Small States, Great Power Theory, and Institutionalized Influence: Pacific Island Diplomacy at the United Nations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54536/jirp.v3i1.6938Keywords:
Climate Diplomacy, Great Power Theory, Institutionalized Power, Small Island States, UN NegotiationsAbstract
Structural realism posits that material capabilities determine influence in international politics, with great powers structuring outcomes while small states adapt to constraints. Small Pacific Island States present a hard case for such expectations. Despite negligible military and economic resources, Pacific members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) achieved procedural and normative outcomes in UN climate governance: explicit recognition in the 1992 UNFCCC, the 1.5°C goal in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the loss and damage funding mechanism at COP27, and the 2025 ICJ advisory opinion on climate obligations. Integrating Barnett and Duvall’s (2005) power taxonomy with Long’s (2017) framework, the analysis demonstrates that institutional and productive power can generate procedural gains under specific conditions: high institutionalization with consensus rules, stark moral asymmetries, long time horizons, and cross-cutting coalitions. Substantive implementation remains constrained by material power asymmetries. The article refines great power theory by specifying domain-specific scope conditions in which institutionalized settings mediate the effects of material power, while acknowledging that small states cannot compel behavioral compliance when vital interests are at stake.
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