Small states and new status opportunities: Estonia’s foreign policy towards Africa

ABSTRACT Small states can never take their existence for granted. Due to their smallness and limited resources, they have to find innovative ways to be visible. For small states, one way to compensate is to increase their status. Little attention has been paid to European small states’ foreign policy in Africa. Estonia, a small country with only one embassy on the continent, has begun to build status as an innovative partner of several African countries. This article will look at three ways Estonia, as a small state, has increased its status in Africa despite its limited resources. It has done this by focusing on information and communication technology/e-governance, defence cooperation, and development cooperation. This article tries to answer the question of why Africa is becoming more important to Estonia. Why Estonia, a small state with limited resources, has built its status in an untraditional geographical destination, in Africa in addition to its traditional area of cooperation within Eastern Europe. It will also map out the status flows between Estonia and several African countries and highlight the key variables that enable the successful transfer of status. This article concludes by arguing that Estonian–African cooperation has become a source of mutual status building.