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Shelter Theory

Jan 07, 2024, 5 min read

Shelter Theory

  • Close to bandwagoning
  • Relative importance of multilateralism over bilateralism for small states

What is Shelter Theory? 1

  • The Shelter Theory: small states require the help of big states to survive
    • Political Shelter: direct and visible diplomatic or security protection by a powerful state, IO, and organizational rules and norms.
    • Economic Shelter: direct or indirect financial assistance provided by a powerful state or IO.
    • Societal Shelter: adding of foreign people (from powerful states) to small states
      • to avoid social stagnation: only cultural diversity could push societal development
      • make up for limited knowledge base.
  • Cost of Shelter: small states don’t always only get benefits
    • Sacrifice control over natural resources
    • Sacrifice freedom of political control

Small States Shelter 2

  • Theories of Alliances

    • George Liska’s consideration was one of the first to consider the question of why states align.
    • Paul Schroeder has developed the concept of alliance management. For Schroeder, alliances are formed to oppose a threat, but once formed, provide states with a ‘tool of management’ over its partners.
    • Kenneth Waltz seminal work produced two major contributions to alliance theory.
      • First, great powers seek to balance against capabilities, rather than against conceptions of ‘power’.
      • Second, he introduced the concept of alliance bandwagoning.
    • Stephen Walt has amended Waltz’s argument in two major ways.
      • First, states balance against threat to the state rather than capabilities.
      • Second, Walt develops Waltz’s concept of bandwagoning, arguing that it can occur both for offensive and defensive reasons.
    • Glenn Snyder’s study of alliance creation and management reviews the complexities and myriad forms of balancing behavior.

  • Small states, throughout history, have been obliged to acknowledge their limitations.

    • Therefore, to survive in the international system, they have two broad options — an internal one and an external one.

  • Alliance shelter theory differs from traditional alliance theories in six ways

    1. Shelter theory rejects the basic assumption of neorealism that all states are ‘functionally undifferentiated’ units that face the same task in the international system.
    2. The traditional theories neglect the domestic incentives behind small states’ alignment with larger states.
    3. Small states benefit disproportionately from international cooperation compared with large states.
    4. Small states need political, economic and societal shelter to flourish.
    5. Social and cultural relationships with the outside world are important for a small state.
    6. Shelter may come at a significant cost for the small state.

Case Study of Sheltered States

  • Other cases of Sheltered Countries
    • Cuba
    • Armenia
    • Singapore

Iceland

  • Iceland’s shelter seeking behavior
    1. Iceland started by turning to the European Union for assistance.
    2. Iceland also sought to strengthen its ties with NATO: contribute to NATO funds, and participate in its missions
    3. Iceland has made civil security agreements, mainly concerning its water, with Denmark, Norway, Britain, and Canada.
    4. Increased security co-operation among the Nordic states is significant to Iceland.
    5. Icelandic politicians have also looked to non-traditional sources for support, namely China and Russia.

1. US’s shelter for Iceland 1

  • US been shelter for Iceland and maintained its prosperity since WW2 to 2006
    • Iceland is a geostrategic position for the US
  • Main shelter components
    1. US being in NATO basically means Iceland is in NATO: Iceland reversed from neutrality to alignment with West due to coup nearby
    2. Iceland prospered under US-dominated IO system: Iceland is backed by US in negotiations for favorable trade agreements and access to loans (World Bank, IMF)
    3. Iceland’s strategic importance to US, caused US and NATO help Iceland win the Cod Wars
    4. US extensive economic shelter to Iceland: account for 2-5% of Iceland’s GDP
    5. US transferred norms, ideas, lifestyle to Iceland. US became attractive for higher education for Icelanders.
  • US left in 2006: closed military bases and refused to help Iceland’s economic collapse in Global Financial Crisis, even as it helped other states
    • Bilateral defense agreement is still in place. US still expands military presence due to Russian activity in North Atlantic
    • why did US leave?
  • Impacts
    • Education

2. Europe sheltered Iceland

  • Economic Shelter: Membership of European Free Trade Area (EFTA), and European Economic Area (EEA) ⇒
    • modernize Iceland’s economy
    • access to EU markets.
  • Societal shelter: higher education in EU universities, research, funds, and other innovation areas.
  • Free Movement in EU: Membership of the Schengen Area => police collaboration => enhance border security.

3. Nordic Cooperation Sheltered Iceland

  • Economically, sheltered through common Nordic labor, sharing arrangement.
    • Freely travel, work, reside in any Nordic country
  • Partial political shelter through diplomatic support, and other soft security shelter
  • Societal shelter: modelling social policies of Nordic countries as a welfare system and other areas of legislation. Accessing to higher education in Nordic countries.

References 3

Footnotes

  1. Thorhallsson, B. (2019). Shelter theory and Iceland: An option for small states. Middle East Insight, No.218, pp.1-5. ↩ ↩2

  2. Bailes, A. J., Thayer, B. A., & Thorhallsson, B. (2016). Alliance theory and alliance ‘Shelter’: the complexities of small state alliance behavior. Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal, 1(1), pp.9-26. ↩

  3. Thorhallsson, B., Steinsson, S., & Kristinsson, T. (2018) A theory of shelter: Iceland’s American period (1941–2006). Scandinavian Journal of History, 43(4), pp.539-563 ↩

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