Special section on ‘Small States and the Corona Crisis’ in Small States & Territories, 4(1), May 2021
Since the discovery of the COVID-19 virus in late December 2019, the ‘Corona crisis’ has advanced within just three months to become the dominant topic of conversation in Europe and beyond. Politics within states and relations between states now focus almost exclusively on how to ‘flatten the curve’, contain or manage the 'Corona crisis'.
Against this backdrop, the online journal Small States & Territories (SST) calls for the submission of manuscripts to a special section on ‘Small States and the Corona Crisis’ to appear in Vol. 4, No. 1, due to appear on-line in May 2021.
We believe that the situation of small states in the crisis differs from that of larger states. For example, there are typically limits to the number of health specialists (e.g. virologists and epidemiologists); small states may find it difficult to promptly acquire protective and testing equipment from the international market; and even general information on those ‘testing positive’ can seriously jeopardise privacy and data protection rights. But: there may also be substantial differences between small states. For example, some small states and territories could potentially isolate their populations and shut their borders fairly effectively. In contrast, other small states with land-borders are economically highly dependent on an immigrant workforce coming from the surrounding states and struggle under the tendency of larger states to close their borders.
We are particularly interested in contributions that, for example:
- identify the specific challenges that the 2020 'Corona Crisis' poses to the economies and societies of small states
- explore how the 'Corona crisis' has affected (and perhaps strained) relations between small states and other (e.g. neighbouring) states
- interrogate how the ‘Corona crisis’ sheds light on the workings of public administration and management in small states, and
- examine the manner in which the responses of small states to the ‘Corona crisis’ shed light on the practice of politics, governance and democracy within these small states.
Manuscripts that are comparative in approach are particularly welcome.
The special section editors (Anna-Lena Högenauer, Külli Sarapuu and Nicos Trimikliniotis) invite interested authors to send an abstract of around 300 words to the Small States & Territories Journal by Friday, 15 May 2020. Interested authors should note that – due to the aim to publish early in 2021 – the deadline for the submission of manuscripts is Friday, 2 October 2020.
About the journal:
Launched in 2018, Small States & Territories (SST) has its institutional home at the Islands and Small States Institute of the University of Malta. All articles published in SST are rigorously peer reviewed. SST is committed to the principles of open access (OA) publishing, as outlined in the IFLA Statement on Open Access to Scholarly Literature and Research Documentation. SST is a non-profit journal, so there is no publication charge; but the journal encourages authors to make a voluntary donation of EUR 20 to cover administrative costs.