What is “small”?WEEK ONE

Dr. Jacqueline LAGUARDIA MARTINEZ

INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSUNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

Jacqueline.Laguardia-Martinez@sta.uwi.edu

INRL 6003 SMALL STATES IN THE GLOBAL SYSTEM

Growing global recognition about small states in the international system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNC5um1_VUE

What does it mean to be “small”?

1. What do you think characterizes small states?

2. How should we measure smallness?

3. Why study ‘small’ states?

What do you think characterizes small states?• Less economic resources (less diversity and unbalanced sources of raw materials)

• Smaller variety of agricultural products (climate uniformity)

• Less population

• High transportation costs

• Small administration (not enough staff, expertise or resources to follow all negotiations)

• More vulnerability to external shocks and pressure, specially from the great powers

• Little influence on events outside the frontiers

• Less room for choice in the decision making process at the international system

• Insufficient control of domestic security and defense

• Less military power

• Less international prestige

• From a legal point of view, all sovereign states, great or small, are equal before the law. From a political stance, however, they are far from equal

• The existence of small states, however defined, depends on and acquires meaning only in the context of the interests of large states

• Small states in strictly hierarchical international relations structure survive if they are sufficiently far from imperial centers and have geostrategic importance

• Small states in multipolar or bipolar international relations systems may perform a number of useful functions: they may serve as buffer states, barriers, outposts, geopolitical gateways, resource-rich peripheries, diplomatic mediators, etc.

• Usually described as: reactive, price-takers, follow the rules of the game, …

• Short run matters more than long term

• Subject to tighter connection between domestic and external affairs

• Inability to interact effectively with the outside world

Small State: what is it?

Small State: what is it?• The definition of small states is not universally accepted in the academic literature

and depends on the criteria selected by each scholar

• When accepted depends on the discipline: international economics , international politics, development economics: ‘ small’ in international trade or ‘small’ in international security or ‘small’ developing country or ‘small’ developed (various types)

• Different labels: small, weak, minor, mini, micro // states, powers, economies // combinations as small state, small island developing state, small sovereign state, subnational island jurisdiction, small vulnerable economy, smaller economy

• Several definitions, changes in time

• Difficult to define: perceptions (Wilton Park’s experience on February, 2014)

CONCEPTUAL FLEXIBILITY

Some consequences of the multiple definitions• The possibility of comparing the findings of multiple studies is

impaired

• When based on arbitrary definitions, the studies of small states contribute little to a broader, more general understanding of the small state phenomenon

• Complex set of criteria to be considered, but mainly there are two approaches in describing small states and, correspondingly, two groups of definitions: those based on quantitative parameters and those based on relational characteristics

Quantitative Parameters

Measurable characteristics and the capability of states

• It usually measures physical size (landmass) + other criteria of “size”: population, GDP, military resources

• The most widely used quantifiable criterion for state size is the population.

SET OF CRITERIA

• Maurice East: population, land area, size of economy and military resources

• Björn Olafsson: population, geographic size and Gross National Product (GNP)

• Karl Deutsch: GNP less than 1 per cent of the total world GNP

• Demas: Population of five million or less and a useable land area of 10,000–20,000 square miles

• Peter J. Katzenstein and David Vital: (a) population of 10 - 15 million in the case of economically advanced countries; (b) population of 20 – 30 million in the case of the underdeveloped countries

• Ken Ross: Population between one and five million. States with a population between 100,000 and one million, which he identifies as ‘ministates’; states with a population below 100,000, seen as ‘micro-states’

• B. Jalan: population below five million, arable land area below 25,000 square kilometers, and a GNP below US$2bn. Also proposed a sub classification of micro-states with a population of 400,000 or less, arable area of 2,500 square kilometers or less, and GNP below US$500m

• Philippe Hein: ‘micro-state’, defined as a state with a population of less than one million

• Charles Taylor: Statistical technique to identify a group of 74 micro-states (including states and non independent territories) in which the upper limit was a population of less than 2,928,000, a land area of less than 142,888 square kilometers and a GNP less than US$1,583m

• Economic Consequences of the Size of Nations, a study of the International Economics Association (1957): Small states as those with a population below 10 million

• In 1969, the United Nations fixed upon the figure of one million people as defining small states. In 1971 United Nations Institute for Training and Research defined small states as entities which are exceptionally small in area, population, and human and economic resources

