This book explains what ‘small’ states are and explores their current security challenges, in general terms and through specific examples. It reflects the shift from traditional security definitions emphasizing defence and armaments, to new security concerns such as economic, societal and environmental security where institutional cooperation looms larger. These complex issues, linked with traditional power relations and new types of actors, need to be tackled with due regard to democracy and good governance. Key policy challenges for small states are examined and applied in the regional case studies. The book deals mainly with the current experience and recent past of such states but also offers insights for their future policies. Although many of the states covered are European, the study also includes African, Caribbean and Asian small states. Their particular interest and relevance is outlined, as is the connection between their security challenges and their smallness. Policy lessons for other states are then sought. The book is the first in-depth, multi-continent study of security as an aspect of small state governance today. It is novel in placing the security dilemmas of small states in the context of wider ideas on international and institutional change, and in dealing with non-European states and regions.

This book studies how domestic contestation influences the security policy of small states within the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). A multinational group of expert contributors consider how domestic contestation is translated into small states’ foreign policies, how membership of international organisations alters attitudes to security policy in small states and how patterns of small states’ behaviour across domestic traditions, security cultures and geographical location can be identified. Anchored in new institutionalism, the book explores the influence of international organisations on security policies and the tensions created by connecting four strands of literature, on Europeanisation, on the impact of and on institutions, on the way foreign and security policy is made, and the security/strategic culture of small states. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of international relations, security studies, EU studies, area studies and politics.

Small States in and outside the European Union offers a broad overview of the small states problematic in Europe. It touches upon definition issues, history, security policy, neutrality, EU institutional aspects and also includes contributors from Central and Eastern European countries. It presents a thorough analysis of different scenarios for EU institutional reform and their repercussions on the influence of small member states. The comparative results are visualized in tables. The work contains several contributions from practitioners who give insight into policy games and issues of national sensitivity not usually covered by purely scholarly publications. The European environment has changed dramatically through the processes of regional integration and rising interdependence. Relations between European states both inside and outside the EU are governed as never before by rules, norms, and fixed procedures. The book investigates the consequences of these developments on the foreign and security policy of small states. Academics and professionals from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland, as well as from the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, elaborate on these issues. Institutional regulations and traditional power politics as well as the foreign and security policy traditions of the states concerned, including the question of neutrality, are investigated. In addition, the book identifies the main interests of small states in today's Europe and offers an overview of different strategies these states apply in the realm of foreign and security policy. The book is interesting for the case studies it offers as well as for the reflections it contains regarding fundamental questions of the essence of statehood in today's Europe.

The effects of recent institutional change within the European Union on small states have often been overlooked. This book offers an accessible, coherent and informative analysis of contemporary and future foreign policy challenges facing small states in Europe. Leading experts analyze the experiences of a number of small states including the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Iceland, Austria and Switzerland. Each account, written to a common template, explores the challenges and opportunities faced by each state as a consequence of EU integration, and how their behaviour regarding EU integration has been characterized. In particular, the contributors emphasize the importance of power politics, institutional dynamics and lessons of the past. Innovative and sophisticated, the study draws on the relational understanding of small states to emphasize the implications of institutional change at the European level for the smaller states and to explain how the foreign and European policies of small states in the region are affected by the European Union.

A fully documented text which addresses a key issue of EU decision-making which is surfacing again in proposed institutional reforms. It looks at the role of smaller states, deals with the important criteria of distribution and redistribution of EU budgetary expenditures in the key areas of agriculture and structural funds and explains how smaller states promote their interest more effectively than larger states. It focuses on the administrations of small states, their relations with the Commission and their negotiation tactics in the Council. This is the first attempt to empirically test Peter Katzenstein’s thesis on the role of smaller states in international relations by making important recommendations on how the core assumptions of Katzenstein need to be modified, especially when applied to the EU context. This work is a good supplementary text book for courses on European studies, comparative politics and international relations. It is particularly suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

Since the end of World War II and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has taken the lead in maintaining European security through its membership in NATO. However, the economic and political positions of both the United States and Europe have changed in the last seventy-five years, leading many to wonder if America is still willing and able to provide for Europe’s security needs, especially at a time when the Russian Federation has become a more aggressive military and political player. Europe Alone explores the prospects of European security in a future when the United States may no longer be a reliable partner. Leading security scholars offer a multifaceted approach to the changing role and meaning of national security into the future. They look at European security issues from the perspective of small states and seek to broaden the concept of security beyond traditional domestic policing or national defense.

This book raises the question of the long-term security of the small state. It asks specifically how that quandary manifests itself in Europe after 1989. The overall argument is that small states are becoming increasingly prominent - to some extent also problematic - actors in post-Cold War Europe politics. This is partly a consequence of the diminished ambition, even bordering on reluctance, of great powers to assert their will. Partly it is the consequence of a confluence of other factors: there used to be a loose, tacit consensus on the respective roles of great powers and smaller states. That is no longer so. The transition from an actively supervised bipolar system to a nearly non-polar international system has been a slippery slope. It is as yet far from clear what the final outcome will be. The collapse of Yugoslavia and of the Soviet Union demonstrate the intractability of issues involving small states, in particular as those issues concern secession, independence and physical survival. The experience of the states liberated by the dissolution of communist power in Eastern Europe also demonstrates the hard lessons of survivability in economic terms. Indeed, the irony is that the answer to both the security problem and the economic dependence of small states is now widely perceived in these states themselves as being dependent on their participation in integration and at least the partial relinquishing of sovereignty.