Manchester University Press
3 Power politics and small state survival
Abstract
This chapter shows that the balance-of-power system was in fact rather accommodating and allowed small states to survive in historically large numbers. In the post-Westphalian world, a crude balance of power became the key mechanism of European international politics. Unfortunately for the small state, the new international system for state interaction was not meant to maintain the peace or protect all states. Rather, it was geared towards balancing large states' ambitions and thus protecting the plurality of sovereign states. The European balance-of-power system that emerged around the middle of the seventeenth century was shaped by a number of additional "constituent institutions." The Europe of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries featured an institution that assisted small state survival: the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The empire became a defensive organization, featuring embryonic elements of collective security.
Abstract
This chapter shows that the balance-of-power system was in fact rather accommodating and allowed small states to survive in historically large numbers. In the post-Westphalian world, a crude balance of power became the key mechanism of European international politics. Unfortunately for the small state, the new international system for state interaction was not meant to maintain the peace or protect all states. Rather, it was geared towards balancing large states' ambitions and thus protecting the plurality of sovereign states. The European balance-of-power system that emerged around the middle of the seventeenth century was shaped by a number of additional "constituent institutions." The Europe of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries featured an institution that assisted small state survival: the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The empire became a defensive organization, featuring embryonic elements of collective security.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures viii
- Acknowledgments ix
- 1 Introducing small state survival as a historical phenomenon 1
- 2 Defining and quantifying the small state 18
- 3 Power politics and small state survival 45
- 4 Small state survival in a system of collective hegemony 90
- 5 Small state survival and proliferation in twentieth-century systems of collective security and global governance, 1919–2016 139
- 6 The story of small state survival 220
- Bibliography 236
- Index 259
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures viii
- Acknowledgments ix
- 1 Introducing small state survival as a historical phenomenon 1
- 2 Defining and quantifying the small state 18
- 3 Power politics and small state survival 45
- 4 Small state survival in a system of collective hegemony 90
- 5 Small state survival and proliferation in twentieth-century systems of collective security and global governance, 1919–2016 139
- 6 The story of small state survival 220
- Bibliography 236
- Index 259
