Description
Scholars have often understood non-compliance against established international norms by deviant actors in terms of agentic commitments, contestation practices, and stigmatized identities. However, there have not been adequate studies in characterizing non-compliance as normatively overlooked due to a state’s perceived identity, “low” international status, and unresolved domestic tensions. This form of non-compliance runs rather contrary to great power politics that try to bend international norms as well as rally massive diplomatic support in local, regional, and international institutions. This paper hence asks: How do we understand non-compliance by small states that are often ignored by the prevailing normative consensus in the international system? In answering this question, the paper develops the characterization of “forgotten non-compliance” and argues that this remains key in examining intersections of state agency with existing international and regional structures of governance. To do so, the paper uses the empirical case of South Sudan in studying how Juba has attracted little or no attention by being a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while simultaneously remaining under the ambit of The African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. Through its theoretical and empirical underpinnings, this paper contributes to the scholarship on (nuclear) deviance, stigma, state identities, and small state politics.
