Look at Australia's dependence on Great Britain from 1901-42 for its security. When Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942, Britain could not assist Australia. Australian Prime Minister, John Curtin turned to the US for assistance. Since that time Australia has been a close ally and friend of the US. Hope this helps.

I'd say those distinctions are driven by theory as well as ideology... Difficult to see any *objective* criteria that would apply everywhere. Poland's bandwagoning with the U.S. will be seen as an alliance by the Polish political mainstream, whereas the U.S. might in its rhetoric describe Poland as a junior partner, while Russian analysts would see this as a clientelistic relationship, and the Polish radical left will perceive Poland as an American colony. I'd be interested to see other people's takes on that issue.

Dear Pavol, a very inciting issue.

Being yourself a researcher of WWII history, you well know the events that lead to Slovakia becoming the "Führer's most loyal servant." In fact Hitler once told Ribbentrop that "it is amazing how that little priest President Jozef Tiso (he used the demeaning word "Priesterchen") is "delivering" to the Reich his Jews."

Was the first Slovak Republic an ally, junior partner, client or colony of Berlin?

In the beginning Hitler did not trust the Slovaks. In fact he hated Slav people, but the alliance with Slovakia had several advantages. With the Czech betrayed in Munich and invaded in March 1939, the hellgates to Moscou started opening. Of course the Czechs would not cooperate, but Hitler well knew that offering the Slovaks independence, he would easily swallow the future Protectorate and as a side bonus, open, through the Carpathians, the southern passage to invade Russia. Thus the price was minimal to obtain such a strategic advantage.

Still suspicious, Hitler demanded a formal statement of alliance, so in November 1940  Ribbertrop invited Premier Tuka to Berlin and along a ostentatious dinner he signed an alliance agreement with the 3rd Reich, in which the Slovak government wowed undying loyalty to the Nazis. Not much later the Slovaks were forced to participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union, where they performed pitifully.

Thus, instead of a real ally, in battlefield Slovakia became a junior partner.

Client it became when after the Salzburg Mandate, President Tiso was forced to accept a sizeable number of German "counselors" who from there on practically ruled the country. Even if, to save Tiso's face, Berlin kept spreading the mendacity that the Slovak State was absolutely independent. This cost Tiso the burden to tolerate Tuka's plotting and made him accept Wisliceny, the 'specialist" sent by the Reich to see through to the Jews deportations in 1942.

Last but not least, in 1944, when the Slovak National Upraising broke out and the SS and Wehrmacht invaded Slovakia, for about 8 months Slovakia was not only a colony of Germany but also a pawn in the hands of the Nazi Army, while it was breaking (and killing) the Czech-Slovak revolutionaries.

Could Tiso's Slovakia be called a "small partner?" IMO, nay. It was from the beginning a courtesan amusing his King-Master, expecting His Majesty's graces.

Tiso and Tuka paid with their lives this 3rd-class comedy of political friendship.

My modest suggestion about possible variables.

Economically, a junior (clientedge etc.) quality of a trade partner can be measured by  the ratio between their bilateral exchange shares. The more the A share of the total B turnover surpasses the B share of the A trade, the more likely B is a dependent partner. This normally correlates with a smaller economic role of B in comparison with A, but also may vary under the influence of political factors and foreign trade prices, etc.

Very interesting question - coming from another small state, Mongolia.  

By 1911, as the Manchu-rule Qing Dynasty collapsed, Mongolian elites were divided on a few options:  (1) united, independent Mongolia, (2) continue to be separated as Inner and Outer Mongolia, and, (3) ally with Imperial Russia to secure its independence.  

Religious and political elites of Outer Mongolia sought assistance from the Imperial Russia while Russia was secretly dividing up its sphere of influence with China as it weakened due to its difficulty in 1915-1917.  

However, Mongolia's continued call for the support from Russia.  In 1920s, Lenin and others saw Mongolian elites' call as a way to spread the communist ideology and to use Mongolia as a launchpad for reaching out Asia, esp., East Turkestan, Tibet, and of course, China.  So, Moscow helped Mongolia to become the first Asian communist state in 1921, but for Mongols, this means the sovereignty and Soviet protection from China. 

