Dispersed Agency in Global Politics: Reimagining Small States in the Post-International Era

This article develops a systematic account of how small states exercise influence in contemporary world politics by conceptualizing dispersed agency as a configurational capacity emerging from hierarchical positionality, network embeddedness, discursive performativity, and material–ecological affordances. Reframing Rosenau’s post-internationalism as an aspirational horizon rather than a realized condition, the analysis situates small-state agency within a multiplex order where authority is dispersed across overlapping institutional, relational, and normative sites. While hierarchy and material asymmetry persist, small states increasingly assemble distinctive forms of influence through coalition-building, role re-signification, and narrative entrepreneurship. Empirical illustrations from Bhutan’s development diplomacy, Iceland’s gender-equality leadership, and AOSIS’s climate advocacy demonstrate the possibilities and limits of dispersed agency across issue-dense regimes. The article argues that small states offer a critical vantage point for rethinking agency, power, and order in international relations, advancing a more relational, plural, and de-centered theoretical framework.