Conceptions of a rogue state in a comparative perspective: the United States and European Union vis-à-vis North Korea

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to understand how the conception of North Korea as a rogue state influenced the relations of Washington and Brussels with this eastern Asian country between 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001) and the outbreak of the pandemic crisis (2020). This is done by drawing on the analytical framework offered by Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle that allows one to compare the US and EU strategic narratives vis-à-vis North Korea. Besides adding a novel comparative perspective to the available studies focused on rogue states, this work concludes that although the US and the EU utilised sanctions to coerce North Korea, they exhibited different conceptions of rogueness. While the US’ system narrative characterised North Korea as a rogue, the EU’s characterisation focused on its violations of international law. Yet, the two actors’ identity and issue narratives highlighted their role and responsibility to bring the country back to the path of denuclearisation.

KEYWORDS:

• European Union
• North Korea
• rogue state
• strategic narratives
• United States of America

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This date draws upon WHO’s declaration: https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020

2 The tweets analysed range from January 2017 until June 2018. For an archive of the President’s tweets, see: https://www.thetrumparchive.com/ (last accessed January 2023).

3 The Agreed Framework (1994) was an agreement between the US and North Korea, in which both parties would work in a step-by-step manner to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program. It collapsed with the October Revelations (2002) with violations from both sides. Nevertheless, scholars argue that it was ‘to date the most successful effort to cap North Korea’s development of a nuclear capability, and the longest verified freeze on North Korea’s nuclear fuel production’ (Panda, 2020, p. 47).

4 The Six-Party Talks were multilateral discussions between China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea, and the US held from 2003 until 2009 with the purpose of negotiating the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program.

5 In the September Agreement (2005) the six actors agreed to reach the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula ‘in a phased manner in line with the principle of commitment for commitment, action for action’ (NCNK 2005). Its importance lies on what Panda argues to be the most ‘wide-ranging expression of a North Korean commitment on denuclearisation and disarmament’ (2020, 57).

6 For a more extensive list, see: https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/northkoreaprofile (last accessed January 2023).

7 According to the Country Report on Terrorism of 2019. Available at: https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea/ (last accessed March 2023).

8 After the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, in 2009, the ESDP was renamed Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

9 The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) was founded by Japan, South Korea, and the US, in 1995 in support of the Agreed Framework. Within the members and contributors, it is worth highlight the presence of the EU, Poland, and Czech Republic. It followed the same fate of the Agreed Framework, seeing its termination in 2006.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge that this study was conducted at the Research Center in Political Science at University of Minho/University of Évora and was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds under the grant number UIDB/CPO/ 00758/2020, and under the grant number UI/BD/152792/2022.

Notes on contributors

Sofia Ribeiro-Lemos

Sofia Ribeiro-Lemos is a Ph.D. student of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Minho (Portugal) and a collaborative member of Research Center in Political Science (CICP). Her Ph.D. project is financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, UI/BD/152792/2022).

Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira

Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira received her Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Kent at Canterbury (UK). She is Full Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Minho and Visiting Professor of the University of São Paulo. Laura Ferreira-Pereira is the editor of Portugal in the European Union: Assessing Twenty-Five Years of Integration Experience (Routledge, 2014) and the co-editor of The European Union's Strategic Partnerships: Global Diplomacy in a Contested World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). She has acted as the leading guest editor of Special Issues published by European Security (2012), Cambridge Review of International Affairs (2016) and Journal of Contemporary European Studies (forthcoming in 2023). She has published extensively on EU's foreign policy (CFSP/CSDP), Portuguese foreign and security policy and contemporary foreign policy of Brazil in other leading journals such as International Politics, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Integration, Cooperation and Conflict, Global Society, European Politics and Society, and Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, among others; and in several edited volumes. She is a member of the editorial boards of the journals Contemporary Politics, Global Society and Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional. She is a founding member of the European International Studies Association.