Citation

Coop. Confl. 2011; 46(3): 415.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Nordic Committee for the Study of International Politics, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0010836711421422

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Panke, Diana (2011) 'Small States in EU Negotiations: Political Dwarfs or Power-Brokers?', Cooperation and Conflict 46(2): 123-143, DOI: 10.1177/0010836711406346The article 'Small States in EU Negotiations: Political Dwarfs or Power-Brokers?' published in the June issue features a regression table with two models only in the part 'testing the country-level explanations'. Instead it should feature six models that control for the staff and the budget of Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFA),1 since well-equipped central coordinating institutions could in theory influence the speed to which national positions are developed, thereby increase the level of negotiation activity. The quantitative (models 2, 5) and the qualitative empirical analysis show that the budget of MFAs does not influence the level of negotiation activity. MFA staff seems to speed up the development of national positions as a precondition for active participation in negotiation (models 1, 4). However, most interviewees stress the importance of efficient and strong MFAs, but do not directly link this to the number of staff working in MFAs and a closer look reveals that staff and GDP/votes are correlated. Thus, strong evidence that staff numbers of MFAs as the central coordinating institutions systematically translate into more swiftly developed positions is lacking.