Small States and Leadership

Clever leadership can transform a state’s smallness into an asset when promoting national and international interests at home and abroad. Small states face structural disadvantages related to their size in the international community. Having a small population inherently inhibits the aggregate structural power of states and creates hurdles that need to be compensated for. A small state’s administrative capacity is more limited than the capacity in bigger states, making it more challenging to engage in decisive and independent policy making. Good leadership skills are required to be able to practice the correct prioritisation and tactical bargaining in international diplomatic surroundings. Small states need to defend their interests in their key sectors and within these sectors they need to be able to show leadership initiative, offer clever solutions to problems, while also wielding positive influence outwards. Leadership skills are imperative to make this happen and secure successful diplomacy for a small state.

This course will give you a brief introduction into small state studies and leadership studies. We explore these topics from various perspectives, including the functioning and challenges of small public administrations and public sector economics and management in small states; the characteristics of small states’ foreign and security policies; how small states perform and profile themselves on normative leadership in gender equality; and lastly, we will focus on the challenges and opportunities of small state leadership in international diplomacy.

The course is taught by an outstanding team of scholars from the Centre for Small State Studies at the University of Iceland, the University of Copenhagen, Tallinn University of Technology, Vilnius University, the University of Ljubljana and Århus University. These scholars have already run several projects together focusing on small state studies and achieved a cross-sectoral reach into for example political science, international relations, foreign and security policy and public administration.

What you'll learn

• Module 1 - Introduction to Leadership in Small States
• After completing this module, you will be able to:
• Understand and explain the concept of leadership, in particular in a small state context
• Apply critical insight into how small states can utilize their specific characteristics to take on a leadership role in international affairs
• Analyze through case studies the position of small states in the international community
• Evaluate where opportunities lie for small states in taking on leadership roles
• Module 2 - Leadership in Public Administration and Governance
• After completing this module you will be able to:
• Analyse the impact of scale on small states’ public administration, institutional quality and governance
• Discuss the constraints and opportunities of small states’ capacity to deal with complex policy problems domestically and internationally
• Describe the special characteristics of role-relationships in small societies and their impact on political and administrative leadership
• Characterize the impact of state’s size on public sector leadership and leadership development.
• Module 3 - Small States Leadership in Foreign and Security Policy
• After completing this module you will be able to:
• Understand and explain the characteristics of small states in foreign and security policy
• Provide critical insight into small states' efforts in the international arena employing international organizations and other formats
• Recognize and assess different patterns of small states' security strategies
• Analyze through case studies the forms of leadership in foreign and security policy occurred at the state or individual level
• Module 4 - Small State Leadership in Gender Policy
• After completing this module you will be able to:
• Understand and explain the value placed on gender equality by small states
• Apply critical insight into how small states can capitalize on domestic characteristics to provide normative leadership in international affairs
• Analyze examples of small states’ leadership in the area of gender equality
• Debate cross-cutting themes such as gender and climate change and their impact on small state leadership
• Demonstrate how the objective of gender equality can be employed as a tool of small state policy
• Module 5 - Small State Foreign Policy - Taking Leadership in International Diplomacy
• After completing this module you will be able to:
• Understand and explain the characteristics of small state leadership in foreign policy and diplomacy
• Critically apply the tools of foreign policy analysis on small state leadership in foreign policy and diplomacy
• Analyze the leadership of small states in foreign policy and diplomacy using concepts of small state strategy
• Evaluate opportunities and challenges and discuss dilemmas faced by small states seeking leadership in foreign policy and diplomacy