Examining the Concept of the Pernicious State in International Relations

The concepts used in international relations often obscure the violence and impunity of the most powerful. New concepts are proposed to expose the harm inflicted beyond their borders. Senior Research Fellow at The Global Institute for Strategic Research (GISR), Hamad Bin Khalifa University, discusses the implications of terminology in international relations. Injustice extends not only to people and states but also to words and concepts. This is particularly evident in international relations, where power often prevails over wisdom and prudence. Those who control money, trade, technology, and resources also seek to control the concepts through which the world is understood. Naming and framing can define enemies, discredit dissenters, create pretexts for war and aggression, enhance one’s own image, and advance political interests. In short, concepts manufacture the image of reality. The vast US machinery of concept production has generated an array of loaded and unjust terms that American power has imposed on the world. There is a significant difference between the ability of powerful states to produce and circulate such concepts and the capacity of weaker states to do the same. To address this imbalance, a new category is proposed: the pernicious state. Every state can cause harm, but when a state’s historical structure is built around causing harm, perniciousness becomes a sustained way of life. Pernicious states are often large and imperial, with influence extending globally. International relations have historically been chaotic, violent, and power-driven. Human history is marked by invasions, mass casualties, and conflicts waged by powerful states far from the sites of destruction. More insidious than physical violence are the concepts engineered by the powerful to sanitize and legitimize their conduct while incriminating victims. A Western-centric political and academic lexicon has produced categories used to classify and stigmatize states, with terms like 'rogue state' embedded in US foreign policy discourse. These Western-minted terms are both theoretically flawed and politically aggressive. The current environment is characterized as 'post-fact,' where truth is subordinated to narrative noise, aiming not to reflect reality but to secure global dominance. This effort is fueled by right-wing think tanks producing loaded vocabulary for geopolitical supremacy. By framing weaker states as existential threats, these concepts obscure the structural violence of superpowers that may appear orderly at home while causing havoc abroad. If existing categories focus scrutiny on weaker states while overlooking the harms caused by powerful ones, a different analytical concept is needed: the pernicious state. A pernicious state does not merely violate global order rules; it rewrites them to institutionalize its own impunity. Perniciousness scales with capability; the greater the power, the greater the capacity for harm. Pernicious power operates through economic, cultural, legal, and military mechanisms that drain foreign societies while deflecting accountability. Economically, pernicious states treat the global market as an engine of extraction, using asymmetrical trade agreements and predatory lending to paralyze developing economies. Culturally, they deploy narratives that cast interventions in noble terms while marginalizing local cultures. Legally, they advocate for a 'rules-based international order' while exploiting loopholes to shield themselves from accountability. When soft power reaches its limits, pernicious states may resort to covert actions, funding insurgencies, or imposing sanctions that restrict access to essential goods. This operational blueprint is not new; contemporary superpowers, particularly the US, represent modern extensions of classical European imperialism. The US exerts immense pressure on foreign economies through its dominance of international banking networks and unilateral sanctions. The concept of the pernicious state aims to address an imbalance in international relations discourse, particularly in assessing foreign policies of global superpowers. States should be judged by the material consequences of their foreign policy for human lives beyond their borders. The same logic of harm is evident in the actions of powerful states, which can undermine regional stability and act with impunity. If concepts are instruments of power, we should examine not only the labels imposed on weaker states but also the structures of harm created by the powerful. The question is not only which states violate the international order but also which states shape that order and evade its restraints. The concept of the pernicious state seeks to prompt this critical examination.