8 research outputs found
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It’s not the size, it’s the relationship: from ‘small states’ to asymmetry
Debate about the definition of “small state” has produced more fragmentation than consensus, even as the literature has demonstrated its subjects’ roles in joining international organizations propagating norms, executing creative diplomacy, influencing allies, avoiding and joining conflicts, and building peace. However, work on small states has struggled to identify commonalities in these states’ international relations, to cumulate knowledge, or to impact broader IR theory. This paper advocates a changed conceptual and definitional framework. Analysis of “small states” should pivot to examine the dynamics of the asymmetrical relationships in which these states are engaged. Instead of seeking an overall metric for size as the relevant variable—falling victim in a different way Dahl’s “lump-of-power fallacy,” we can recognize the multifaceted, variegated nature of power, whether in war or peacetime
Private Financing of the Military: A Local Political Economy Approach
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12116-012-9119-2In developing countries that are democratizing after military rule, and
undergoing liberalizing economic reforms that encourage a shrinking of the state,
what missions are the armed forces performing, who funds those missions, who
benefits from military services, and why? This article analyzes security provision
by the armed forces for paying clients—especially private companies in extractive
industries—in accordance with negotiations between clients and commanders of the
local military units that directly provide the security. The analysis identifies two paths
toward local military–client relations. First, weak state capacity may mean that
government control of military finances brought by democratization and economic
reform remains limited to the national level, promoting local military–client
exchanges. Second, amid minimal government control of military finances, even in
the capital city, demand from companies in the powerful extractive industries and
from recently endowed subnational governments can encourage local military–client
contracting
Attempting constitutional reform on the island microjurisdiction of Alderney
Research into state size and democracy has revealed that the very smallest states are more likely to be democratic than their larger counterparts. Being an island, as well as having a British colonial past, is also associated with a state’s observance of democratic measures. With these observations in mind, this article examines an unsuccessful attempt to reform the political and constitutional governance of the Channel Island of Alderney, a self-governing dependency of the British Crown. Why was political reform rejected on this island microjurisdiction? Was the post-Brexit agenda too crowded to permit reform? Did Alderney have other priorities? Might smallness itself be the explanation