Abstract
This compact volume, edited by two distinguished political scientists (Michael Keating, University of Aberdeen, and Harald Baldersheim, Oslo University), compares how a number of developed, industrial ‘small states’ (which are defined functionally rather than just by size) cope with a broad variety of different domestic and international challenges.
In addition to the introduction and conclusion, there are 11 diverse chapters. Some are narrow case studies (such as oil-rich Norway’s attempts to maintain fiscal discipline or an analysis of the Scottish government’s pitch to construct a state based on the ‘Nordic model’), while others are broader comparative chapters that, for example, analyse how the Baltic states exert influence on the European Parliament or seek to explain how small states seek security. This is both the greatest strength and the only (albeit slight) weakness of the volume. Diversity is an asset in the sense that a large number of different themes and states (or sub-states such as Quebec and Scotland) are covered in such a short volume and the reader gains a truly valuable overview of small states’ strategies in a number of different policy areas and settings. However, this also means that some broader, crucial issues – such as the challenges of security for small states – receive just as much coverage as seemingly more minor topics like the interaction between the European Union delegation and member states’ delegations in Kiev, Ukraine.
I draw three interesting conclusions from the volume. First, small states can use a great deal of diverse strategies in meeting different challenges. For example, Alyson J.K. Bailes shows how the five Nordic states have adopted different security strategies in meeting similar security needs (although she does point out that Russia’s military actions in Ukraine in 2014 have rattled many of the established assumptions). Second, being ‘small’ does lead to inevitable structural disadvantages, as with the challenge of influencing policy-making in the European institutions elegantly illustrated by Diana Panke. However, and this is the third conclusion, smallness can also lead to inadvertent benefits. Allan Sikk and Licia Cianetti point out that MEPs from the Baltic states are few in number and that this restricts their ability to cover committees. However, this is compensated by the high status and extensive domestic political experience of MEPs which is largely a result of the small pool of potential MEPs in those small states.