Transforming Roles of Small States in World Politics at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century: In Search of Systemic and Comprehensive Approach

The international arena is distinguished by the presence of various states simultaneously operating in the context of anarchy and hierarchy. Small states unlike middle powers and leading powers are not expected to be the cornerstone of the international order. Still, they comprise the majority of the state-system actors, which is why they should not be overlooked by researchers and policy practitioners alike. This chapter aims to provide a systemic analysis of small states’ changing roles in world politics at the beginning of the twenty-first century as a watershed between the bipolar era and the newly emerging system of international relations. To eliminate arbitrariness as much as possible when discussing various cases, an attempt to give proper categorization and typology of small states according to various approaches and schools of thought is made, which is crucial given the lack of unanimous agreement on what constitutes a small state. The transformation of small states’ roles implies they become increasingly free of the constraints of the past and can lead a more active and independent part of the international arena that institutionalized liberalism postulates. Yet the manifestations of said transformation are multifaceted and require a more detailed analysis, which this paper is aimed at giving the introduction to in order to better understand the parameters of the emerging international order marked by a bigger number of power centers and more complex interstate interactions overall.