In keeping with CIGI’s mandate of addressing international governance challenges, this project was established in an attempt to address the present inequalities and governance issues surrounding small states. The twentieth century bore witness to the birth of a large number of small states due in part to growing nationalist and anti-colonial sentiments. This rapid proliferation has significantly outpaced the academic study of small states, and therefore our understanding of the conditions they face. During the Cold War, small states were more easily categorized due to the bipolarity of the international context. However, since Communism’s decline, and in an age of globalization and increased interdependency, the location of small states within the current global context seems volatile to say the least.
The common perception within international relations is that smaller, often poor developing island states, have an inherent disadvantage when confronting larger states on the world stage. Facing these challenges however, small states have proven themselves to be rather resilient in creating unique methods of diplomatic activity. Indeed, what small states lack in structural clout they can make up through creative agency.
At the heart of this project, therefore, is the scholarly debate between the vulnerability of small states, and their exercise of resilience within the international sphere. Vulnerability is a naturally imposed and predictable condition in which the room for manoeuvre is severely constrained. In contrast, resilience is adaptive, allowing structural factors to be resisted and re-shaped. The impacts of environmental change, economic liberalization, and increased multilateralism and interdependency have altered the shape of the international landscape, creating emerging powers such as the BRICs or N11, and having adverse effects on poor states such as the fragile states of the South Pacific. This project seeks therefore to situate the debate surrounding small states between the realist description of vulnerability and volatility, and a position of resilience.