Dwarfs in international negotiations: how small states make their voices heard

Abstract

Students of international relations interested in cooperation through international regimes and organizations very often devote their attention to the role of a few big states rather than the numerous small ones. Small states tend to possess fewer administrative and financial resources back home as well as smaller and less well-equipped delegations at the international negotiation table than big states. This can easily translate into difficulties in preparing positions for all items on the negotiation agenda and in developing negotiation strategies in great detail, which might inhibit small states from successfully influencing negotiation outcomes. Yet, since international negotiation often rest on a one-state, one-vote principle and since small states can adjust priorities and redirect their limited capacities, there is a window of opportunity for small states to turn into important international actors and achieve significant outcomes in international affairs. In order to systematically shed light on the role of small states in international negotiations, this article outlines the conceptual framework to answer the following question: How, and under which conditions, can small states successfully punch above their weight in international negotiations?

Notes

¹ Possible strategies include argumentative strategies (for example, expertise or moral leader-based communication, framing, upgrading of common interests), bargaining-based strategies (for example, exchange of threats, concessions, demands; support-trading) and coalition formation.

² This definition is applied in the subsequent chapters unless specified otherwise (for example, the two EU case studies use the number of votes of each state as a determinant for size (states are small if they possess less than average votes), since the EU is a weighted voting system in which the number of votes is an important capacity in the negotiations.

³ As an official participating in EU negotiations stated, ‘we are often quite short on resources … That basically means that we are forced to focus on what is most important’ (interview EU Permanent Representation#9, 29 May 2008). A colleague from another small state reinforced this point: ‘I think you have to be somewhat selective in what it is that is really important to you. I mean, unlike some of the bigger member-states you will not be able to have an input into each and every issue that is discussed, and you have to choose the topic that you really want to have an impact on, but then you have to put all your effort into that one’ (interview EU Permanent Representation#47, 5 February 2009).

⁴ The ontological assumption of constructivism is that intersubjective meaning is embedded in institutions and influences identities as well as the development of substantial interests (Wendt 1999). Intersubjective meaning is reproduced but can also change in interactions in which actors exchange their perceptions, ideas and interests on the basis of arguments. Social construction takes place in interactions and actors substantial interests endogenously as they alter their beliefs on truth, righteousness and appropriateness in the wake of better arguments (Habermas 1995; Müller 1995; Risse 2002).

⁵ Rationalism rests on the ontological assumption that actors are prior to and can be studied independent of social structures (a methodological–individualist concept of rationality). Their substantial interests are exogenous and fixed, while preferences over strategies on how interests should be pursued can change during interactions (Snidal 2002). In rationalist approaches, interactions between states or other actors are conceptualized as bargaining processes in which strategic rational actors exchange explicit or implicit threats that contain information on costly constraints (Scharpf 1989; Schelling 1978).

⁶ Druckman and Nelson (2003); Durel (2000); Jachtenfuchs (1996); Mintz and Redd (2003); Mörth (2000); Payne (2001); Surel (2000).

⁷ Dür and Mateo (2010b); Achen (2006); Bailer (2004); Evans et al (1993); Fearon (1998); Habeeb (1988); Schure and Verdun (2008); Slapin (2008); Tallberg and Jönsson (1998).

⁸ Next to the EU's Council of Ministers (in most policy areas), other arenas with weighted voting systems include the Board of Governors or the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Council of Europe (CoE), the International Energy Agency (IEA), the to the UN umbrella belonging International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

⁹ For example, ‘One of the main challenges for any small member state of the UN is the multiple venues where negotiations are happening, and they can even—as you said, I worked in the third committee of the UNGA—and within that one committee you could simultaneously have three or four or five sets of negotiations going on, on different resolutions so it was remarkably difficult for any delegation, but particularly for smaller delegations that simply don't have the sufficient number of people’ (interview UNmission#10, 15 November 2010). In relation to the size of MFA another interviewee stated, ‘Of course bigger states have more resources, they have more people to cover the issue, they have more researchers and everything’ (interview UNmission#4, 28 September 2010).

¹⁰ In relation to the individual workload an official from a small country said, ‘it's undoable. It's undoable in a … the agenda nowadays is so wide, that you have a problem dealing with it’ (interview UNmission#15, 24 November 2010).

¹¹ For example, ‘I think you should always remember first of all the challenges that small states face: You can talk about economic challenges’ (interview UNmission#7, 22 October 2010). ‘Where you could say higher economic financial capacity, political administrative capacity determine the absent rates, I would definitely agree with that, and maybe even say that that is the most determining factor when it comes to being present at GA meetings. Of course the big countries, the five permanent members of the Security Council, but also Japan, Germany, who have hundreds of employees in their Missions—their Missions are huge—and they are present in all settings. The American policy is that they have to be omnipresent’ (interview UNmission#5, 5 October 2010). ‘I think you should always remember first of all the challenges that small states face. You can talk about economic challenges’ (interview UNmission#7, 22 October 2010).