ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on status in International Relations (IR) by making not only great powers, but also a small state the centre of interest. Any general understanding of status in international politics must be based on an approach to the phenomenon in its entirety, and not status as restricted to a narrow set of actors, the great powers. The book is aligned with small-state studies and the comparative foreign-policy literature in its choice of case, but differs in examining a new factor: status. It agrees with neo-realists that size is a systemic trait, but differs from them by focusing on a cultural and hence intersubjective category, namely status seeking. The book argues that the status of a good power, not to say that of the best of the good powers, allows some small states in the small-state myriad to be seen.
