ABSTRACT How do small states with limited capacity engage in a complex multilateral environment? This paper uses a case study approach to address this question, based on a thorough analysis of policy documents and more than 70 interviews with practitioners from 9 different countries and sub‐state regions (Finland, Flanders Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Catalonia Spain, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Scotland United Kingdom and Singapore). The paper gathers unique insights into both the policy and practical side of diplomatic strategies in multilateral settings of a relevant cross‐section of small multilateral players. The paper finds that small states primarily tend to adapt their diplomatic strategy in a changing global landscape based on thematic specialization and prioritization and deploy diverse diplomatic instruments to achieve their goals. The paper identifies a number of diplomatic instruments to shed light on how small players apply and sequence these instruments to formulate an overarching thematic strategy to more effectively take part in multilateral processes. Based on this analysis, the paper presents an analytic approach to analyzing the strategies of small states along three dimensions: substantive, procedural and temporal.
Marx et al. (2026) studied this question.