• The Commonwealth defines small states as sovereign states with a population size of 1.5 million people or less. The Commonwealth has 32 small states among its 54 members. Also included are some larger member countries which share many of the small states’ characteristics. These are Botswana, Jamaica, Gambia, Lesotho, Namibia and Papua New Guinea

• The World Bank identifies small states as countries with a population of under 10 million and which rank above the 75th percentile globally for ‘Political Stability and the Absence of Violence’ under its World Governance Indicators

List of Commonwealth small states

Africa1. Botswana2. Gambia3. Lesotho4. Mauritius5. Namibia6. Seychelles7. Swaziland

Asia8. Brunei9. Maldives

Europe10. Cyprus11. Malta

The Pacific12. Fiji Islands13. Kiribati14. Nauru15. Papua New Guinea16. Samoa17. Solomon Islands18. Tonga19. Tuvalu20. Vanuatu

The Caribbean21. Antigua and Barbuda22. The Bahamas23. Barbados24. Belize25. Dominica26. Grenada27. Guyana28. Jamaica29. St Kitts and Nevis30. St Lucia31. St Vincent and the Grenadines32. Trinidad and Tobago

List of small states according the World Bank1. Antigua and Barbuda

2. Bahamas, The

3. Barbados

4. Belize

5. Bhutan

6. Botswana

7. Cabo Verde

8. Comoros

9. Djibouti

10.Dominica

11.Equatorial Guinea

12.Fiji

13.Gabon

14.Gambia, The

15. Grenada

16.Guinea-Bissau

17.Guyana

18.Jamaica

19.Kiribati

20.Lesotho

21.Maldives

22.Marshall Islands

23.Mauritius

24.Micronesia, Fed. Sts.

25.Montenegro

26.Namibia

27.Palau

28.Samoa

29. Sao Tome and Principe

30.Seychelles

31.Solomon Islands

32.St. Kitts and Nevis

33.St. Lucia

34.St. Vincent and the Grenadines

35.Suriname

36.Swaziland

37.Timor-Leste

38.Tonga

39.Trinidad and Tobago

40.Tuvalu

41.Vanuatu

List of UN small island developing states (SIDS)AIMS (Atlantic, Indian Ocean and South China Sea)

1. Cape Verde2. Comoros3. Guinea-Bissau4. Maldives5. Mauritius6. São Tomé and Principe7. Seychelles8. Singapore

Pacific Region

9. Cook Islands

10. Fiji

11. Kiribati

12. Marshall Islands

13. Micronesia, Federated States of

14. Nauru

15. Niue

16. Palau

17. Papua New Guinea

18. Samoa

19. Solomon Islands

20. Timor-Leste

21. Tonga

22. Tuvalu

23. Vanuatu

Caribbean Region

24. Antigua and Barbuda

25. Bahamas

26. Barbados

27. Belize

28. Cuba

29. Dominica

30. Dominican Republic

31. Grenada

32. Guyana

33. Haiti

34. Jamaica

35. Saint Kitts and Nevis

36. Saint Lucia

37. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

38. Suriname

39. Trinidad and Tobago

Within the general category of population size, enormous diversity exists

• Luxembourg and Bermuda: high per capita incomes

• Guinea-Bissau: Very low per capita income

• Tonga: Kingdom

• Guyana, Mauritius: Republics

• Malta, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Samoa: Ethnically homogeneous

• Cyprus, Fiji, Mauritius, Singapore: Multi-racial societies

• Grenada: Revolution

• Cyprus: Invasion

• Fiji, Lesotho, Seychelles: Military coups

•Advantage: The use of quantifiable data and the focus on clearly visible features

•Disadvantage: It does not capture sufficiently the complexity of small state size in international relations

Relational Characteristics

Qualitative definitions are based on relational criteria• Results of mutual relations between states, as well as ideational factors (identity,

etc.)

• The first approach is to simply define the small state in contrast to other, larger states. Essentially, small states are defined as those states that are not large states

• States are divided into two camps, one consisting of larger states that can impose their will on others, and a second group made up of states that cannot

• Use categories as “strength” and “power”, sometimes overlapped

• A second approach looks at the behavior of small states as a group. At its core is the argument that small states exhibit unique behavior in international relations, allowing them to be identified as a distinct category of states

• Small states are defined by their specific type of behavior. Put differently, state size corresponds to certain, group-specific behavior patterns

• Iver Neumann: Small states were all those states that were not Great Powers and that were not consistently insisting on being referred to as Middle Powers like Australia, Canada, South Africa, etc.

