Small Power

My thesis- written under the direction of Drs. Julian Dierkes and Brian Job- has been officially accepted by UBC, marking the completion of my M.A. Asia Pacific Policy Studies. I have included the abstract and link below, and in the coming weeks, I will add a post or two summarizing the Mongolia-specific sections for your reference.

Small Power: Mongolia’s Democratization and Foreign Policy Objectives

Small states are in a unique position, where they cannot hope to meet their foreign policy and security objectives through hard power. Rather, small states must balance against large neighbors via more subtle and nuanced ways. Through a critique of soft power, the author presents a new analytical framework for understanding small power and new criteria for defining “smallness” in today’s international system. Small power attempts to explain small state foreign policy decision-making and the role that “attractiveness” plays in their relations with larger states. One potential source of small power– democratic governance- is explored through a detailed look at the Mongolian model of democratization as a foreign policy tool in its “third neighbor policy”. Successful democratic transitions in small states can attract more security related, economic, and institutional support from leading democratic countries than their smallsize might initially suggest.

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