Dr. Baldur Thorhallsson

A paper of mine and Pétur Gunnarsson, who is a former student of mine, has just been published online Iceland’s alignment with the EU-US sanctions on Russia: autonomy versus dependence.  It is published in the journal Global Affairs. A printed version will be available soon.  The paper is a part of a number of papers published in a research project constructed and lead by Pernille Rieker and Kristin Haugevik at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). We assessed how a selection of European small states manoeuvre within the field of foreign and security policy, and within EU institutional structures more broadly. The key question of the project was 'Is there a pattern in how small European states adapt and adjust to EU foreign and security policy?'

I made an attemp to ‘Define the Small State’ in the Annual Lecture of the Centre of Small States at the Queen Mary University of London. It was also my third Leverhulme lecture at the University.  Caroline Morris, the founder of the Centre and my host at QMUL chaired the event. and Methods for determining whether a state is "small" are almost as many as there are "small states". Smallness has been defined objectively: such as number of inhabitants, geographical area, size of economy and military strength, as well as subjectively: such as domestic and foreign actors' view of the state’s size and capabilities. Some also say that it is the state's own perception of its size that determines whether a state is small. In this way, states such as Monaco and Fiji can been seen as small states, just as Iceland is considered small in comparison with Sweden, while Sweden is seen as small in comparison with Germany. While a universal definition of the small state seems elusive, scholars must, however, take account of the difference in sizes of states/entities in each and every case study. Otherwise they are in danger of overlooking an important explanatory variable, that of smallness.

Sverrir Steinsson and I have just published a short article The Small-State Survival Guide to Foreign Policy Success in The National Interest, Foreign Policy Experts Roundtable. It is based on our new study 'Small State Foreign Policy' which appears in the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Politics.

I am honoured to be part of the editorial team and write a chapter on small states and sovereignty in a book about Iceland's sovereignty in 99 years. The book is published to credit the work of David Þór Björvinsson, professor of law and former judge at the European Court of Human Rights. He has written extensively on Iceland and sovereignty. The book manifests his forward thinking and is a collection of interdisiplinary essays on Iceland's sovereignty since 1918.

The Centre for Small State Studies at the University of Iceland was recently awarded a grant from the European Union’s Jean Monnet Activities programme, Jean Monnet Networks. The total amount of the grant is 300.000 euros. Jean Monnet Networks are research projects that are designed to promote excellence in EU studies worldwide and foster a policy-debate with the academic world. The University of Iceland is the lead partner, with nine other universities participating in the project: The University of Copenhagen, Vilnius University, Tallinn University of Technology, University of St. Andrews, the University of Malta, University of Ljubljana, Lund University, University of Zagreb, and the University of the Aegean in Rhodes. The Centre for Small State Studies is run under the auspices of the Institute of International Affairs at the University of Iceland.

Baldur Thorhallsson, Professor of Political Science at the University of Iceland leads the project on behalf of the University of Iceland in cooperation with Pia Hansson, Director of the Institute of International Affairs and Tómas Joensen, Project Manager at the Centre for Small State Studies. During the next three years the ten higher education institutions will develop close cooperation in the field of small state studies. The grant will be used to host workshops, roundtables for young researchers, publish academic papers, policy recommendations, and at the end of the project an academic book.

The Jean Monnet Networks grant is a great acknowledgment of the work carried out by the Centre for Small State Studies, which has specialised in the role of small states in Europe. In 2013, the Centre was awarded a Centre of Excellence grant from the European Union and has operated as a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence since then. The Centre furthermore received two Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership grants, in 2014 and 2016. The Centre for Small State Studies has organized an annual summer school since 2003 and recently received an award of excellence from Erasmus+ for the project.

A Small State Seeking Shelter - Iceland's Search for Shelter. Iceland's foreign policy is examined in this Policy Brief published by the Small States and the New Security Environment (SSANSE) Research Project. I come up with several suggestions concerning Iceland's foreign policy and conclude that ' Following the events of 2006-2009, Iceland began searching for a replacement form of shelter provided by other external actors. However, it has not yet secured shelter to the extent that it received from the USA. Icelandic decision-makers need to closely examine to what extent multilateral shelter arrangements (such as NATO, Schengen and the EEA) may be more reliable providers of shelter in times of need, than a single protector such as the USA or the UK.' The Policy Brief was presented at the conference ‘Small States and the Changing Global Order: New Zealand Faces the Future’ at University of Canterbury in New Zealand, 3-4 June 2017.

The annual Summer School on Small States in Europe is up and running at the University of Iceland at present. It was a pleasure to discuss how small states cope with the current political challenges in Europe with our 26 students from all over Europe on Monday. Great discussions - great students - great fun.

New study on small state foreign policy published in the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Politics. The size of states is a hot topic today, in particular with the discussions surrounding Brexit and what it means for the UK's future as a global power. Recently, the Danish Finance Minister characterized the UK as a small nation, which if true, would strongly bear on the UK's power and needs. Being small is not completely hopeless though:

"Thankfully for small states, it has never been as easy being small as it is in the current international system with its unprecedented degree of peace, economic openness, and institutionalization. Small states can and do influence world politics in an international system as permissive as the current one. While small states remain highly constrained by their size, there is considerable leeway for maneuver. Small state influence is, however, contingent on the time, effort, and resources that small states put into diplomacy."

Much of the discourse before and after the election has centered on the wrong aspects when trying to explain Jeremy Corbyn's success. The best explanations for his success have mostly to do with his promises to rebuild NHS and the educational sector. That Labour ran on a traditional social democratic platform played a key role.

Surveys suggest that the Tories will win the election, but that there could be an upset. There is at the very least variation in the surveys, which shows on average a 6-7 point lead for the Tories. There are however uncertainties though about what former UKIP voters and former Green voters will do, what effect the recent terrorist attacks will have, and how the Tory domestic agenda affects voters who otherwise like their Brexit stance.