• Hans J. Morgenthau: A Great Power is a state which is able to have its will against a small state which in turn is not able to have its will against a Great Power

• Francis Fukuyama: Beyond territorial size, a small or smaller state often refers to a state with little or less government involvement in society or the national economy

• Robert O. Keohane: A small state is one whose leaders consider that it can never, either acting alone or in a small group, make a significant impact on the globe

• Michael Handel: A small state is a state which is unable to contend in war with the great powers on anything like the equal terms. Small states are by no means an impotent, helpless victim of the system. By contrast some of them are quick to take advantage of the opportunities arising from the nature of any given international system

• Maurice East: Differentiates the group of small states into developed and under-developed ones in order to find a match between different behavior patterns

• Evans and Newnham: Limited involvement in international affairs, favor international governmental organizations, are strong advocates of International Law, shy away from the use of military force and in general have limited, mostly regional, foreign policy priorities

• Fox: Small states as international actors lack the power to successfully apply power or resist the effective application of power on them by other states , unable to pursue an agenda vis-à-vis other states – because they lack the power to do so – and are therefore left to concern themselves with their own survival. Also considers the notion of a range of interests, arguing that small states have, by-and-large at least, only a local (that is regional) area of interest

• Rothstein: According to the capacity to achieve intended effects. A Small Power is a state which recognizes that it cannot obtain security primarily by use of its own capabilities, and that it must rely fundamentally on the aid of other states, institutions, processes, or developments to do so

Behavior: small states as survivors• The extension of the argument that small states are weak, powerless

states into the area of security adds a foreign policy dimension to the categorization, claiming that small states, by definition, must exhibit a particular foreign policy behavior: an exclusive focus on survival

• This approach then allows states to be divided into those that have enough power to concern themselves with issues other than their own survival and those states – the small states – that lack that dimension

• A small state is usually guarded by a guardian neighbor, and in most of the cases it is its ancestor or metropolitan power from whom it succeeded self determination and independence

AUTO-CATEGORIZATION• The selection of states as small or large on the basis of their own perception

has been suggested

• Cognitivist analyses highlight how defining small states is as much about (self-) perception as absolute or relative definitions

• Smallness is more than a material reality

• States may in fact ‘choose’ to define themselves as small precisely as a strategy of gaining more influence over their environment. Smallness as a resource (small states are often presented as more peaceful and altruistic than larger powers)

• Possibility to re-articulate smallness in terms of defiance rather than constraint or in terms of what small states will not, as opposed to what small states cannot, do

• Keohane: a Small power is a state whose leaders consider that it can never, acting alone or in a small group, make a significant impact on the system

• A great power is a state whose leaders consider that it can alone exercise a large, perhaps decisive, impact on the international system; a secondary power is a state whose leaders consider that it can exercise some impact, although never in itself decisive, on that system; a middle power is a state whose leaders consider that it cannot act alone effectively but may be able to have a systematic impact in a small group or through an international institution; a small power is a state whose leaders consider that it can never, acting alone or in a small group, make a significant impact on the system.

• Nina Græger, Henrik Larsen and Hanna Ojanen: Small states are often seen to have more international credibility, being understood as having fewer hidden agendas and less ambitious national interests than more powerful states

Quantitative Parameters+

Relational Characteristics

• Galtung: Ranking based on aggregate variables explaining more the nature and ratio of interactions between states than other criteria like structure of government or executive, societal and political organizations or instrumental attitudes etc.; a state will be considered small when it is nominal in size (i.e. territory, population, wealth and economy, military capability) and coming up (developing as a state) in a compressed form

• Barston: Suggested four approaches (1) setting an upper limit on, for example, the population size; (2) measuring objective elements; (3) analyzing relative influence, and (4) identifying characteristics and formulating hypotheses on what differentiates small states from others

Micro states• Commonly defined by having a population under one million

• Benefits expected: homogeneity, lower proneness to conflicts, higher loyalty to the authorities and symmetric interrelations between the elite and citizens due to the shorter distance between power and society, easier for the citizens to develop common interests

• Apparently, microstates create ideal conditions for establishing direct democracy exactly due to their size