1936-1939, Stalin saw Mongolia from more geo-strategic angle - and invested heavily to deter the Japanese expansion into Siberia.  Mongolia became an important ally and Stalin helped get de-facto recognition of Mongolia from Japan.  

The Yalta agreement of 1945 was another interesting point, where the Soviets included the recognition of Mongolia's sovereignty as a conditions for the US to violate its armistice (of 1940) with Japan and to launch its military campaign.  This is an example how a small power could use its powerful ally (Russia) to strengthen its international recognition.  The USA was reluctant because of Chiang Kai Shek, but the US administration secretly made a deal to recognize the Mongolia's independence at Yalta and informed Chiang afterwards.

In 1960s and 1970s, Mongolia used the Sino-Soviet split to get more assistance from the USSR in return for hosting its large military presence.  It gets the UN membership with the help from Soviets.  

Now democracy and peacekeeping serve as a way to strengthen its sovereignty from both Beijing and Moscow.  I am working on my dissertation project, but I am really fascinated discovering the role of key individuals in the Great Power and moves/initiatives of a small power to make that connections.  

Without Secretary of State James Baker (his personal interest and involvement) in regards to Mongolia's democracy and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld (his personal interest and involvement) getting Mongolia involved in the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mongolia would not be in the US foreign policy radar.  Even though Mongolia's relations with US is not that important, high-ranking visits of Bush or others to Mongolia send strong signal to Moscow and Beijing.  

I don't know how you would approach this interesting research, but you should pay attention to roles of charismatic elites and small states' desire in specific geopolitical  environment.  I would guess all small powers want to survive; therefore, it needs pursue a deft, pragmatic diplomacy.  

Good luck, 

mendee

This is a very complicated question, and ultimately subjective in nature.   I have written on US "patron-client" relations and it is a thorny problem.   But here goes.   The term "client" connotes more than just dependence in some generic sense.  In some vague sense a "patron" is somehow responsible for a "client's" well-being, or even continued existence, that it is not in other asymmetrical allied relations.   So it is a matter of degree, and, more importantly, a matter of perception: from the "patron," the "client," and the international world.   Like the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, when asked to define pornography, at some level we just "know it when we see it."   Not very helpful intellectually, but I think that is the way it is actually done in the diplomatic world.

My own interest was/is in the reciprocal, mutually dependent relations in "patron-client" diplomacy.   American sociologists used to make the distinction between "fate control" and "behavior control."   Intuitively, if a "client" (usually erroneously called "puppet" by its critics) is dependent on its "client" for its "fate" (i.e., its continued existence in current form) the "client" should have a good deal of leverage over it, that is, "fate control" should lead to "behavior control."   The problem is that it almost never does.   What I found was quite the opposite, the more committed the "patron" was to the "client," and the more other states saw it as such, the more leverage the "client" has over the "patron."   In other words, in allied relations there is a significant "power of the weak," the tail wagging the dog, whatever metaphor you like.  I found that this is in the nature of the commitment relationship of any number of Great Powers (the USSR had the same problem with some of its clients, most notably North Vietnam, Egypt, and Cuba.)   We live in the postcolonial world.  These "clients" are not colonies and one cannot treat them as such.  This gives them a leverage which is frustrating in the "patron" and little understood among the public, or in the academic literature.   How does one punish, or even credibly threaten to punish, a weak "client" without risking collapse of the "client" government or of the relationship itself (e.g., Egypt's realignment with the US?)   

I was and am interested in how the US tried to push for democratic reforms in "clients" while futilely trying to gain leverage to do so.   In my 1992 book, which was my Columbia University dissertation, I looked at three "clients" in the US experience: US-China (1946-1949); the Philippines (1948-1953); and, Vietnam (1960-1963.)   I posited that China and Vietnam were failures in leverage bargaining, while the Philippines was a success.  It was published by Harvard in 1992 as  "Adventures in Chaos: American Intervention for Reform in the Third World" if you are interested.  I would write it differently, and more pessimistically, today, but it has stood up pretty well, I think.

