Book review : Eine governance-theorie des kleinstaats

Abstract

The debate about the political effects of scale is one of the oldest in political science; and yet, it only occupies a marginal position in the contemporary discipline. The same can be said of the study of small states, which are still rarely taken seriously as cases for comparative investigation. Given this state of affairs, it is most unfortunate that research on small states and territories is further fragmented by persistent linguistic divisions. For example, most publications on the Lusophone African island states of Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe are written in Portuguese; much of the scholarly work on the French overseas departments is written in French; and most scholarship on the Dutch Caribbean islands is only available in Dutch. Such linguistic divisions limit our opportunities to gain more knowledge about these cases, and also produce an unwelcome split between academic communities that are working on highly similar questions and theories. [excerpt]