Stigmatization or Victimization? The Iran–US Nuclear Relationship from 2015 to 2021

Abstract In studying international state behavior and interactions, scholars have increasingly focused on developing a dichotomy of good versus bad international citizens as based on adherence to international norms and conventions. Within this distinction, there have not been adequate studies that examine the underlying problems associated with good/normal states and bad/deviant states coming to share a common and meaningful understanding of international order. In nuclear politics, this gap segways into normal states having a recurring problem of not being able to socialize deviant states in nuclear governance, and consequently make the latter forego thinking about acquiring nuclear weapons capability. In examining both these gaps, this paper asks: How do deviant states come to perceive themselves as being victimized in the international system through their interactions with the normals? In answering this question, this paper develops two main arguments. Firstly, norm-abiding states use an outsider perspective of stigma culture in making deviant states move toward more corrective forms of behavior. Secondly, rather than resorting to social compliance, endogenous notions of agency may lead the deviant in projecting itself as being a victim and having lost out in this international system that is perceived as unfair. Employing the empirical case of Iran and the United States in nuclear politics from 2015 to 2021, the paper contributes to the scholarship on the fluidity of state interactions, identities, behaviors of contestation, and nuclear governance.