When Defiance Turns into Violence: Status, Roles, and Killing thy Enemy

Abstract

How, when, and why do governments use lethal violence against dissenting citizens residing outside of their jurisdiction? Beyond state-led forms of forceful repression of citizens, an increasing number of autocratic governments have targeted and killed a growing number of individuals outside their territories, using highly symbolic means, such as nerve agent poisonings, public hangings, and airplane high-jackings. Despite a growing interest in targeted killings in general and (trans-)national repression in particular, the field of International Relations still lacks a theoretical explanation for these state ordered politically directed murders beyond borders. Bringing together recent advances in state and role theory as well as studies of norm transformation on targeted killing, I propose a comparative approach that interprets state-ordered public killings as acts of defiance to restore dominant status roles of autocratic governments vis-à-vis critical citizens and a liberal international society. I illustrate my argument through two cases, Russia and North Korea, identifying two variants of defiant political murder, preemptive (Russian) and emancipatory (North Korea).