Introduction: Small Countries in a Globalised World: Their Honeymoon or Twilight?

Does globalisation represent the twilight or honeymoon for small countries (hereinafter ‘SCs’)? It is no wonder that some political scientists even predict that the number of nations may double over the next two or three decades (Salvatore, herein:71). Some claim that historically small states have never been in such a good position as they are today. Others insist that SCs cannot survive in the context of contemporary integration tendencies, that they have to forget about their sovereignty and integrate into regional groups. The growing importance of regional integration groups should support the latter thesis, while the increasing number of small states supports the former. Is there any contradiction between the political process of disintegration, the birth of new small states and economic integration trends? This book will demonstrate that there is in fact no such contradiction, that by integrating small countries do not ‘lose’, they even gain sovereignty in domains which were previously completely closed for them. By developing strengths in one area gives them power also in those areas where such power is weak. This is the so-called paradox of the ‘weakness’ (Baillie, 1999).The objective of the paper is to explain this apparent inconsistency. In order to do so, we start with some general observations on the relationship between income and sovereignty that are supposed to apply to all countries.