This panel aims to discuss how Regionalism and Interregionalism are used in the foreign policies of Small States. Given their structural vulnerabilities, participation in regional organisations is seen as a strategy to navigate systemic instabilities by making relations with neighbouring partners more predictable and by fostering their presence in the international system. At the scale of a regional organisation, their smallness is diminished, given their voting and decision-making power within that region. Small States, which are on the disadvantaged side of the asymmetries, are particularly interested in reducing relational asymmetries with the larger States. In this regard, the regional level presents a privileged opportunity to enhance their margin of manoeuvre towards the larger States in the region. This may be operationalised at both the intraregional and the interregional levels. Within a regional organisation, factors such as allocating financial resources for States’ infrastructure are possible mechanisms for asymmetries’ compensation. At the interregional level, external negotiations are not only a means to secure partnerships, but also to demand exclusive measures for the Small States that compensate their structural conditions in the negotiations. Demanding such measures from external partners is a strategy that allows Small States to obtain benefits that could not be achieved at the regional level. In other words, either because of political divergences or because some element is not available at the regional level, another region is seen as a possible source of benefits for the Small State due to its smallness. In view of the above, this panel aims to investigate not only what the Small States’ demands for compensating asymmetries are, but also how these demands are presented within regional organisations and within interregional negotiations. Endeavouring to secure these claims and have them granted is a possible indicator of Small States’ leverage in international relations. While this phenomenon is observed globally and contributions from all regions are welcome, this panel proposal encourages submissions that feature at least one Global South Small State.
Small States in Regionalism and Interregionalism: Strategies, Asymmetries, and Influence
Type
Open Panel
Language
English
Co-chair
Discussants
Description
Onsite Presentation Language
Same as proposal language
Panel ID
PL-4075






