Conceptualising Key Concepts

This chapter offers a summary of key concepts applied in the book. It draws attention to concepts such as population size, state capacity and decentralisation. It points out the key aspects of subnational government and governance theory as well as some of the key drives in the institutionalisation of good governance and local self-government at the local level. The chapter draws attention to the ambiguity and subjectivity of many of the key concepts used to describe and measure subnational governance in small states. The first is ‘smallness’ which is highly relative and context dependent concept. The second is state capacity defined as the ability of individual states to get things done. Scholars and practitioners have not come to a mutual conclusion on where the exact threshold between small and large lies nor on what is the optimal state size needed for states to be able to get things done. This is further complicated by the fact that scholars disagree on if state capacity should be measured on the input or the output side. The chapter puts these discussions into context with scholarly literature on subnational governance and government creating a framework for the examination of subnational government in small states.