Schwimmende Politeia? Demokratische Mikroinseln im Südpazifik und in der Karibik

Microislands are not a hot spot of comparative government studies. Without good reasons. Surely, from a political perspective Microislands are not of great importance. But such an argument should not prevent researchers from taking a closer look at Microislands. Because they are perfectly designed to broaden our knowledge of the circumstances under which democracies occur and survive. In this paper three assumptions, taken from the rare literature on Microislands, are tested: territorial space, homogeneity and insularity. It can be shown that the geographical as well as the geopolitical position of Caribbean and south pacific microislands posses a high explanatory power for the question why those states are stable democracies.