This article unpacks Malaysia's conceptions of the liberal international order (LIO). It argues that Malaysia's ambivalent perceptions of and pragmatic approaches to the LIO are products of ...historical experiences with great powers, domestic politics and its structural position in world politics.
Abstract
Why do weaker states perceive the liberal international order (LIO) with ambivalence? This article argues that in the case of small states like Malaysia, historical memories, structural realities and domestic imperatives combine to explain their conceptions of and responses to the LIO. The article traces the features and unpacks the factors underpinning the paradoxes of small-state pragmatism vis-à-vis international order: a) rejecting power hierarchy but recognizing (and leveraging) power asymmetry; b) acknowledging its smallness but actively punching above its weight whenever possible; and c) promoting co-existence through principled contradictions. Such paradoxical pragmatism is quintessentially an act of hedging aimed at mitigating and off-setting multiple risks amid increasing uncertainties. This article makes three contributions. First, it contributes to the literature on international order by presenting a small-state perspective on the LIO, highlighting that small-state responses are more about ‘struggle for survival’, rather than ‘struggle for power’. Second, the notion of ‘paradoxical pragmatism’ engages the ongoing debate on ‘hedging’ in international relations. Third, the article's findings suggest that, theoretically, hedging and its dualistic elements are attributable to both structural and domestic-level factors. While structural conditions drive states to hedge, domestic factors determine the extent and manner in which states hedge.
Small States in EU Policy-Making analyses how small states try to impact European Union policy-making through a range of strategies. With the last rounds of enlargement and Brexit, the number and ...weight of small states in the European Union have steadily increased. At the same time, small states face distinct challenges in different institutions, which may impact their strategies. Nonetheless, the existing literature primarily focuses on the Council of the European Union and the European Council and offers few insights into how small states navigate the other institutions. The contributions to this volume examine how small states can wield influence in different institutions, arguing that they do indeed pursue different strategies depending on institutional context. The policy case studies on the EU’s foreign and security policies confirm these findings: small states can have influence in EU policy-making and can create situations where their needs are met. They are most likely to succeed when they build foreign policy coalitions, when they anticipate major economic developments and when they manage to acquire a high level of expertise in a policy area. However, the case studies also show that there is a risk of small states becoming policy-takers in cases where they cannot provide leadership in terms of ideas and expertise and/or fail to build political weight through coalitions. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners of European politics and the EU in particular, as well as policy-makers and practitioners working on small states. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Prepoznavanje uticajnih geopolitičkih činilaca kao uslova, ali i kao direktnih i indiretnih sredstava primenljivih u okviru nadmetanja izmeðu država, jedan je od esencijalnih faktora za ...prilagoðavanje savremenim okolnostima i opstanak, posebno malih država. Veličina i snaga države imaju ključnu ulogu u odreðivanju njenog potencijala za zaštitu vitalnih vrednosti i ostvarivanje nacionalnih interesa. „Male države" su ograničene na reaktivan pristup u formulisanju strategije, odnosno njihova strategija predstavlja reagovanje na promene okruženja koje su se već desile (ili su izvesne). U vezi sa tim, suočene sa brojnim izazovima sa jedne i ograničenom moći sa druge strane, male države se gotovo neprekidno nalaze u bezbednosnoj dilemi koja se sastoji od dva elementa: uticaja i autonomije. U istraživanju ćemo korisiti metode analize, sinteze, hipotetičko-deduktivnu metodu, analize sadržaja dokumenata i komparativnu metodu.
Shelter theory has emerged as a promising but unrealized alternative to existing theories of bandwagon and hiding in the literature. It describes how small states can utilize the structural power of ...great powers to achieve political aims through the formation of asymmetric alliances. At present it is not clear exactly what shelter diplomacy aims to achieve, what type of costs it protects small states against and to what degree asymmetric shelters are useful when the preferences between the small state and the shelter partner widen. The article addresses these gaps. It develops a realist inspired model of shelter diplomacy that specifies when, how and with what effects small states can utilize the structural powers of great powers. It demonstrates how shelter diplomacy can help small states balance the costs of abandonment and entrapment in the alliance dilemma through construction of both asymmetric and symmetric shelters. The main contributions are to bring shelter diplomacy into the International Relations mainstream literature and develop a new theoretical middle position between the more well-described bandwagon and hiding strategies. The model is applied to a Danish case that demonstrates how small states have utilized and adopted dynamic shelter strategies in the European integration process.
In recent years, scholars have devoted increased attention to the agency of small states in International Relations. However, the conventional wisdom remains that while not completely powerless, ...small states are unlikely to achieve much of significance when faced by great power opposition. This argument, however, implicitly rests on resource-based and compulsory understandings of power. This article explores the implicit connections between the concept of "small states" and diverse concepts of power, asking how we should understand these states' attempts to gain influence and achieve their international political objectives. By connecting the study of small states with more diverse understandings of power, the article elaborates the broader avenues for influence that are open to many states but are particularly relevant for small states. The article argues that small states' power can be best understood as originating in three categories: "derivative," collective, and particular-intrinsic. Derivative power, coined by Michael Handel, relies upon the relationship with a great power. Collective power involves building coalitions of supportive states, often through institutions. Particular-intrinsic power relies on the assets of the small state trying to do the influencing. Small states specialize in the bases and means of these types of power, which may have unconventional compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive aspects.
This article compares the relationship between Australia and the South Pacific Commonwealth states with the relationship between Britain and the Commonwealth Caribbean islands. It explores these ...links through strategic, economic, political, and cultural lenses, finding that while both sets of relationships contain elements of all these ties, they are characterised by fundamentally different dynamics. The Australian-South Pacific relationship revolves far more around hard-nosed calculations of security and economic advantage, while the British-Caribbean relationship exists strongly in the cultural realm, with less emphasis on strategy and politics; both cases exemplify the range of potential relationships between large and small Commonwealth states. The article also observes an increasing tendency for the small states to broaden and diversify their international relationships.
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