Governmentality is All the Rage: The Strategy Games of Small Jurisdictions

Abstract

This paper discusses the contemporary sovereignty experience of small states and territories in the context of unfolding ‘strategy games’. This paper charts and illustrates some of the most salient issues over which this dynamic is played out, using binary (small state versus big state) relations as its analytic constituency. These practices are understood as part of the evolution of the conduct of government, or governmentality, as envisaged by Michel Foucault: states, no longer concerned with threats to their very existence, can flex their clout extra-territorially, and in so doing provide new and creative opportunities, but also raise threats, for the exercise of sovereignty.