AbstractsLaw & Legal Studies

This thesis focuses on Small States in the international system. It explores the body of literature that concentrates on the international relations of Small States in the hope that it will bridge the existing gap in the accumulation of knowledge and open up new questions for research. By collecting, compiling, summarizing and synthesizing the different contributions to the field, my aim is to create a systematic and coherent body of information that will enhance our knowledge of the existing research, shed some light to our understanding of the Small State in International Relations and stimulate some new efforts in the field. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to the thesis. The second chapter deals with the question of the definition of Small States. I collect and classify the different definitions available in the literature into six different categories. I evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each of them and I look for the common points among them which I believe that constitute the essence of the concept of Small State and the glue that unite the Small State scholars in one field. The third chapter focuses on the “power of the weak”. It seeks to identify the power resources of the Small States and the factors that influence their behaviour. The goal of this chapter is to unveil the common points and concerns among the different studies in order to create a framework of analysis of the Small State behaviour based on the synthesis of the different views in the field. In the fourth chapter, the issue of the common pattern of behaviour comes to the forefront. The fact that different Small States make different choices, even under the same structural conditions have caught Small State scholars by surprise and triggered much of the interest in the research of the Small States. The differences in the Small State choices were also key to the critics of the study of the Small States. Based on the previous findings I discuss whether we should expect a dominant pattern in Small State behaviour; if the differences in the choices of the Small States reveal that they do not have anything in common; how they differ from the Great Powers and finally whether there is a common pattern of Small State behaviour. I attempt to unpack what smartness means in the context of the International Relations of Small States and reconsider the concept of the “small but smart” state. To this end, I employ insights from research on entrepreneurship. In the fifth chapter, I summarize and evaluate the findings of the thesis and based on them I draw some directions for future research in the field of the International Relations of Small States. H παρούσα διατριβή ασχολείται με τα Μικρά Κράτη στο διεθνές σύστημα και επικεντρώνεται στη μελέτη της βιβλιογραφίας επί των διεθνών σχέσεων των Μικρών Κρατών. Kαταγράφει, συνοψίζει, αποτιμά την υπάρχουσα βιβλιογραφία, αναλύει και συνθέτει τα ευρήματα, προκειμένου να παρουσιάσει ένα συνεκτικό πλαίσιο ανάλυσης των Διεθνών Σχέσεων των Μικρών Κρατών.…