Small, Smart and Salient? Rethinking Identity in the Small States Literature

The article adopts a critical perspective on the generally negative view in mainstream and cognitivist understandings of the power of small states and introduces a discursive approach. This focuses on how ‘smallness’ can also be told in more positive ways in the construction of state identities. Looking at the case of Finland, it is shown how smallness has been told differently at different times with specific implications flowing from these different readings as to the possibilities for action in foreign policy. More particularly, it is argued that smallness is being replaced by the marker of being smart and innovative, with some Finnish politicians arguing that in the current post-Cold-War world the framework of big–small is increasingly less relevant.