Some IR perspectives: Realism

• The measure of smallness is power, defined as a state’s ability to influence outcomes. The units of power are understood as materially measurable, whether in terms of numbers of guns, planes, soldiers or size of GDP

• By defining small states as those with a relatively small amount of power, ‘small’ become synonymous with ‘weak’. Consequently, the freedom of action of small states is usually presented as dependent on the benevolence of larger powers, the relationships between them, or the nature of the balance of power whilst being small is considered to entail a security problem and survival strategies

Some implications for Foreign Policy• The smaller the state, the less viable it is a genuinely independent

member of the international community

• The diplomatic arte of the weak state is to obtain, commit and manipulate as far as possible, the power of other, more powerful states

• To offset the weakness, association or alliances with other powers are sought. A price is normally paid in terms of sacrifice autonomy in the control of national resources and loss of political maneuver and choice

•May provide a moral balance of power in the international system

Some IR perspectives: Liberalism• Questions of smallness and greatness are often issue specific: a small state in

one sphere may be a great power possessing considerable influence in a different context. Examples include Switzerland (global finance) and Saudi Arabia (oil)

• Analyses have focused on such things as opportunities provided by the (changing) structure of the international system, a state’s particular geopolitical location, its resources or reputation, the actual state of the international system, and states’ abilities to utilize international norms to their own benefit (how the Nordic states have acted as ‘norm entrepreneurs’, trying to gain support for particular standards of appropriateness at the international level to mold the international environment to their concerns)

Economic characteristics

Economic characteristics

• Limited domestic opportunities leading to openness and susceptibility to adverse developments elsewhere;

• a narrow resource base leading to specialization in a few products with associated export concentration and dependence on a few markets;

• shortage of certain skills and high per capita costs in providing government services;

• greater vulnerability to natural disasters; and

• greater reliance on overseas aid and various preferential agreements

Some implications• Since their products are less diversified, the small states have little chance to achieve

autarky

• Large dependence on foreign trade

• Tendency of conducting foreign trade with fewer trading partners

• Much higher ratio of exports (and imports) in relation to their GDP

• Diseconomies of scale: disadvantaged with respect to large-scale industries based on mass-production techniques (no aircraft industry, integrated automobile industry or a large- scale chemical industry)

• The development of mass-production techniques linked to an export-orientated vocation, and hence more dependent on foreign markets

• Little to invest (absolute terms) in research and develop of new industrial products

• Price-takers (small volume of exports and imports)

• Success depend on the nature of the products and the markets in which they are sold

Factors to be examined• Landmass• Natural resources dotation• Population: quantity, demographic structure, cohesion• Economic development• Social development• Public system and government • Internal support given to the government • Geographical proximity to areas of conflict• Global and regional context• International system

Changing condition!!!

Some questions to think about:

• How do small states survive in today’s world?

• Do small states differ also in other respects? If so, how?

•What are the benefits and costs of being small?

•What are the challenges for future?

• Can small states develop and be “richer”?

• Are small states different within? Are small islands different from continental small states?

• Is smallness an everlasting condition?

Small states through History

In the XIX century, small states were all those that were not great powers

In the XX century, small states are those who were not great powers nor middle powers. The number of small states keep raising.

The Habsburg Empire

French conquests and territories over the centuries

All areas of the world that were ever part of the British Empire

The fourteen British Overseas Territories

Dissolution of the USSR in 1991

New European small states?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4T1Imkso6s

In the studies of International Relations

• The study of the small states has been sorely neglected

• International politics focused on war and diplomacy between the great powers (later superpowers) to the relative exclusion of small powers

•Usually to think in terms of small, middle and great powers (small, again, as a residual category)

• Recently: Evolution from study anomalies and residual activities in the international system of states to engage important issues

Small states in IR in the XX century

Some attempts in 1950s/1960s to theorize ‘small’• Small states seen as such in relation to ‘Great Powers’• Problems of state-centric, realism

‘Lilliputians’ Dilemmas’ (Keohane 1969)• Liberal institutionalists account of small-state action in regimes

Domestic politics → Global Political Economy (Katzenstein 1985)• Perceptions of vulnerability

New trends• Small states study as part of the non-hegemonic study of International

Relations (smaller states make up the overwhelming majority of states in the international system)

• To study Economic interests and Vulnerabilities of small states over their International political or Security concerns; Capabilities; Institutions and Relations

• Two basic methodological approaches: (i) “Horizontal section” that attempts to develop general theories for the position and conduct of small states in the international system and; (ii) “Vertical section” an in-depth study of the foreign policy of one (or a few) small state(s)

Why it is important to study small states?

