Book review : The politics of smallness in modern Europe : size, identity and international relations since 1800

Abstract

The study of small states in international relations (IR) has long been fixated on defining its object of analysis; so much so that some scholars have effectively thrown up their hands, insisting there is nothing left to say on the subject. This volume, however, breathes new life into this old and often stale debate. Largely written by historians and not IR scholars, it does so by shifting the reader’s perspective away from the notion of what a small state is to what people understood smallness to be and do. Size clearly matters in international politics, editor Samuël Kruizinga agrees in his introduction, but it is “perceptual and subjective” (p. 6). The book’s substantive chapters show just how different the implications of smallness and the “size hierarchy” of international relations can be, depending on the context, audience, and purpose. The book unpacks “smallness” in contexts rarely considered by IR.