Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/121457
Title: Advancing the understanding of the shelter theory in small states
Authors: Tverskoi, Pawel (2023)
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
States, Small
States, Small -- Foreign relations
International relations
Issue Date: 2023
Citation: Tverskio, P. (2023). Advancing the understanding of the shelter theory in small states (Master’s dissertation).
Abstract: Hardly anyone has been able to escape the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. All over the world, states and individuals had to adjust their ways of operating and living to cope with the new situation. Yet, individuals living in many small states had to deal with disproportionate economic and social impacts caused by the pandemic. That is mainly due to inherent and often unique vulnerabilities that accompany life in small states. The academic discipline of small states studies has done extensive research on ways of how small states, in light of their overall limited capabilities, have been using various forms of and approaches to cooperation to improve their chances of survival, and more, to prosper and flourish. To that end, a recent contribution to the research body has been shelter theory, which posits that small states need shelter, provided by one or a union of states, to be able to thrive. This shelter expresses itself in three overarching dimensions: political, economic and societal. While small states and their residents have developed resilience strategies to increase their coping capacities, such as allying themselves with more powerful and resourceful states, the fact that many of them are developing states further contributed to an inadequate level of preparedness in terms of global health security. Although larger states did not necessarily fare much better in the initial stages of the pandemic, most of them eventually adjusted and also launched projects to provide and support COVID-19 countermeasures through development assistance for health in small states. This thesis sets out to analyse whether and to what extent those actions were guided by previously cultivated relations between assistance-providing large states and assistance-seeking small states. The argument put forward is that small states benefit in times of crisis from previously cultivated alignment in accordance with the degree to which they have “taken shelter” – provided by a large(r) state. The operationalisation of this argument is conducted though a mixed-methods research design. At first, composite indicators are devised to proxy for the three dimensions of shelter and to understand which states are providing shelter to small states. Data on arms sales is employed for political shelter, foreign direct investment for economic shelter and students in tertiary education institutions abroad for societal shelter. After having established a baseline for shelterer-shelteree constellations, data on development assistance for health is introduced to identify potential interactions. The analysis unveils tendencies that the suggested causal mechanism might indeed be of relevance, given that for certain small states in the sample, correlations are indicated. Yet, limitations to data availability and the corresponding exclusion of both potential shelter providers and, for certain shelter dimensions, shelter seekers, necessitate that the results have to be seen as a first approximation to capture the effect emanating from the three dimensions of shelter, rather than a conclusive assertion.
Description: M.A. ISSS(Melit.)
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/121457
Appears in Collections:Dissertations - InsSSI - 2023

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