The book deals mainly with the current experience and recent past of such states but also offers insights for their future policies. Although many of the states covered are European, the study also includes African, Caribbean and Asian small states. Their particular interest and relevance is outlined, as is the connection between their security challenges and their smallness. Policy lessons for other states are then sought.
The book is the first in-depth, multi-continent study of security as an aspect of small state governance today. It is novel in placing the security dilemmas of small states in the context of wider ideas on international and institutional change, and in dealing with non-European states and regions.
Clive Archer was, until 2009, Research Professor in International Relations at Manchester Metropolitan University and was previously a Professor at Aberdeen University. He has researched and published widely on the affairs of the Nordic region, Arctic cooperation, international organizations and the European Union.
Alyson J.K. Bailes is a former British diplomat and Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, now working as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Iceland and a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe. Security studies are her speciality.
Anders Wivel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. His most recent books are Explaining Foreign Policy: International Diplomacy and the Russo-Georgian War (Lynne Rienner 2012, co-author Hans Mouritzen) and Denmark and the European Union (Routledge 2013, co-editor Lee Miles).