PHYSICAL MULTIPARTITISM AND THE INTERNAL POLITICAL MORPHOLOGY OF MICROSTATES

Very small states have appeared in relatively large numbers in the past two decades. Many of these are either wholly or partly insular and consist of discrete areal segments. Microstates are defined as those states with less than one million population. Multipartite states are defined as those in which at least 5 percent of the territory is physically separated from the main body. There are nineteen multipartite microstates at present, which are subject states for the study: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bahrain, Cape Verde, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Grenada, Kiribati, Maldives, Malta, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Western Samoa. Two thrusts are developed: (1) the description of first order administrative subdivisions of the subject states; (2) the testings of hypotheses concerned with area, population, fragmentation, and dispersion, relating to the existence and number of subdivisions. Much literature is available on subdivisions, microstates, area, population, and physical characteristics of states, which treats these topics systematically. However, little analytic work is available which applies these systematic topics to actual data manifested by states. In order to test the posited hypotheses, two measures are derived: a fragmentation index and a dispersion ratio. Criteria for the application of these measures are established. Testing of the hypotheses yields the following results. Among the subject states: (1) no areal threshold exists for the formation of administrative subdivisions; however, a high correlation exists when area of states is considered ordinally; (2) no population threshold exists for the formation of administrative subdivisions; however, a moderate correlation exists when population of states is considered ordinally; (3) there is no significant relationship between area and number of subdivisions; (4) there is a significant relationship between area and number of subdivisions; (5) there is no significant relationship between degree of dispersion and number of subdivisions. Measures of fragmentation, dispersion, and other physical characteristics may be applied to variously defined groups of microstates, or indeed to any territorial entities.