Small State Status Seeking

Benjamin de Carvalho, Iver B Neumann, Benjamin de Carvalho, Iver B Neumann

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317637295
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Politik

Status-seeking is an important aspect of the foreign policies of a number of small states, but one that has been rarely studied. This book aims to contribute to our understanding not only of status-seeking, by coming at that question from a new angle, that of a small state, but also to our understanding of foreign policy, by discussing the importance of status for foreign policy overall.

If status is a hierarchy, then it is important to focus not just on the highest-ranking powers, but also those at lower levels. As the distribution of power is becoming more diffuse, the role of small and medium powers becomes more significant than it was during the Cold war. The book chapters go beyond familiar explications of "soft power" or conflict resolution to highlight new aspects of Norway's foreign policy, including contributions to national defense, global warming, and management of Arctic resources.

This book will be of interest to students and scholarsin areas includingUS Foreign Policy, International Relations and European Politics.

1 The formative years

Norway as an obsessive status-seeker

Halvard Leira¹

DOI: 10.4324/9781315758817-2

Introduction

In March 1864, the Norwegian parliament, the Storting, debated whether the Swedish–Norwegian union should provide military aid to Denmark, at the time under attack from Prussia and Austria. Arguing in favour, Ole Jacob Broch, declared:

It is of particular importance for the smaller states, when they see the need to engage in the strife of other states, to do so steadfastly and decisively. For them, honour and prestige are even more important than for the greater powers.

(St.tid. 1864, p. 21) ²

The very fact of Norway’s smallness was seen as necessitating a focus on acting in a way that could enhance its status. Forty years later, when Norway was seeking full independence from Sweden, the young academic (later minister of foreign affairs) Halvdan Koht argued that Norway should play an active role in the world: ‘although we don’t need to claim honour as a “pioneering people”, we could nonetheless see it as our task to further the development of international law. This is truly the only foreign policy task a small people has’ (Koht 1902c). ³ Immediately after independence he elaborated on this: ‘Peace and justice are the safest guardians for land and people, and the people which adopts peace as its goal will win renown in the history of man’ (Koht 1906, p. 150). Although smallness was seen as reducing the degree of flexibility for foreign policy action, Norway could nevertheless ensure its status through working for peace and peaceful development.

In this chapter I show how status concerns were central to how Norway related to the wider world during the formative nineteenth century: status and identity were inextricably intertwined. ⁴ Further, I indicate how status concerns, particularly related to the pursuit of peace in international relations, have remained the general backdrop for Norwegian foreign policy until this day. In order to substantiate these claims, Norwegian foreign policy must be con-textualized, and the key variable to understand here, in addition to smallness, is the relative recent character of the Norwegian state.

As it deals with a longer historical development, this chapter is organized somewhat differently from the ensuing ones in the present volume. In the next section, a brief historical introduction presents the background to Norwegian status seeking throughout the nineteenth century, including how status concerns were linked to the allocation of resources. This is followed by a general discussion of Norwegian status seeking in that period. The third section provides a more detailed discussion of the relationship between peace activism and status concerns in the years around 1905, and presents some broad developmental traits in Norwegian peace activism. Finally, conclusions are drawn, and the questions raised in the introductory chapter are addressed. Whereas the empirics of this chapter are not in any sense new, a status perspective can bring out new insights. By stressing the autotelic quality of status seeking, it helps to make several actions more understandable, and it highlights the importance of rank within the existing order as well as some of the modes of differentiation at work in the nineteenth-century European system of states.

From absolute status to relative status

Perhaps the most striking development in the international system over the past two centuries has been the increase in the number of independent states. Around 1910, a rough estimate would put the number of sovereign states at or just above 40, with more than half of those states being a result of imperial dissolution in the nineteenth century. By comparison, the UN today has 193 members. Thus, most of the current states are relatively new – and, to put it bluntly, where old and established powers tend to score rather high on both power and prosperity, most new states have little to lose but their status. This goes for both absolute and relative status.

