Volltext: Kleinstaat

Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt Small States in the "Post-Modern" Era Summary This paper analyses some of the major problems of small states in the contemporary "postmo­ dern" era. The starting point of our analysis is the most common problem of the small states which has been and still is how it is possible to maintain a general standard of economic and socio- cultural development which is more or less on the same level as the one prevailing in the res­ pective international system. The basic problem of these states is that their internal markets are not large enough to create economic momentum for development. The internal markets of small states are neither large enough nor diversified and complex enough to produce all that a small state needs, nor to consume all that it produces. Hence, the answer is specialization for special external markets, stemming from either the geographical location or the specific fea­ tures of social and economic structure and cultural traditions. The attempts to cope with this problem have given rise to special institutional arrangements - like for instance certain tendencies to centralisation and to concordative arrangements. The article then proceeds to analyse how the changes in the international, especially Euro­ pean state system, and in the very premises of nation-states, will probably change the nature of the problems facing the small states. He indicates that states will have to act less as relatively self-enclosed entities, and their dif­ ferent sectors will become more directly interwoven with parallel or complementary economic cultural and social sectors of other societies. These developments will open new opportunities before various sectors of small states, new economic as well as social and cultural niches and possibilities. Such developments will probably increase the relative autonomy of the different sectors. These developments will probably as well as increase the importance and strength of various networks - formal or informal alike, and each of these networks will develop more and more independent relations with parallel ones in other countries, and will increase their relative auto­ nomy. While such development may diminish the pressures on the central political organs of small states, it may also weaken the relatively strong central coordination between such network which was characteristic of the small states. The central policy organs will become more centers of coordination and of information, and less of decisionmaking. Concomitantly, new, especially acute, problems may develop within the small states, also with respect to the construction and reproduction of the cultural identity of small states. The 107
	        

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