Determinants of Bilateral Cooperation of Small States in Contemporary International Relations: From the Neorealist Perspective of Politics and Security – A Case Study: Serbia and North Macedonia

Abstract

Bilateral relations of small states represent a very limited field in academic debates and research within the science of international relations. In fact, there is a lack of research and relevant debates on what the determinants and factors of bilateral relations are between small states and how much those factors contribute to promoting it on one hand, while, on the other, how much same factors condition that cooperation, and, finally, how much small states independently determine and define their bilateral relations in their foreign policy activities. In this paper, using the example of bilateral relations between Serbia and North Macedonia in the period of the last ten years, the authors will try to answer the following main research question: What is the basis of the bilateral cooperation between Serbia and North Macedonia and what is its perspective? On those grounds, they will also answer the following questions: To what extent is this cooperation conditioned by internal political circumstances in either country; to what extent is this cooperation determined by regional circumstances; how much is it influenced by the so-called “major actors” in international relations; and, finally, to what extent is it actually a consequence of the sovereign decisions of the authorities in Belgrade and Skopje? With this methodological order of research questions, from the general to the individual in the theoretical sense through the prism of realists and structural realists, the authors will establish the perspective of bilateral relations between small states within the framework of the actual circumstances of international relations.