Issues of Small States in the Age of Globalization

Abstract

The twentieth century has been characterized by the rise of nationalism in many parts of the world especially in the countries which lived under socialism and/or communism. Under socialism and/or communism, countries comprising of multi-ethnic groups lived in peace and cooperated and as such decreasing the possibility for any conflict. The collapse of communism and socialism in these countries of the Eastern Europe created opportunities for different forces to mobilize and capture state power mainly because these states turned into ineffective and weakened ones, as was the case with the former Yugoslavia where the ethno-national forces rose and caused ethnic strife and civil war which completely destroyed the society. The question which arises is why? Why did the destruction happen? Being a multiethnic and multinational society of different cultures, languages, history and religions, it entered into a war causing thousands of dead people, thousands of injured, destruction of properties and suffering of the people. Civil war in former Yugoslavia resulted with the partition of Yugoslavia into small independent states. But over the past few years, several changes have exposed difficulties upon these small independent states to recover fully from the harshness of the war: economic crisis, immigration, integration. IN addition, European countries have opened the doors to a new era of development, that of globalization which has been accepted mainly as the free movement of goods, services and people. Thus, this paper will deal with issues that small states face in the age of globalization.