Hope this was helpful.

Doug Macdonald

Ooops.  The following sentence in my previous post:

Intuitively, if a "client" (usually erroneously called a "puppet" by its critics) is dependent on its "client" for its fate (i.e., its continued existence in current form) the "client" should have a good deal of leverage over it, that is, "fate control" should lead to "behavior control."

should instead read:

Intuitively, if a "client" (usually erroneously called a "puppet" by its critics) is dependent on its "PATRON" for its fate (i.e., its continued existence in current form) the "PATRON" should have a good deal of leverage over it, that is, "fate control" should lead to "behavior control."

Obviously this changes things a little bit :)

Doug

I FOUND THIS INTERESTING, USEFUL, AND THOUGHT PROVOKING. PLEASE READ IF YOU HAVE TIME. 

Higher education in the 21st century

Meeting real world demands

Source: http://www.economistinsights. com/leadership-talent- innovation/analysis/higher- education-21st-century/ casestudies

============================== ============================== =========

These are unnerving times for higher education worldwide.

After a four-decade rise in global demand, universities are grappling

with powerful forces colliding at once: reduced government support,

rising public skepticism about the value of a degree, increased

institutional competition and the emergence of disruptive technology.

Adding to these pressures is a seismic shift in global demographics.

Demand for higher education is levelling off in North America and

Europe compared to “huge unmet demand” in emerging markets,

according to a September, 2013 forecast by the London-based

Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. In the United States, the

number of high school students is not expected to peak again until

2021, according to the National Centre for Education Statistics, creating

excess capacity. By contrast, India will account for one-quarter of

18-22 year olds by 2020, predicts the United Nations, with insufficient

university seats to serve them.

By 2020, about 200 million young people worldwide will have degrees

-- 40 per cent of them elite and middle class students from China and

India -- according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and

Development (OECD). By 2025, the number of those travelling abroad

for a degree could double from today’s estimate of 4.3 million students.

In response, universities are eager to raise their global profile to ensure

their long-term financial viability and create a sustainable business

model. Public institutions that once relied on government funding and

tuition hikes for revenue now are turning to social media, online learning

and new credentials to make their mark with international students.

“It’s always been about prestige and reputation,” says University of

Toronto professor of higher education Glen Jones. “Now with global

competition and new media, reputation simply becomes increasingly

important and rankings play into that.” With business models in flux,

adds Jones, “part of the answer is to find other sources of revenue,

which is why reputation becomes such a big factor.”

With ranking-conscious elite universities intent on holding on to their

place in the top echelon, middle-ranked institutions will have no easy

time climbing the ladder.

“It is very uncertain terrain with serious competition on a worldwide

scale,” says Francisco Marmelejo, lead tertiary education specialist

at the World Bank. “There will be significant disruption in the way

higher education operates and will operate... this is a trend that is

unavoidable.”

Using new tools

Historically, universities relied on exchanges of students and faculty to

build their overseas profile. Over the past decade, some institutions

have added smaller-scale online programmes and built overseas branch

campuses (there are now at least 200 worldwide), with mixed success.

“There is a history of schools going into countries and a few years

later pulling out,” says Andrew Crisp of CarringtonCrisp, a Londonbased

education marketing consulting firm. “It is pushing schools to

look at more modern methods of raising the brand rather than bricks

and mortar.”

At a minimum, “modern methods” translate to smartly designed

websites delivering key messages to a target audience.

The University of Buffalo (UB), which ranks among the top 20 US

institutions for international enrolment, recruits 17% of its 28,000

students from abroad with the help of its site. UB pioneered a “high

touch” strategy in the late 1980s that relied on face-to-face meetings

with prospective students, and even today is one of a few publicly

funded state institutions that travel overseas to meet students and

families at recruitment fairs. However, it now competes with scores of

schools from the US, the UK, Australia and Canada, says Steven Shaw,

assistant vice-provost and director of international admissions.

To bolster its face-to-face pitch, the university has revamped its

website after spending a year researching what prospective students

value most—a safe and welcoming campus, personal connections

and a globally-enriched curriculum. “It is not your grandmother’s

website,” says Rebecca Bernstein, UB’s director of strategy and online

communications. “It is filled with information based on research and

needs that will close the deal on international recruiting.”

