In this timely and important work, Miroslav Nincic does what comparatively few other authors have done: take seriously the concept of a rogue state. This concept, which has been a centerpiece of American foreign policy since the Clinton administration, is usually either assumed as a given or dismissed out of hand, with relatively little attempt to identify whether it has any kind of analytic or empirical purchase. But given its prevalence in public debate, there is an urgent need for a serious and sustained attempt to uncover whether this notion provides a coherent guideline for formulating policy.

The first thing that Nincic does is to drop the term “rogue” in favor of “renegade regimes.” He sheds the label “rogue” in part to lose the political baggage associated with the term and uses “regime” to highlight that it is the ruling government, not the state itself, which is responsible for deviant behavior. What marks these regimes out for attention is their desire to oppose what Nincic sees as a growing consensus around global norms concerning internal and external behavior. Their deviance can be primary (the initial act) or secondary (resulting from the social or international reaction to the act of primary deviance). And this deviant behavior can be sourced in at least two different ways. The renegade regime may engage in behavior supported by a significant domestic constituency (such as Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons) or it may deliberately seek a confrontation with the international community for the purpose of altering its domestic politics in favor of a group sympathetic to the regime (such as North Korea's baiting of the United States concerning its nuclear program, which strengthens its military hardliners). Four types of behavior can turn a regime into a renegade: the support of terrorism, pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, internal repression with international consequences, and aggression.

Here Nincic provides a richer account of renegade than is available elsewhere in the existing literature. What makes a rogue is not just their regime or specific policy goal—or their knack for annoying the United States—but their method of legitimizing their behavior to external and internal constituencies. He argues that renegades are nondemocracies, but, importantly, regimes that have a “need to establish new principles of political legitimacy, a sharp discontinuity separating the new principles and those which preceded them” (69). This formulation is subtle and innovative, and explains why states that have pursued only one of the criteria listed above are not widely considered rogues. Renegade regimes, in his view, are not just security threats, but by their very existence they pose a challenge to the dominant normative order.

There are a number of significant advantages to Nincic's conceptualization. First, as he recognizes, the notion of a renegade is a soft concept that can only be approved through derived measurement (46–47). While this does not eliminate the need for ex ante conditions for determining rogues, it does mean that the theoretical framework is developing in dialogue with the cases, which allows for a subtler coding of renegade status over time. Second, his focus on the incentive structures of renegades provides a good explanation for one of the basic puzzles we have concerning rogue states: why are they so hard to coerce? The historical record is littered with accounts of great powers trying, and failing, to pressure a renegade state into a concession. His rich theory, and the discussion of military coercion and economic sanctions attached to it, provides a compelling account for why such measures will often fail to alter the incentive structures of the regimes and thus undercut the prospects of coercion. If Nincic's model is correct, more attention will have to be paid to negotiation and providing positive incentives to alter their behavior. Finally, Nincic's account also explains how punitive measures like sanctions can actually strengthen the regime's grip on power, a fact often noted but rarely explained with this level of theoretical sophistication.

Despite the numerous advantages of this fine book, it makes two theoretical assumptions that should be questioned, if not challenged outright. First, Nincic claims the challenge that renegade regimes pose has “supplanted classical power politics as the distinctive feature of international relations” (2). But the evidence for this is weaker than Nincic allows. Dealing with renegade states like Iran is an important concern for major powers like the United States, but the wrangling over issues like Iran's nuclear program is conducted over a complex geopolitical game between the United States and the EU and some of Iran's backers, such as Russia and China. The geopolitical game operates at a sub rosa level and draws less attention than the exploits of North Korea and Iran, but it also often underwrites these more noisy disputes. The evidence that classical power politics has faded in importance is perhaps overstated here; indeed, rogues are rarely the kind of friendless outliers that Nincic implies at various points in the book.

Second, Nincic claims that renegades can be defined by their status as a nondemocracy and their opposition to a global normative consensus around the need for democracy, liberal market economy, respect for human rights, and the limitation of sovereignty (4–5). But there are problems with both criteria. First, several states considered rogues or renegades (such as Iran and Cuba) have imperfect democratic institutions, which do not mark them out as being significantly distinguished from clear nonrogues (such as China and Russia). Second, there are some serious questions about the global normative consensus. What makes a rogue a rogue, in his eyes, is not their specific behavior on issues such as WMD proliferation and terrorism, but whether they stand outside (or indeed opposed to) this global normative consensus about the need for democracy, good governance, and a strict prohibition on aggression. Renegade regimes are located essentially off the continuum of values that link those involved in keeping the global normative consensus intact. Nincic points out that even those nondemocracies who opposed the Iraq War saw Saddam Hussein's behavior as abhorrent, in contrast with renegades who opposed it and did not even recognize the same basic measure of what counts as abhorrent. But states like Russia and China that are allegedly part of this value consensus have very different notions of liberal democracy and respect for human rights than Nincic implies. They may have paid lip service to Iraq's poor human rights record, but this would not have motivated them to action, nor can we tell whether their condemnation was anything more than pro forma language. Nincic might be right that there is a rhetorical consensus around these issues—as he rightly points out, almost no one is in favor of authoritarianism and the abuse of human rights—but whether this represents a genuine and persuasive normative consensus that genuinely influences state behavior remains an open question. It may be that below the surface of this alleged normative consensus is more value pluralism than is suggested here.