Democracy in Small States: Persisting Against All Odds(Oxford Studies in Democratization)

Populism and the personalization of politics appears to be threatening the existence of democracy as we know it all over the world. It is now more important than ever to understand the history of this form of regime: why it has thrives and fails. But, existing studies are limited by their focus on a few large and predominately rich states. This book takes the opposite approach: it investigates how politics is practiced in the smallest states where hyper-personalization has always been a ubiquitous feature of political life. It optimistically finds that hyper-personalized democracy can actually persist against all odds, but also cautions that political practices in small states are often markedly different to larger states. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

Table of Contents:
1: The Small State Challenge 2: Economic Development and Democratisation in Small States 3: Democratization and Cultural Diversity 4: Democratization and Institutional Design 5: Democratization and Political Parties 6: Democratization and Geography 7: Democratization and Small Size 8: How Democracy in Small States Can Persist Against All Odds

About the Author :
Jack Corbett is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Southampton. He is the author of Being Political: Leadership and Democracy in the Pacific Islands (Hawaii, 2015); and Australia's Foreign Aid Dilemma: Humanitarian Aspirations Confront Democratic Legitimacy (Routledge, 2017) as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Wouter Veenendaal is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Leiden University. He is the author of Politics and Democracy in Microstates (Routledge, 2014) as well as numerous articles and book chapters. He is currently working on a NWO Veni-grant project titled 'When things get personal: Explaining political stability in small states'.

Review :
This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the politics of small states, and a welcome corrective to what Corbett and Veenendaal call the "unstated gigantism" of mainstream democracy studies. Their call for greater attention to the world's smallest states should be well-received. The book provides a thorough analysis of a neglected field in political science [it] is theoretically rich. The authors provide a comprehensive overview of the established literature and use it to examine their cases I would also argue that the book is radical. It offers a powerful challenge to the existing precepts of democratisation theory. I am very pleased to see this book in print, and for multiple reasons. It is a comprehensive assessment of democratisation practices in small states, reviewing no less than 39 countries with a cut off population of one million residents ... the writing style is reader-friendly and attractive: academic and solid without being either arcane or jingoistic ... This book is inspiring, and although self-admitted 'outsiders' to the realm of small state politics, the two authors are to be thanked wholeheartedly for doing a great service to scholars of small states by exposing still more of the goings on of small jurisdictions through their research endeavour. This book represents a major contribution to knowledge, as it is the first global analysis of politics and democracy in small states. Moreover, it brings together a wide variety of data that is beautifully related and integrated into an original and coherent work. The book is thus of interest not only to scholars and students of democratisation and small state politics, but also to a larger audience interested in the dynamics of politics in small states in more practical terms The book makes an important contribution to the study of democratisation, encouraging a new perspective on processes that lead to democracy and its persistence.