Theoretically innovative and empirically expansive, A Small State's Guide to Influence in World Politics sets out to become the new authority for the study of small states in International Relations (IR). The book's explanatory approach allows for a comparison of small states' situations and relationships across a global selection of some twenty cases in issues of international security, economy, and institutions. In doing so, it shows how IR's longstandingneglect of small states is a missed opportunity--not just for understanding small states but for developing better theories of IR.

A complete guide for how small states can be strikingly successful and influential--if they assess their situations and adapt their strategies. Small states are crucial actors in world politics. Yet, they have been relegated to a second tier of International Relations scholarship. In A Small State's Guide to Influence in World Politics, Tom Long shows how small states can identify opportunities and shape effective strategies to achieve their foreign policy goals. To do so, Long puts small states' relationships at the center of his approach. Although small states are defined by their position as materially weaker actors vis-a-vis large states, Long argues that this condition does not condemn them to impotence or irrelevance. Drawing on typological theory, Long builds an explanation of when and how small states might achieve their goals. The book assesses a global range of cases-both successes and failures-and offers a set of tools for scholars and policymakers to understand how varying international conditions shape small states' opportunities for influence.

Joseph Nye coined the term "soft power" in the late 1980s. It is now used frequently—and often incorrectly—by political leaders, editorial writers, and academics around the world. So what is soft power? Soft power lies in the ability to attract and persuade. Whereas hard power—the ability to coerce—grows out of a country's military or economic might, soft power arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies. Hard power remains crucial in a world of states trying to guard their independence and of non-state groups willing to turn to violence. It forms the core of the Bush administration's new national security strategy. But according to Nye, the neo-conservatives who advise the president are making a major miscalculation: They focus too heavily on using America's military power to force other nations to do our will, and they pay too little heed to our soft power. It is soft power that will help prevent terrorists from recruiting supporters from among the moderate majority. And it is soft power that will help us deal with critical global issues that require multilateral cooperation among states. That is why it is so essential that America better understands and applies our soft power. This book is our guide.

Using multinational sources, the book explores how Latin American leaders influenced US policy in the context of asymmetrical power relations.

Agency, Security and Governance of Small States examines what seems to be a defining paradox of Small-State Studies: the simultaneous coexistence (and possible co-dependence) of vulnerability and opportunity related to small-state size. This book analyses small states within the framework of this apparent paradox. Traditionally, Small-State Studies has focused on three guiding questions: what constitutes a ‘small state’? What explains small-state influence in global affairs? Are small states truly vulnerable to security threats given the expansion of multilateralism and regionalism throughout the world? This book contends that new questions should be asked which recognise the important shifts in twenty-first century security paradigms, to better understand how some states deploy their smallness as a resource for agency in supranational contexts. By varying historical, geographical, security, and governance contexts, the book embraces a most-different-cases approach. The historical perspective is often neglected in Small-State Studies but contributes to understanding how small states have often, over time, transformed perceived insecurity into agency. By focusing on different world regions, the authors enable the comparative analysis of collective actions, and the creation and implementation of institutions for ‘common sense purposes’ within a geographical region. Of particular contemporary importance, the book includes contributions which contend with hard-security issues alongside other soft-security challenges. The comparison of case studies confirms that hard-security vulnerability and soft-security opportunities seem to be two sides of the same coin, which reinforces the book’s focus on small-state paradoxes, and raises the question of whether smallness can be considered the defining characteristic of governance in these countries. This book will have a broad appeal because of the different world regions it analyses. It will be of interest to postgraduate students, scholars, and researchers of international relations, security, sustainability, governance, development, and political economy, as well as Small-State Studies. The Chapters 4, 8 and 11 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. The publication of Chapter 4 as Open Access has been made possible by the Institute of History at the University of Luxembourg. The publication of Chapter 8 as Open Access has been made possible by Western Sydney University. The publication of Chapter 11 as Open Access has been made possible by the University of Hamburg.

The Success of Small States in International Relations highlights the normality and power of small states in international relations. This book overturns the stereotype that small states, however defined, are weak and are, or ought to be, consigned to the margins of international relations. It argues that small states are not ‘punching above their weight’, or even anomalies – since it is large states which are the anomaly in the global system. The text unpacks the nature and character of small state success, while also looking critically at thirteen episodes in modern history where small states, singly or collectively, emerged victorious in confrontations with larger states. The case studies, globally sourced, are bookended by conceptual and analytic reviews of what these events mean for diplomacy, international relations and small states more generally. This book will appeal to scholars and students of comparative political science and international relations, particularly from small states, as well as policy makers and senior small state government officers.

International Organizations (IOs) are vital institutions in world politics in which cross-border issues can be discussed and global problems managed. This path-breaking book shows the efforts that small states have made to participate more fully in IO activities. It draws attention to the challenges created by widened participation in IOs and develops an original model of the dilemmas that both IOs and small states face as the norms of sovereign equality and the right to develop coincide. Drawing on extensive qualitative data, including more than 80 interviews conducted for this book, the authors find that the strategies which both IOs and small states adopt to balance their respective dilemmas can explain both continuity and change in their interactions with institutions ranging from UN agencies to the World Trade Organization.