The changing landscape of international relations after the end of the Cold War has produced new conceptualizations of states perceived as a threat by the United States, the remaining and only superpower, to both its national security and the world order. The most common of these conceptualizations is the term of "rogue state", which was adopted in the official security lexicon of the Clinton administration in the 1990s. With the prospects of "humanitarian intervention" becoming a leading issue in Washington's international agenda, the concept of "failed state" was installed in the political and academic debate. Both terms could be seen as instrumental for the increasing American new interventionism. Yet, a third potential threat to international stability is completely ignored by U.S. - or any other state - foreign policy makers: the "courtesan state", which, broadly, is one of the results of the process of globalization and the transformation of state power. More precisely, the courtesan state is an analytical concept useful to frame certain states' links with the global illicit economy. This essay argues that the concept is crucial to understand a fundamental aspect of the power struggle that characterizes inter-state relations in the post-Cold War, and analyzes the courtesan state through its double link with other legitimate state actors, mainly the global superpower, in international politics, and, simultaneously, with non-state global actors of the illicit economy.
Courtesan State; Weak State; Sovereignty; United States