Specialisation in EU small states’ foreign and security policy

The project aims at investigating the process, politics, and consequences of EU small states’ specialisation in foreign and security policy. Employing a comparative method and embedded in the institutionalist theory, it will study the processes of and surrounding debates about specialisation in three EU member states – Austria, Czechia and Portugal. Specialisation has long been identified as a crucial aspect of small states’ success in international politics but there is very limited understanding of how and why small states specialise in particular regions and issues. This project will help fill this gap in the small states scholarship. The research team will produce five peer-reviewed articles during the project’s lifetime.