Citation

Mouritzen H. J. Peace Res. 1991; 28(2): 217-230.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0022343391028002007

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

How is the position of weak powers today affected by detente and emerging US-Soviet cooperation? More generally, what happens to the power position and the security strategies of the weak as tension fluctuates between the strong? What happens, in particular, to their ability and willingness to mediate between the strong and hence contribute to detente? A theoretical construct, a 'constellation theory', is established in order to answer these questions. 'Constellation' refers to the weak nation's basic set of relationships to the strong, be it a symmetric constellation, an alliance constellation or some other type. The expectations derived from the theory are confronted with observations of Swedish and Finnish strategies during the rising and high level of superpower tension in the first half of the 1980s. Only one minor deviation between expectations and observations is found, and this can be accounted for fairly well. The two neighbouring countries, with relatively similar domestic political systems (and similar archipelagos!) but involved in different constellations, are found to be affected in inverse ways by rising and high tension: Swedish policy is activated whereas Finnish policy is de-activated. This corroborates the theoretically justified belief in the explanatory power of the notion of 'constellations'. In the concluding section, some speculations on weak powers in the alliance constellation are made. The results of this article should be seen as a criticism of the small state research which theorizes on 'small states' ('weak powers') in general, without explicitly considering the constellations in which they are involved.