Time: 6:00 - 8:00pm Venue: Room 3.1 Centre for Commercial Law Studies 67-69 Lincoln's Inn Fields WC2A 3JB London United Kingdom
The Centre for Small States hosts the book launch of Democracy in Small States: Persisting Against All Odds (OUP 2018) by Jack Corbett and Wouter Veenendaal is the first ever book-length study of democracy in small states. This covers all 39 states with populations under 1 million.
The book will be presented by the authors, with further discussion by
The launch will be followed by a drinks reception for those in attendance.
About the Authors
Jack Corbett is Professor of Politics at the University of Southampton. His previous books include: Australia’s Foreign Aid Dilemma: Humanitarian Aspirations Confront Democratic Legitimacy (Routledge, 2018), Bearing Witness: Essays in Honour of Brij V. Lal (co-edited with Doug Munro, Australian National University Press, 2017), Being Political: Leadership and Democracy in the Pacific Islands (University of Hawaii Press, 2015) andPolitical Life Writing in the Pacific: Practising Reflection (co-edited with Brij V. Lal, The Australian National University Press, 2015). He has also authored more than 40 journal articles and numerous book chapters. Jack holds honorary appointments at the Australian National University and Griffith University. He is the co-editor of the Topics in the Contemporary Pacific book series (University of Hawaii Press); and the Anti-Politics and Democratic Crisis book series (Routledge); and deputy editor of Small States and Territories Journal.
Wouter Veenendaal is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Leiden University. He is the author of Politics and Democracy in Microstates (Routledge, 2014), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. Wouter is a visiting researcher at the KITLV / Royal Netherlands Institute for Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, and is currently completing his research project "When Things Get Personal: Explaining Political Stability in Small States", funded by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).
Discussants
Godfrey Baldacchino PhD (Warwick), BA (Gen.) (Malta), PGCE (Malta), MA (The Hague) is Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology and Chairman of the Board of the Centre for Labour Studies, both at the University of Malta, Malta. He is founding Executive Editor of Island Studies Journal and incoming Executive Editor of Small States & Territories. He served as Visiting Professor of Island Tourism at the Universita' di Corsica Pascal Paoli, France (2012-2015). In 2014, he was elected President of the International Small Islands Studies Association (ISISA). In June 2015, he was elected Chair of the Scientific Board of RETI, the global excellence network of island universities. Since October 2016, he has served as Pro Rector (International Development and Quality Assurance) at the University of Malta.
His areas of research interest include: island studies, small state studies, political geography, and sociology of work, international relations, island tourism, entrepreneurship, brain rotation, immigration, labour relations, human resource management, adult education, worker empowerment and the development of cooperatives.
Professor Baldacchino has authored or co-authored 22 books, reports and monographs; (co-) edited or guest edited another 27 and has authored, since 1993, over 130 peer-reviewed journal articles or book chapters.
Baldur Thorhallsson is Head and Professor at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Iceland. He is also Jean Monnet Chair in European Studies, and Programme and Research Director at the Centre for Small States Studies at the University of Iceland, which he established in 2002. His research focus is primarily on small state studies, European integration and Iceland’s foreign policy. In 2017, he was the Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London and delivered the Annual Lecture for the Centre for Small States.
Edalina Rodrigues Sanches is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa. Her thesis "Explaining Party System Institutionalization in Africa: From a Broad Comparison to a Focus on Mozambique and Zambia” was awarded best thesis by the Portuguese Political Science Association (2016). Her research interests comprise democratization, political institutions, elections, political parties and party systems and political behavior, with a focus on Africa. She has published in journals such as International Politics, Electoral Studies, Acta Politica, South European Society and Politics, Journal of Asian and African Studies and Análise Social. She is a regular contributor of the Africa Yearbook (Brill) and has recently published Party Systems in Young Democracies: Varieties of institutionalization in Sub-Saharan Africa (Routledge, 2018).