. Correcting the general understanding that common values and norms are the building blocks of social order, this article claims that international society is in part constructed through the stigmatization of “transgressive” and norm-violating states and their ways of coping with stigma. Drawing on Erving Goffman, this article shows that states are not passive objects of socialization, but active agents. Stigmatized states cope strategically with their stigma and may, in some cases, challenge and even transform a dominant moral discourse.…

• PU
  Princeton University
• HU
  Harvard University
• UO
  University of Oxford
• EC
  European Commission