ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a recapitulation of the findings, and pays attention to the differences and similarities in terms of contestation and inclusiveness between the four analyzed cases. After that, the implications of the findings for the debate about the relation between size and democracy, the discussion on the merits of decentralization, and the effects of representative democratic structures in microstates are discussed. Finally, the value of the qualitative, comparative methodological approach in examining the characteristics of politics and democracy in microstates is underscored. The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of smallness on politics and democracy. With regard to the first sub-dimension, which measures the presence of political alternatives and a political opposition, in all four countries a tendency to personalistic instead of programmatic contestation was found, as a result of which the number of substantive, ideological, and programmatic political alternatives is inherently limited.