In absolute terms, these new states are states by virtue of having being granted that most basic status of the international system, namely statehood. Relatively speaking, since most new states are notably short on readily available resources, they lack the capability to project power. Whereas they might simply seek to ensure the prosperity of their population, new states are liable to seek relative status as well. Having attained statehood, they desire to gain status within their desired circle of recognition. Some of this status seeking might be solely about status and self-legitimation; and, being more often than not a result of some sort of national mobilization, new states also tend to have a nationalist political agenda, leading to a concern with status-markers of all kinds. However, relative status can also be seen as a substitute for a lack of hard power, as a means to ensure the endurance of the absolute status of statehood. And, being short on power, new states tend to emphasize the second dimension of status-building discussed in the Introduction – moral authority. For new states, such authority has historically often been related to outstanding personalities and/or a perceived moral ‘national character’, typically related to national self-determination, anti-colonialism, and sometimes also democracy and peaceful change.

Newness matters in the case of Norway, as newness created insecurity and repeated attempts at ensuring recognition. Unlike its immediate neighbours, Sweden and Denmark, which had been recognized as independent states for centuries, Norway gained internal sovereignty only in 1814 (when it was detached from the Copenhagen-centred ‘Danish’ empire and forced into an extremely loose union with Sweden) and external sovereignty in 1905. Until well into the twentieth century, Norway was among the poorer countries of (Western) Europe, with few resources and relatively low power. The long period of gestation, coupled with Norway’s relative inferiority compared with Denmark and Sweden, its relative lack of power and the general political importance of nationalism in the era, meant that status became an overriding concern in Norwegian (foreign) politics in the hundred years after 1814, and that status was sought largely through moral authority. The differences in status (understood as position within a hierarchy) between the three Scandinavian states during the nineteenth century also indicate why the process of status seeking took different paths, and why the circles of recognition were not necessarily the same. Norway wanted to be recognized first and foremost as a state among states, whereas Denmark, and even more so Sweden, were concerned with their ranking among other states.

When Norway changed absolute status in 1814, this came about as a result of the Napoleonic wars. Having been part of a Copenhagen-centred empire since 1380, the country was ceded to Sweden as the latter’s share of the spoils. However, before the Swedes could claim Norway, a movement for independence led to a constitutional assembly and a declaration of independence. Although quickly forced into union, the Norwegian state was allowed to retain the institutions established at this 1814 constitutional assembly. Norway and Sweden shared a monarch and external relations, ⁵ but that was the full extent of common institutions. Norway had its own parliament and cabinet, and the king was not entitled to deploy regular Norwegian troops outside of the country without the consent of the Norwegian Storting.

The Swedish king eventually decided that he had been too lenient, and tried to enforce a tighter union, partly through a show of force. The Storting fought off his attempts, in the process becoming preoccupied with retaining and strengthening the position of Norway within the union: in short, the status of Norway. At first, this was largely a question of Norwegian status within the union, but from the 1820s and onwards Norwegian status in relation to other states – or rather, foreign recognition of Norwegian formal equality within the union – started to become more important. The years between 1840 and 1860 were more peaceful, but thereafter an increasingly assertive Storting returned to questions of status, partly in connection with a lengthy struggle over parliamentary government. This period also coincided with stronger nationalism, of a liberal-democratic kind. After a semi-parliamentary government was established in 1884, the union gradually moved towards dissolution, with the focal issue becoming Norway’s desire for greater control over foreign affairs. The key issues were partly related to relative status, within the union and more generally: Norway was demanding a separate consular service, a separate minister of foreign affairs and a separate foreign policy. Separate institutions, as well as the desired foreign policy of trade, neutrality and peace, were deemed to be preferable to remaining in union with Sweden, as well as being economically advantageous. Thus, a focus on relative status and policies that were considered status-bringing was part of a movement for lower state expenditure. The decade leading up to the peaceful dissolution of the union in 1905 saw rising armaments in both countries, and there was real possibility that their differences might have to be settled by force. Nevertheless, the 91 years of the union were by all accounts basically a peaceful period. This was a time when the Norwegian elite was hardly concerned with power as traditionally perceived, but was deeply concerned with achieving greater prosperity and was totally preoccupied by perceived Swedish slights, petty squabbles and endless posturing over symbolic gestures.

