A Small State? The Size of the Netherlands as a Focal Point in Foreign Policy Debates, 1900–1940

Do small states behave in an appreciably different fashion than their larger counterparts? Social scientists and historians have, for decades, searched for the defining features that set small states apart from larger ones and have come up empty. This analysis suggests that rather than searching for another set of membership criteria, focus should be on the explanatory power of the discourses surrounding the size of states. As this article demonstrates, based on a reading of Dutch international history from the late nineteenth century to the advent of the Second World War, the changing shape of discourses surrounding the “smallness” did historically influence foreign policy practices.