Renegade Regimes: Confronting Deviant Behavior in World Politics. By Miroslav Nincic. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. 232p. $29.50.

The term rogue states gained currency in the 1990s, and was applied by policymakers, pundits, and a few scholars to regimes worthy of moral condemnation and political-military coercion. The Clinton administration introduced the less offensive appellation “states of concern,” but the current Bush administration, not one to shy away from inflammatory rhetoric, brought “rogue states” back into use and made them a more central focus of its foreign policy. Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba head the administration's list, and the charge also has been leveled against Syria, Yugoslavia, and Libya (before its recent about-face).