The global political economy is becoming increasingly interdependent. No state, no economy-large or small can survive in isolation in the escalating process of globalization

The mere qualification under a particular definition may qualify or disqualify a state, for example, for foreign aid, access to developed world markets, or the like, on which some small states are dependent for their survival

In today’s globalized world

The importance of studying small states• Most of the world’s nations are small states (decolonization movements after WWII)• The Caribbean countries certainly are small states• In the past decades the large industrial states have moved uneasily toward the conditions of

economic openness and vulnerability, characteristic of small states (GLOBALIZATION) • To learn how to make a better use of capabilities and limited resources and institutions, and

leadership• Its diversity provides a wide range of successful histories of survival, adaptation and success in

the international political system and the global economy• Its experience can be also useful to larger but vulnerable states • Small states may posses issue-specific power (Switzerland in financial services or Saudi Arabia

in the oil sector)• To better understand regional integration process and how convenient is to participate in• To support the creation of a new category for small states that would give them ‘special and

differential treatment’ analogous to that given to the least-developed countries• By taking small states into account, IR would profit empirically by gaining new data• But the field still is Euro-centric (developed small states)

Debate on Smallness Group

1. Is a definition of “small state” possible?

2. What alternative concepts might we use?

4. What is the best way of comprehending ‘smallness’?

5. What should we measure?

6. What is good on being small?

7. Are small states successful?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M68TfgP36po

What is good on being small?1. Homogeneous population: social cohesion is good for growth

2. Small population: everyone knows practically everything about everybody else

3. Openness to trade and investment: being small and closed is not an option

4. Being smaller, being forced to working with limited budgets, they are used to improvise and trained to think flexibly

How to offset the “weakness”?: some ideas • Improving economic strength by:

• Diversifying domestic production

• Exporting a larger variety of products

• Enlarging trade partners

• Directing trade to smaller trading partners, avoiding to conduct trade with only one state, especially not with a great power

• Specializing exports, one of a kind: Switzerland and its watches, precision instruments and machinery industries

• Improving trade coordination, allocating quotas, regulating production and taking advantage on the growing demand for both food and raw materials (stop being “price takers”)

• By association or alliance with other powers

• By taking advantage of the competition between great powers, ready to offer economic support in the face of rivalry from another great power (small states usually maneuver easily and change trade partners quickly)

• By adopting informal working methods, being flexible in handling maters and giving its official considerable scope for maneuver in sectors which are not regarded as major important domestically

• By preparing for economic warfare as much as for military conflict

How to offset the “weakness”?: some ideas

How to asses the viability of being “small”?

When the state is ALONE –not necessarily in all affairs, but at least in the great and crucial ones- and is thrown back on its own resources that the limitations and possibilities are best seen (David Vital)

Need to look for an alternative reading of small states

•Especially as it relates to developing and less-developed countries (LDCs)

•Especially when related to Small Island Developing States (SIDS)

Debate on Two Smallness Group

How useful is smallness as a concept?

YES NO

YES NO

Is the small discussion only relevant at the international level?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXtzDthEwpk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjoG94ijEWY

Bibliography1. David Vital, “The Inequality of States: A Study of the Small Powers in International Relations”, Small

States in International Relations, (ed. Christine Ingebritsen), University of Washington Press, 2006, pp. 77-88

2. Michael Handel, “Weak states in the international system”, Small States in International Relations, (ed. Christine Ingebritsen), University of Washington Press, 2006, pp. 149-192

3. Peter J. Katzenstein, “Small states in world markets”, Small States in International Relations, (ed. Christine Ingebritsen), University of Washington Press, 2006, pp. 193-217

4. Paul Sutton, “The Concept of Small States in the International Political Economy”, The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs Publication, 12 Apr 2011.

5. Matthias Maass, “The elusive definition of the small state”, International Politics Vol. 46

6. Donna Lee and Nicola J Smith, “Small State Discourses in the International Political Economy”

7. Md. Fazle Rabby, “Small states in international relations: rearranging the puzzle of defining the ‘Small State’”

8. William Easterly and Aart Kraay, Small States, Small Problems?, The World Bank