From margins to momentum : ten years of small states and large questions

Abstract

This article introduces a special section in SST journal: a symposium marking the ten-year anniversary of Veenendaal and Corbett’s (2015) seminal piece, “Why small states offer important answers to large questions”, revisiting their provocation and extending its reach across new disciplines. Featuring 24 interdisciplinary contributions, the symposium explores how small states contribute meaningfully to major debates in political science, international relations, public administration, law, health, education, and beyond, challenging theoretical orthodoxies, enriching comparative insights, and offering scalable models of innovation and resilience. The contributions are organised around four themes: Revisiting the canon: power, agency, and theory-building; Rethinking statehood, sovereignty, and the international legal order; Resilience, innovative governance, and institutional learning; and Representation, rights, and social transformation. They illustrate how smallness is both constraint and catalyst.

This introduction maps the intellectual trajectory sparked by the original article, synthesises the contributions, and reflects on the continuing importance of small state scholarship. In doing so, it highlights how far the agenda has come, reflects on the formation of an epistemic community around small state scholarship, outlines the enduring relevance of studying small states on their own terms, and emphasises the ongoing pressing need to centre small states in academic and policy debates across the globe.