Wouter Veenendaal

Every country, every subnational government, and every district has a designated population, and this has a bearing on politics in ways most citizens and policymakers are barely aware of. Population and Politics provides a comprehensive evaluation of the political implications stemming from the size of a political unit – on social cohesion, the number of representatives, overall representativeness, particularism ('pork'), citizen engagement and participation, political trust, electoral contestation, leadership succession, professionalism in government, power concentration in the central apparatus of the state, government intervention, civil conflict, and overall political power. A multimethod approach combines field research in small states and islands with cross-country and within-country data analysis. Population and Politics will be of interest to academics, policymakers, and anyone concerned with decentralization and multilevel governance.

Every country, every subnational government, and every district has a designated population, and this has a bearing on politics in ways most citizens and policymakers are barely aware of. Population and Politics provides a comprehensive evaluation of the political implications stemming from the size of a political unit – on social cohesion, the number of representatives, overall representativeness, particularism ('pork'), citizen engagement and participation, political trust, electoral contestation, leadership succession, professionalism in government, power concentration in the central apparatus of the state, government intervention, civil conflict, and overall political power. A multimethod approach combines field research in small states and islands with cross-country and within-country data analysis. Population and Politics will be of interest to academics, policymakers, and anyone concerned with decentralization and multilevel governance.

Populism and the personalization of politics appears to be threatening the existence of democracy as we know it all over the world. It is now more important than ever to understand the history of this form of regime: why it has thrives and fails. But, existing studies are limited by their focus on a few large and predominately rich states. This book takes the opposite approach: it investigates how politics is practiced in the smallest states where hyper-personalization has always been a ubiquitous feature of political life. It optimistically finds that hyper-personalized democracy can actually persist against all odds, but also cautions that political practices in small states are often markedly different to larger states. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

Why are small states statistically more likely to have a democratic political system? By addressing this question from a qualitative and comparative methodological angle, this book analyses the effects of a small population size on political competition and participation. By comparing the four microstates of San Marino (Europe), St. Kitts and Nevis (Caribbean), Seychelles (Africa), and Palau (Oceania), it provides fresh and stimulating insight, concluding that the political dynamics of microstates are not as democratic as commonly believed. Instead, it is found in all four cases that smallness results in personalistic politics, dominance of the political executive, patron-client relations between citizens and politicians, and the circumvention of formal political institutions. In addition, the book suggests that the study of formal institutions provides an incomplete image of microstate democracy and that informal characteristics of politics in microstates also need to be explored in order to better explain the influence of smallness on democracy. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of democracy, democratization, regional and decentralization studies and comparative politics.

Why are small states statistically more likely to have a democratic political system? By addressing this question from a qualitative and comparative methodological angle, this book analyses the effects of a small population size on political competition and participation. By comparing the four microstates of San Marino (Europe), St. Kitts and Nevis (Caribbean), Seychelles (Africa), and Palau (Oceania), it provides fresh and stimulating insight, concluding that the political dynamics of microstates are not as democratic as commonly believed. Instead, it is found in all four cases that smallness results in personalistic politics, dominance of the political executive, patron-client relations between citizens and politicians, and the circumvention of formal political institutions. In addition, the book suggests that the study of formal institutions provides an incomplete image of microstate democracy and that informal characteristics of politics in microstates also need to be explored in order to better explain the influence of smallness on democracy. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of democracy, democratization, regional and decentralization studies and comparative politics.