Small states in world politics

The story of small state survival, 1648-2016

Matthias Maass

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781526108548
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

What is the story behind the paradoxical survival of small and weak states in a world of great powers and crude power politics? And what explains the dramatic rise and fall in the number of states overtime, following no consistent trend and not showing an immediately obvious direction or pattern? The answers lie at the system-level: Small states survival is shaped by the international states system. Small state survival and proliferation is determined first and foremost by features of and dynamics created at the states system. As the states system changes and evolves the chances for small states to survive or proliferate change as well. In fact, a quantitive investigation confirms this, showing that over the course of more than 3½ centuries, the number of small states did fluctuate widely and at times dramatically.

1

Introducing small state survival as a historical phenomenon

Small states are survival artists. In a states system shaped by power politics and dominated by great powers, the survival and especially the proliferation of small states is a remarkable phenomenon. But what is the actual magnitude of this phenomenon and how can it be explained? In short, what is the ‘big story’ behind small state survival?

Understanding the survival of small states as one consistent historical phenomenon stretching over the past three-and-a-half centuries, the answers developed here are: 1) The overall picture of small state survival is uneven, with periods of general stability interrupted by major fluctuations in overall numbers. 2) Small states’ survival depends first and foremost on the key features of the states system. Larger changes in the number of small states are the result of broader changes in the states system. 3) The story of small state survival is shaped by their dependency on the states system for their security.

Understanding the story of small state survival requires a clear focus on the international states system. This study finds that different variations of the Westphalian states system had very different effects on small state survival. The most hostile environment for the small state was the late nineteenth-century concert system; the most supportive was the bipolar world of the later twentieth century. Surprisingly, the crude balance-of-power system of the eighteenth century proved fairly accommodating of small state survival. Looking to the future, a modest rise in the number of small states can be predicted.

Why study the small state’s struggle to survive?

Singapore’s founder and long-time leader Lee Kuan Yew once answered the question “can we survive?” by pointing to dynamics beyond his small state: “It depends upon world conditions. It doesn’t depend on us alone. … So, it depends on whether there is an international environment which says that borders are sacrosanct and there is the rule of law.”¹ The study proceeds along these lines and is focused on the external dynamics to which Lee alluded.

Addressing the same question of survival, but from a historical perspective, fellow Singaporean Kishore Mahbubani admitted that “history is not comforting. Many successful city-states have disappeared from the face of the earth.”² Picking up on his point, this study approaches the issue from a long-range perspective. In order to capture the larger, overall story of small state survival, the historical perspective is critical.

To tell the full story of the small state’s fate in the Westphalian states system, the focus must be on the overall picture. In light of the existence of an abundance of case studies, it became necessary to re-focus the analysis away from the “particular cause” and on to the “general,” overarching cause.³ As a result, this study is not concerned with any particular small state but with the ‘generalized’ small state and its abstracted struggles to survive. And survival is understood here narrowly as the “irreducible minimum”⁴ of statecraft and as the ultimate state interest as preached by Niccolò Machiavelli.⁵

Studies of small state survival are relevant for stateswomen and -men. As Lee and Mahbubani point out, survival remains an acute problem for the small state, especially because it depends, at least in good part, on exogenous factors. Small states cannot take their survival for granted and need to understand where the key dynamics originate.

Small states’ chances of survival are largely shaped by the states system. A better understanding of these dynamics can help shape the international environment in ways more supportive of the small state. The most obvious place to do so today would be at the United Nations (UN) and in International Law. There, the world can be made safer for the small state.

In addition to policy relevance, an investigation into small state survival has scholarly significance. Robert Keohane famously posits: “If Lilliputians can tie up Gulliver, or make him do their fighting for them, they must be studied as carefully as the giant.”⁶ It must not be assumed that small states are simply downsized versions of larger states. In fact, some see the small state as a distinct category of state,⁷ and this underlines Keohane’s demand. The present study strongly suggests that small state survival is governed by different rules from those that govern great powers.

Keohane’s general statement on relevance is flanked by the need to properly capture the phenomenon of the small state’s place in international affairs. The claim that “there are now more small states than ever”⁸ is not new,⁹ but has so far not been put to the test. This study fills that niche and rejects these claims. The number of small states in existence today is not unprecedented, and the various discourses on small state proliferation need to be adjusted.