Schools have also been using social media platforms such as Facebook,

Twitter and LinkedIn to help them tailor messages to prospective

candidates. Increasingly, students themselves are enlisted as virtual

ambassadors to sell peers on their institution, responding to granular

questions and sharing information based on their own experience.

“We now have the technology that allows broader conversations

than we have ever been able to have, and that requires paying a lot

more attention to the conversation,” says Michael Stoner, president of

mStoner, a US higher-education marketing and branding consultancy.

On social media, the university initiates a conversation to send out

official messages to its target audience while students use the same

sites to talk to peers for informal insights on the institution.

“Everything is connected,” says Stoner. “If you are telling kids from

China that you are a welcoming community, you had better be able to

demonstrate that,” he says. “It is easy enough for students to find out

without visiting the campus because they can access social media and

find other Chinese students to see what is their experience.”

The MOOC method

Many institutions of higher learning believe that Massive Open Online

Courses (MOOCs) offer a promising way to polish their reputation for

innovation and grow beyond their geographical boundaries. Since 2012,

these free and mostly non-credentialed courses have attracted more

than six million students from around the world.

But the jury is out on MOOCs, not least because their designers have

yet to develop a sustainable business model. Despite the “wow”

factor of tens of thousands of students signing up for a single MOOC,

participation and completions are low, according to early evaluations.

And contrary to initial forecasts, a July 2013 survey by the University of

Pennsylvania found that the majority of those who signed up for a MOOC

already had a college degree. In developing countries, participants were

more affluent and better educated than the general population.

Still, a number of small and mid-size institutions see the potential to

secure a following by offering specialty courses in a MOOC format or to

embed them as part of on-campus campus-based and online courses.

The first wave of MOOCs helped to burnish the reputations of the top

universities, and institutions continue to use the online courses to

promote their brands. Britain’s Open University, with a 40-year history

of distance learning, established Future Learn last year as the first UK

MOOC platform, working with more than 20 top UK universities, the

British Council, the British Library and the British Museum. “Universities

see themselves as global players,” says Mike Sharples, academic lead

for Future Learn. “They want to show the world the quality of their

teaching and learning material to attract students to degree courses.”

The University of Alberta, a top-five Canadian institution, invested

US$314,000 in a high-production value MOOC to build awareness of its

international reputation in paleontology research. The course attracted

20,000 participants when it started in September 2013. “As long as the

MOOC is aligned with that [reputational strategy], it clearly gives us a

way to talk about the U of A that we didn’t have before,” says Debra

Pozega Osburn, vice-president for university relations for U of A. “Now

we have several thousand people all over the world who know the

university and didn’t before.”

A number of universities are moving beyond using MOOCs to build

their brand awareness by creating programs to convert leisure MOOC

learners into enrolled students. Earlier this year, the University of

London (with 54,000 online learners and 70,000 on campus) offered

four MOOCs through Coursera, attracting 210,000 registrants from more

than 160 countries. Five more are scheduled for 2014. “If we can convert

some of those students and make them aware of [our] international

programmes, then that is a business model that makes sense to us,”

says Michael Kerrison, director of academic development for University

of London International Programmes.

MOOCs may become an integral part of higher education, but some

question their staying power. “It is way too soon to tell,” says Allan

Goodman, president of the US Institute for International Education. “I

would have expected MOOCs to be taking campuses by storm and they

aren’t yet.” But what they have done, unreservedly, is raise the profile of

online learning in an international context.

Credentialing and affordability

In the hunt for sustainability, some schools are mixing the MOOC format

with more traditional courses, offering selective programs at the graduate

level. Georgia Institute of Technology, an Atlanta-based university

ranked 25th in the world by the Times Higher Education allows MOOC

students to earn a Master level computer science degree. The program

is priced at US$6,630, one-third the cost of the on-campus degree. For

the initial cohort, Georgia accepted 400 students from more than 2,300

applications, with a goal of 10,000 students over three years.

