Transgressing Decorum: Norm Violations and North Korean Self-Identity

"Mentally deranged dotard." "Old war maniac." "Senile old woman." Most states in the liberal international order (LIO) tend to comply with a basic "norm of decorum" when communicating with one another. But in the past decade, North Korea has displayed a disturbing penchant for launching inflammatory rhetoric and, most recently, even trash balloons against its enemies. Seeking to elucidate the norm of decorum, and how and why states like North Korea transgress it, this thesis offers two main arguments inspired by Pyongyang's unprecedented behavior. First, I offer a novel contribution to international relations (IR) literature by defining the norm of decorum as a global standard of civility appearing in verbal, nonverbal, public, and private contexts. Second, I conduct discourse analysis on North Korean press releases to argue that Pyongyang verbally and nonverbally transgresses the norm of decorum. Grounded on the premise that self-identity drives norm transgressions, I contend that North Korea does so in order to express and redefine their outsider self-identity in the LIO. Ultimately, this thesis contributes to IR research by further illuminating the complex relationship between norm transgressions and state self-identity, the erratic thought world of North Korea, and the previously unarticulated contours of the norm of decorum.