Autonomous but not sovereign? : a review of island sub-nationalism

Abstract

This paper hypothesizes that small islands provide a number of lessons in the political economy of development, particularly in the manner in which they enjoy and deploy sub-national jurisdictional leverage. A range of examples illustrates how a number of small island jurisdictions navigate 鈥渁utonomy鈥�: that is, what at face value appears to be the 鈥渓imbo鈥� between sovereignty and dependency, in practice may turn out to be a winning strategy in political economy. A distinction is also made between, on one hand, the utilization or rendering of autonomy as merely a lever for the extraction of larger fiscal transfers or 鈥渞ents鈥� from benevolent sponsors, and, on the other hand, as a driver for increased constitutional discretion, while notionally remaining a sub-national jurisdiction. The concept of sub-nationalism explains the particular combinations of 鈥渟hared rule鈥� and 鈥渟elf rule鈥� that these small territories have secured in the contemporary political scene. In considering the 鈥渃reative politics鈥� of small islands, special attention is given to the five main policy dimensions of their articulation: natural resource management, fiscal policy, freedom of movement of people, air/sea transportation policy, and para-diplomacy.