ABSTRACT
Ireland, according to Article 5 of its constitution, is a ‘sovereign, independent, democratic state’. This assertion of the state’s legal right to conduct its own affairs without outside interference is, however, an inadequate description of the state’s relationship with the rest of the world. Forces of Europeanisation and globalisation have greatly increased Ireland’s interaction with the international system and have embedded the state within it. It makes considerable sense to adapt the terminology often used by economists, and to think of Ireland as a ‘small open polity’.
