Small but plentiful: The proliferation of small states in the international system of states, 1648--2002.
详细信息
文摘
This study investigates the systemic causes for the proliferation of small states since 1648. It demonstrates that the number of small states is to a considerable extent systemically determined. The international system of states governs the quantitative position of the small state in the states system through "systemic protection." Increases and decreases in the number of small states are thus systemic phenomena.;For this analysis, a new data set that provides the numbers of small states and of non-small states for each year since 1648 was compiled. The data show how the number of small states has been fluctuating significantly over the course of history. On the basis of this data, it is shown that changes in the number of small states correlate with changes of the international states system. Since the general implementation of the current states based system in 1648, a number of distinctly different types of states systems have been in place: From 1648 to the end of the 18th century the balance of power, from 1815 to the First World War the concert system, from 1919 to the Second World War the system of collective security, and a system of collective security combined with a bipolar structure during the Cold War.;These types of states systems affect the number of small states by providing different levels of systemic protection to the small state. Moreover, various levels of effectiveness of these systems also translate into further variations of the level of systemic protection which small states are afforded. It is to a large extent through stronger or weaker systemic protection that the number of small states in the international system is affected. While small states are, if and when at all, protected by the system only abstractly, as an aggregate, they do benefit from different levels of systemic protection which exist according to the type of states system and how effectively it operates.