MOOCs have grabbed the headlines, but other strategies are gaining

traction to bring higher education within reach to a wider cohort of

learners. One way is to “unbundle” credentials in bite-size pieces of

learning, with specific competencies recognized through digital badges,

certificates and other forms of accreditation.

In 2014, the University of Arizona’s Eller School of Management plans

to offer three non-degree online “Specialisations” based on content

from the school’s top-ranked, on-campus programmes in management

information systems, entrepreneurship and strategic digital marketing.

Aimed at those seeking job-ready skills, the new Specialisations

represent a concentration of relevant knowledge in high-demand

fields, with a student required to take three certificate programs, each

comprised of three one-month online courses.

“This is the iTunes version of higher education,” says Joe Valacich, Eller’s

director of online initiatives. “We have to create very small learning

modules and have them done well. The students have to find them to

be of great value,” he says of the university’s strategy. “It’s about reach.

The idea that we could have hundreds of thousands of students globally

all being U of A alumni is mind-blowing.”

Dear Pavol,

As to literature, I guess you are familiar with Glenn Snyder's article about alliance dilemmas. In my view, the main variables you need, if you wish to explain change, is tension (conflict) between the great powers. You might read my article 'Tension between the Strong and the Strategies of the Weak' from Journal of Peace Research, vol. 28(2) 1991, 217-231 (in all modesty:)), based on Nordic evidence. As also pointed out by Rothstein, when tension between the great increases, the weak will experience an added importance (influence), but at the same time increased vulnerability. So it is a double-edged sword! This is especially the case, if the small possesses a strategic location or strategic goods of some sort. Please contact me, if you have further questions ([email protected]).

Best wishes, Hans

First it need to have a geo-strategic  position that is in the  area of interest of the great power.Preferably on the edge of another competitive power.

Secondly may be the natural resources that small power have. 

Dear all,

Thank you for your responses. It is very interesting to see how different they can be. This is something what I especially value about ResearchGate: it channels both expertise and diversity of expertise.

@Tony: Reasons why states decide for a change of their primary strategic partners were not in focus of my question, let alone any particular change. These reasons tend to be rather obvious. For example, Norway had a superbly close security relationship with Britain in 1945. By 1947 it has become evident that London is no longer capable of fullfiling the its former role (cf. Corelli Barnett´s work), the Norwegians simply redirected accross the Atlantic.

@Kacper: So the whole thing is not about consensus, it´s about perceptions. I bet it is. There we get two sets of perceptions, since each partner has his own lens? Thanks for reminding me to ask about who is assessing.

@Tom: Thanks for bringing dynamics and control mechanisms in! The case of Slovakia is, in my opinion, quite illustrative – although, I assume, one could still argue about nuances.

@Mr. Treivish: Thanks! This sounds reasonable, but what about indicative levels

@Mendee: Thank you for reviewing Mongolia´s case for me. (Btw., guys, I find it with a little irony that we discuss Mongolia, or Australia as small states here). So strategic value may outplay other resources and gain higher status for the smaller power to such an extent that it may be promoted from a client to an ally. – Btw., I remember that back in the early 1920 a Czech Communist served as Comintern delegate in Outer Mongolia. Shall check details, it´s been years now I read the book and I remember the name was maimed seriously.

@Douglas: Here we are in the „perceptions road“ again. This seems very sound to me. Thanks for reminding me of „the power of the week“. Sure, there are quite many episodes in history when the junior partner succeded to „punch above its weight“ and secure gains.

@Hans: Sure I know Snyder´s article, but it´s been a while and, I think, it´s high time to read it again. Thanks for directing me to your article. I definitely should browse JPR more often! As an Europeanist, I keep thinking about two small states regions that have experienced those Ianus-faced reality you indicate: Central Europe and Scandinavia.

Many thanks, dear colleagues!

All the best,

Pavol  

I think is based on ideology and political leadership. States with same ideology tend to exhibit patron-client relationship. e.g Russia and Cuba or China and North Korea. Moreover, there is the tangible element in terms of leadership some times policies among states tend to change immediately when there is power alternation in another country or level of regional or global alliance. It is worth studying Pavo.