The observation of dramatically changing numbers of one type of a unit of a system – here the termination and proliferation of small states – immediately leads to the recognition that this entails vast shifts in the composition of the system. Losing or adding significant numbers of units actually changes the system’s overall anatomy. With respect to the system of states, the mixture of states of various sizes has effects beyond simple numerical relationships, presumably because it changes the state system’s very make-up.

In fact, Hans Morgenthau pointed out that larger changes in a state system’s composition can have effects detrimental to its proper operation. The more great powers grew by absorbing small states, the fewer units were available in the system to maintain the equilibrium. The ongoing losses of small states also meant a shift in the states system, from a system with a multitude of actors of various sizes to an increasingly concentrated system of a handful of great powers and a few remaining small states. In the aggregate, the ongoing disappearance of small states changed the fundamentals of the nineteenth-century states system.

More specifically, the fragmented status of Germany in the past had been critical to the proper operation of the balance of power and the concert system. First, the particularized Germany shaped the traditional framework for Europe’s powers, which were located along the periphery, around a non-integrated center. This implied a weak Germany and two counter-balanced great powers, Prussia and Austria. The situation changed drastically with German unification in 1870–71¹⁰ and the disappearance of all remaining German small states.

Second, in the past a soft underbelly in the middle of Europe had allowed rising states to expand without challenging the territorial integrity of other major states. Additionally, a large number of units had benefitted from concert states’ efforts to fine-tune the equilibrium, making the disappearance of small states detrimental to proper balancing of power, as pointed out by Morgenthau.¹¹

The analysis of the small state’s centuries-old struggle to survive may lead to a renewed appreciation of security as an analytical concept. Studying security from the perspective of the small and weak and in varying international environments promises new insights and lines of inquiry. To begin with, for the small state, proper security can only under the rarest of circumstances be generated by accumulating or even maximizing power. In this sense, small states fall outside the Realist paradigm. Rather, much of the small state’s safety depends on the core features of the states system. Worse yet, the states system has been shaped and remains dominated by great powers, and small states have very limited capabilities to adjust it to their own needs. In sum, for the small state, maximizing power does not generate the levels of security it does for middle and great powers.

For example, being within striking distance of great and middle powers, Singapore cannot rely on its military forces only for protection, making it much more dependent on working power balances, international organizations that manage disputes, and the rule of law. Great powers may benefit from these features, but small states depend on them.¹² The historical record only underlines this insight. The Saxony of the early nineteenth century had a strong army but still lost much of its territory during the negotiations in Vienna in 1815. The reason was the particular constellation of the balance of power which did not give the small state an opening to strengthen its position. Without top-down protection from the states system, its military power proved useless.

All this points to the critical importance of reconsidering the concept of security and its application to the small state. Singapore’s Tommy Koh has pointed out that small states may sometimes “punch above their weight.”¹³ However, doing this successfully is the exception to the rule. After all is said and done, small states cannot assume they will win against heavyweights consistently.

Where to advance the study of the small state?

This study on small state survival contributes to the existing discourses in the discipline of International Relations and in Small States Studies along four pathways. First, and most obviously, the study’s statistical aspect fills two niches. Few scholars have addressed the quantitative dimension of small state proliferation. By far the best numerically informed study is that of Alan Henrikson, but his statistical data are limited to the twentieth century.¹⁴ Existing historical data sets, such as the Correlates of War project, only add the nineteenth century and do not separate out small states from larger powers.¹⁵ The quantitative aspect of the present study fills this vacuum by providing the full picture of annual small state numbers since the inception of the current states system in 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia. A second niche has been identified in overall small state scholarship. Writing in the 1960s, William T. R. Fox could still optimistically state: “More and more the survival of the small states has become the subject of systematic investigations.”¹⁶ About four decades later, Andrew Cooper and Timothy Shaw lament that “the analytic and policy attention towards these states has not matched their proliferation.”¹⁷

Second, the study of the small state suffers from incomplete integration i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introducing small state survival as a historical phenomenon
• 2 Defining and quantifying the small state
• 3 Power politics and small state survival: the classic balance of power, 1648–1814
• 4 Small state survival in a system of collective hegemony: the concert system, 1815–1918
• 5 Small state survival and proliferation in twentieth-century systems of collective security and global governance, 1919–2016
• 6 The story of small state survival: past, present, and future
• Bibliography
• Index