Throughout the union period, status was linked above all to the position of Norway within the union. Although this was often expressed in relative terms as a striving for equality, the concern with absolute status was obvious, particularly during the first decades after 1814. The very status of statehood, partly achieved in 1814, was deemed tenuous, so jealously protecting relative status within the union became one way of safeguarding the absolute status. ⁶ A focus on absolute status can be observed when concerns about status were raised in relation with other states as well; making other states respect Norway’s absolute status and increasing its relative status would make it more difficult for Sweden to threaten Norwegian domestic sovereignty. As the perceived threat abated, the focus on relative status within the union changed from being a defence against encroachment to being an offensive weapon in the struggle for greater self-determination, and finally independence. While this section is structured chronologically, in terms of issues we are also moving from key markers of absolute status, like flag and diplomacy, to more prosaic concerns related to relative status, such as nomenclature and salaries.

Safeguarding absolute status (1814–1830s)

Mixed status concerns were apparent in one of the very first – and highly visible – status issues to arise after 1814. This was the question of the flag, and in particular which flag was to be flown on Norwegian ships (Berg 1998). Having a distinct flag was (and is) a clear marker of the state’s status as a state – but, in the first years of the union, for various economic and political reasons, Norwegian ships, potentially the most visible signs of Norwegian statehood abroad, flew either the Swedish or the Danish colours. Seeking to ensure status both abroad and within the union, the Storting settled on a distinct Norwegian flag in 1821, which was gradually incorporated into the merchant marine as well as the regular navy, but not universally until the final dissolution of the union in 1905. The issue was of particular salience due to the ever-growing importance of maritime trade for the Norwegian economy.

The flag issue as such caused no major problems, but the Storting sessions around 1820 were in general tension-filled. The king wanted to reclaim some of the power relinquished in 1814, while a vocal opposition, inspired by radicalism and republicanism, rallied around constitutional reform and patriotic symbolism, among other points. A key issue was how Norway was perceived abroad. A striking example can be found during the 1818 session of the Storting, when representative Pierre Pomeau Flor proposed an address to the king, concerning the rights of Norway in the union and various symbolic issues. Flor proposed that, when dealing with Norwegian matters, the monarch should be titled the King of Norway and Sweden, rather than the other way around, and that the joint diplomatic and consular officers should be instructed to pay sufficient respect to Norwegian independence. Two of the points in the proposed address warrant further notice, as they held that the king should:

seek the recognition of the Norwegian constitution among the powers of Europe, and call to the attention of the foreign courts that the laws and regulations that he puts into effect in Norway are enacted in his capacity as king of Norway [ ... ]

instruct all Norwegian-Swedish [note the order of the names] ministers, agents, consuls, in short all diplomatic personnel abroad, that they themselves should act in concordance with Norwegian independence and that they in future should protest if any act should fail to respect the Norwegian people.

(St.forh. 1818 March, p. 101) ⁷

Flor was concerned that the Norwegian state and the Norwegian people were not accorded due respect and recognition. Even if the gestures were largely symbolic, the concerns are typical of status-seekers when they insist on absolute status. Further, while the explicit concerns were with absolute status abroad, and the specified circle of recognition was the ‘powers of Europe’, the subtext is clearly Norway’s absolute and relative status within the union, with the maintenance of internal sovereignty and the establishment of formal equality.

Around 1830, external matters were again rising on the agenda, in the aftermath of the ‘Bodø issue’, where the arrest of British smugglers in Norway in 1818 had been followed by lackadaisical Swedish diplomacy and payment of Norwegian(!) indemnities in 1821. Even if the material loss through indemnities was substantial, the Storting was almost exclusively concerned with the loss (or lack) of status. When the issue was first broached in some detail in 1824, representative Arnoldus Schytte stressed how it touched on ‘the honour, security and comfort of the nation’, as well as its pride and reputation (St.forh. 1824 July, p. 427). The status concerns were twofold. Firstly, the B...