Historical dynamics of international relationships : Veenendaal and Corbett beyond comparative politics

Abstract

Small states are not inconsequential actors on the world stage. And history can look very different when and if it is not diluted and simplified into a dramatic, bi-polar, Cold War dynamic. This contribution echo’s Veenendaal and Corbett (2015) insistence on the “intellectual payoffs” of studying small states, and how this focus “augments or challenges existing analysis”. Indeed: it can help us turn theories and histories of international relations on their heads. Incorporating small polities into the histories of the First World War have shaken the structural determinism of Great Power-focused narratives. And studies of early international institutions that attend to small actors and asymmetrical relationships suggest different roots of international cooperation. There implications of case selection in comparative politics are huge.