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Small power : Mongolia's democratization and foreign policy objectives

University of British Columbia

Small states are in a unique position, where they cannot hope to meet their foreign policy and security objectives through hard power. Rather, small states must balance against large neighbors via more subtle and nuanced ways. Through a critique of soft power, the author presents a new analytical framework for understanding small power and new criteria for defining “smallness” in today’s international system. Small power attempts to explain small state foreign policy decision-making and the role that “attractiveness” plays in their relations with larger states. One potential source of small power- democratic governance- is explored through a detailed look at the Mongolian model of democratization as a foreign policy tool in its “third neighbor policy”. Successful democratic transitions in small states can attract more security-related, economic, and institutional support from leading democratic countries than their small size might initially suggest.

Text

2012-12-19

Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/43714

Asia Pacific Policy Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/