The Limits of Independence by Adam Watson

Author:Adam Watson [Watson, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781134701858
Google: jHeFAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2002-11-01T03:35:15+00:00

THE PROBLEM OF MINISTATES

The previous section was written thirty years ago. In 1967, shortly after I returned to London I wrote a paper for the British Committee for the Theory of International Politics on the wider aspects of the Cuban Revolution.3 The excerpt above sets out the problems of size and adequacy as they appeared to me at the height of the decolonization process. Most of it seems to me still valid: surprisingly, because so much has changed in other aspects of the international scene. Most conspicuously, the question still remains of a status for ministates, in which local loyalties can find a reasonably comfortable place.

Ministates, microstates and what Robert Jackson in his admirable

Ministates, microstates and what Robert Jackson in his admirable analysis calls quasi-states 4 are rather unsatisfactory shorthand terms for those small states which because of their inadequate size, stage of development and experience are in practice client or subordinate political entities. The degree of dependence varies, of course; it is not a question of drawing a line but of recognizing a category. The ministates do not merely have varying degrees of local autonomy: they are formally independent, especially in ceremonial and symbolic contexts, and have seats on the appropriate omnilateral bodies. But their independence is not something that they can sustain for themselves (as developed small states like Singapore and Luxembourg can); it is dependent on a substantial infusion of various kinds of outside assistance. The awareness of this situation produces the conflict of loyalties mentioned in the passage above. A disturbingly large number of the supposedly equal members of our international society come under the heading of ministates. To recognize that their function in the international system is different from that of the United States or Singapore is a step, perhaps a necessary step, towards finding a more satisfying place in international society for ministates. A satisfying role needs to acknowledge and indeed foster their formal independence and self-reliance, and to develop a sense of partnership with the sources of aid. But the ministates need to accept an outside say in their domestic affairs. And we all need to recognize that states with different structures, especially economic structures, have different functions in world society.

We also need to find a more self-respecting place in international society for autonomous entities to which for various practical reasons it is difficult to accord full independent statehood with the present connotations of that status. Examples are the Palestinians, the Bosnian Serbs, the Cypriot Turks, the Sri Lanka Tamils, and many other groups. The wide gap in nominal status between the autonomous entities and

the theoretically independent ministates does not correspond with reality. Autonomous but formally not independent political entities are also in a sense quasi-states. They should have a more recognized international status, without having to accord them full sovereignty. We could then make a less absolute distinction between them and highly dependent but nominally sovereign ministates. The hegemonial donors and international organizations could treat both categories in practice in much the same way.

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