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This article explores how members of parliament (MPs) in the small island state of São Tomé & Príncipe (STP) understand the effects of islandness and smallness on their country’s democracy. Drawing on interviews with MPs from all political parties in the National Assembly in 2024, we find broad agreement that smallness and islandness offer certain democratic advantages, particularly by fostering close contact between representatives and voters, which helps MPs respond more directly to constituents’ needs. Yet, this same proximity also brings profound challenges. MPs describe how closeness facilitates corruption, patronage, and vote-buying, while friendship and kinship ties shape appointments to key institutions, undermining the rule of law. Across interviews, MPs repeatedly invoked the expression “Somos Todos Primos” (“We’re all cousins”), a local expression that doubles as a playful rephrasing of the country’s acronym, STP. This phrase captures both the intimacy and the entanglement of political and personal relations that characterize life and democratic governance in São Tomé & Príncipe. Within such a tightly knit society, political decision-making often occurs outside or between formal democratic institutions. Building on these findings, the article advances a theoretical refinement by integrating Putnam’s (1994) work on social capital with Corbett and Veenendaal’s (2018) analysis of small states. We argue that social capital in small island societies may be both particularly potent and unusually fragile. When political leaders use personal ties responsibly, hyper-personalisation can reinforce social trust and contribute to a virtuous cycle of democratic strengthening. When used irresponsibly, however, these same ties undermine social capital and weaken democratic practice.

Theunis Roux’s article about two opposing grand narratives of constitutional transition,the liberal-progressive narrative and the culturalist-decolonial narrative, is a thought-provoking read. Though Roux makes an important contribution as he inspires us to bringthe two narratives into conversation with each other, his essay can also be criticised asa dichotomous interpretation that does not account for an empirical reality that is muchmore complex. Whether or not decolonized countries have constitutions that “reflect thevalues of the Westernised political elites that adopted them” is not the focus of this article,however. Rather, the focus here is to understand the process of making the constitution andparticularly so when the population at large are invited to participate; what has come tobe termed as “participatory constitution-making”. One might wonder how, then, does thisarticle relate to Roux’s ideas of the two different grand narratives, if it does not deal directlywith constitutional content? I argue that the notion of participatory constitution-makingforms part of a liberal-progressive narrative in the sense that the call for broad based participation is strongly advocated by primarily (western) international organizations. I haveelsewhere discussed that the extent to which contemporary constitution-making processeshave been participatory—in the sense of allowing participants to exert influence—widelyvaries between cases. Roux’s article, however, spurs additional thoughts on why certaincases have talked the talk of “participation” but not quite managed to walk the walk. In thispiece, I will focus on a case in the Pacific region—namely Fiji—to elaborate this matter. 

This article explores political dynamics in Cabo Verde, a small island Africanstate. Interviews with members of parliament (MPs) from the two major parties in Cabo Verdeillustrate that their experiences of practicing politics align with those of their counterparts inother small island jurisdictions. Smallness and closeness make it easier for representatives togauge the temperature of the electorate, leading to more appropriate and effective legislation.But closeness, stemming from smallness, also provides fertile soil for friendship corruption andpatronage, especially when it comes to the appointment procedures of anti-corruption agencies.This study also brings new insights to the research field of smallness, islandness and democracy.It shows that Cabo Verdean MPs view islandness as a protecting shield from authoritariantendencies on the continent, facilitating democratic consolidation in their own country.Moreover, it shows that repeated occasions for cross-party dialogue compensate for some ofthe drawbacks of small state politics.  

This article explores how being a small island jurisdiction affects actors in the journalism sector. The media is often referred to as the fourth estate, an institution inherently important for democracy. By scrutinizing politicians, journalists have the possibility to reveal transgressions and provide the public insight into how powerholders are performing as state officials. With this knowledge, the public can make informed decisions as to who will earn their vote in coming elections. This article studies the space for manoeuvre of investigative journalism in a small island state where the interconnectedness of people – journalists, sources, and powerholders – is a fact. It does so by studying the case of Cape Verde, a small island nation with 560 000 residents. Interviews with 12 Cape Verdian journalists from a range of the most important media outlets in the country, reveal that although freedom of expression and freedom of the press are constitutionally guaranteed, there are substantial practical limitations of free journalism. Respondents tell of widespread self-censorship, underfunding, and political interference as aspects that limit the possibility of conducting their work in a manner that would make them the watchdog institution that most of them aspire to and wish they could be.

This article shows that prevailing socio-political norms contribute to a politicalculture of corruption and clientelism in the small island state of St Lucia. Drawing on interviewswith members of parliament and senators, the study brings to evidence how entrenched normsdetermine the room for manoeuvre for these individuals to conduct their work. A politicallandscape has developed in which corruption has taken root, and in which there is neitherpolitical incentive nor will, to come to terms with fraudulent behaviour. The article alsosuggests that, on the few occasions that political representatives have attempted to act againstthis culture, the socio-political costs for the individual have been quite high.  

Freedom House holds that small archipelago states such as Vanuatu, Kiribatiand São Tomé and Príncipe are high-ranking democracies. This article sets out to explore andanalyse how the political systems of these three states function in their everyday practice, andto understand whether the correlation between smallness on the one hand, and democracy onthe other, is borne out in political practice. Our study shows that many processes andprocedures that we associate with that of a liberal democracy are indeed present in the cases.However, we also show that a number of procedures and occurrences that point to the contraryare likewise present. These include issues that pertain to the lack of actual separation of powers,lack of female political representation, friendship corruption, and nepotism. We propose furtherinquiry to increase our understanding as to whether these issues are related to the smallpopulation size of these countries.

While public participation in constitution-making processes has come to be considered as an international norm, its value in enhancing the chances of success of the process in delivering a constitution and ultimately enabling democracy lacks empirical reality. Drawing on existing research and analysis of experiences in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda, the chapter argues that, while important and normatively desirable, public participation should not come at the expense of enabling elite consensus around the most contested institutional issues facing a polity. The chapter also provides a systematic definition and ways of measuring participation, and an assessment of the modalities and framework of analysis for public participation.

This study contributes to the literature on the political consequences of smallness, focusing on the case of Saint Lucia. Interviews with 19 MPs and senators reveal apolitical reality of patronage and corruption that occurs in daily encounters with constituents, but also within formal institutions. The study shows that politicians who habitually grant personal favours to constituents, most times do so because there is a genuine need due to economic hardship. Thus, though it is not their intent to get involved in patronage practices, their actions nevertheless create exactly such practices. When it comes to patronage and corruption within formal institutions, however, MPs and senators are fully aware of its existence. Regardless of political affiliation, they also acknowledge that there is no interest in coming to terms with these occurrences, since the shared sentiment is that keeping the status quo is politically convenient for all parties.

Peace can take many different forms and be expressed in a myriad of different ways that go well-beyond “peace as the absence of war”. Though recent scholarly contributions within this vein of research acknowledge the empirical reality of a variety of “peaces”, we are yet to understand how – methodologically – researchers can go about the endeavor of developing tools that allow us to describe and classify varieties of peace.  Our effort in this paper addresses this knowledge gap. We bring attention to different methods for empirically capturing varieties of peace when peace is approached as a situation, as a relationship or as an idea. Though our purpose is to illustrate a “smorgasbord of methods” for analyzing varieties of peace, we also argue that any effort to approach such an analysis ought to be based on theoretically coherent sets of types. This is so because it will allow the researcher to provide a more nuanced picture of different varieties of peace.

Participatory constitution-building during times of transition from war to peace or from authoritarian to democratic rule is quickly becoming an established norm. This article analyzes and compares two Fijian participatory processes; the 1993–1997 process and the 2012–2013 process. The purpose of doing so is to understand the extent to which these processes were genuinely participatory in terms of extending the Fijians’ possibility of influencing the content of the constitution. The article concludes that these processes were merely symbolic in terms of public participation; that there is not much that public participation can achieve in and by itself; and that the sequencing of public participation and secluded political elite negotiations in the context of constitution-building during times of transition is a field of research that is in dire need of further systematic analysis, particularly as an increasing amount of post-conflict and post-authoritarian states endeavor participatory constitution-building.