Abstract

This study examines the paradox of “sovereignty through interdependence”: can an increase in the number of external ties expand a state’s autonomy when dependencies are distributed across multiple centers and mutually constrain the possibility of unilateral pressure? The empirical basis consists of the provided seven-dimensional Burke Index profiles for Mauritius and Montenegro. The Index is treated not as a ready-made measure of emergent sovereignty, but as a map of initial resources that must be converted into strategic capacity through seven mechanisms: Conversion, Dependence Architecture, Alternatives, Reversibility, Boundary, Second-Order, and Reproductive Sovereignty.

Mauritius scores 468.2 out of 700, compared with Montenegro’s 395.9, an arithmetic gap of 72.3 points. Yet this advantage does not by itself demonstrate a proportionately higher level of sovereign agency. Mauritius combines trade regimes involving the EU, Africa, India, China, and other partners, while its tourism, investment, and security still contain concentrated nodes of dependence. Montenegro is formally connected to the EU, NATO, the euro, regional markets, Chinese infrastructure financing, and capital from several countries; however, European integration is increasingly transforming multiple dependence into a hierarchical structure. The decisive indicator is therefore not the number of ties, but their functional independence, substitutability, and compatibility.

The central finding is that Mauritius displays a more developed portfolio architecture of dependencies and a greater capacity to convert external regimes into economic and diplomatic resources. Montenegro possesses important mechanisms of reversibility—the currency hedge on its Chinese highway loan is the clearest example—but its room for strategic switching narrows as it moves closer to the EU. At the same time, a reduction in foreign-policy alternatives does not necessarily imply a decline in sovereignty: if relinquishing some options is accompanied by participation in rule-making, collective security, and institutional reproduction, dependence can be converted into joint governance.

1. Research Puzzle

Classical resource logic assumes that dependence reduces autonomy: imports, external financing, foreign technologies, and security guarantees give the supplier leverage. Emergent logic requires distinguishing the existence of dependence from its architecture. One state may have five external partners, each controlling a separate irreplaceable function; another may have three partners capable of substituting for one another in every critical function. In the second case, there are fewer ties, but greater sovereign capacity.

Mauritius and Montenegro constitute a “most-different systems” comparison while sharing the characteristics of small open states. Mauritius lies at the intersection of African, Indian Ocean, European, and Asian networks. It participates in the African Union, SADC, COMESA, the Indian Ocean Commission, IORA, the Commonwealth, La Francophonie, and the Group of 77, creating multiple diplomatic arenas for coalition maneuvering. Montenegro is embedded primarily in the Euro-Atlantic architecture while maintaining economic ties with Serbia, Turkey, Russia, China, and other external centers.

The proposition tested is not that “the more dependencies, the better,” but a narrower conditional claim: multiplicity increases emergent sovereignty when dependencies are substitutable, are not correlated during crises, are not locked in by excessive sunk costs, and are managed by the state as a single portfolio.

2. Data and Method

The initial scores are used as provided for this study. The seven dimensions are interpreted as potential capacities rather than independent outcomes. Political resources may increase creditor confidence; cognitive resources may supply the expertise required for negotiation and hedging; informational resources may reveal concentration; cultural resources may establish legitimate boundaries; technological resources may reduce switching costs; and military resources may determine the need for external protection. The same score therefore acquires different significance depending on its relationship to the other dimensions.

A common causal chain is applied to each state:

1. Conversion Sovereignty (CS): Are external ties, institutions, and domestic resources converted into genuine freedom of action?
2. Dependence Architecture Sovereignty (DAS): Are critical functions distributed across independent channels, or are they covertly concentrated?
3. Alternative Sovereignty (AS): Are there ready-to-use, rather than merely formal, substitutes for partners, markets, and instruments?
4. Reversibility Sovereignty (RS): Can the state change course without unacceptable financial, legal, and infrastructural losses?
5. Boundary Sovereignty (BS): Can the state determine the limits of permissible external influence?
6. Second-Order Sovereignty (SOS): Can it influence not only individual decisions but also the rules of the system?
7. Reproductive Sovereignty (RPS): Are competencies, coalitions, and institutions reproduced after a change of government or an external shock?

No mechanism is assessed automatically on the basis of a single dimension. A high economic score, for example, does not guarantee DAS if exports, tourists, and investment originate from a single center. Likewise, a low military score may be offset by collective security, but only when the state retains national control over its commitments and possesses the institutional capacity to participate in allied planning.

3. Resource Profiles

Mauritius outperforms Montenegro in five dimensions, with the largest gaps in the political, economic, and technological profiles. Montenegro has a slight advantage in the cultural and military dimensions. The mean score is 66.9 for Mauritius and 56.6 for Montenegro. Both profiles, however, contain weak links: the military dimension for Mauritius and the technological dimension for Montenegro.

The figures allow the research question to be formulated, but not resolved. If the arithmetic model is correct, Mauritius should display an advantage across all forms of strategic capacity roughly commensurate with its aggregate lead. If the emergent model is correct, Montenegro may outperform Mauritius in particular mechanisms, while some Mauritian advantages may be neutralized by the concentration or incompatibility of external ties.

4. Contexts of Dependence

Mauritius has built a broad network of trade regimes: AfCFTA, SADC, COMESA, an agreement with the EU, and bilateral arrangements with India, China, Pakistan, Turkey, and the UAE. The free trade agreement with China has been in force since 2021, while India’s CECPA grants preferences for selected tariff lines; at the same time, the country has access to African and European regimes. In June 2026, the EU and four Eastern and Southern African states, including Mauritius, concluded negotiations on a deepened agreement covering services, investment, digital trade, and sectoral cooperation.

Yet contractual multiplicity does not preclude de facto concentration. The EU describes itself as Mauritius’s leading trading partner and principal source of tourists and foreign direct investment. India, in turn, occupies a special position in maritime security: the partnership includes shipping-information exchange, joint surveillance, hydrography, coast guard support, and the use of infrastructure on Agalega for monitoring the exclusive economic zone. The result is an asymmetric structure: external economic regimes are widely distributed, but particular flows and critical functions remain centered on dominant partners.

Mauritius’s economic model remains sensitive to external demand, tourism, fuel and food prices, global financial conditions, and climate shocks. The IMF has noted high public debt, the need for climate investment, low productivity, and population aging; in 2025, growth was expected to slow as external demand and tourism weakened. The broad portfolio of agreements must therefore be assessed by its capacity to reduce the combined impact of these shocks, rather than by the number of documents signed.

Montenegro uses the euro, trades extensively with the EU, is a NATO member, and is negotiating accession to the European Union. As of July 2026, all 33 negotiating chapters had been opened and 18 provisionally closed, placing the country at the forefront of the enlargement process. In 2024, the EU accounted for 42.9% of Montenegro’s trade in goods and was its principal trading partner. In foreign policy, Montenegro maintained full alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, including sanctions decisions, and continued to participate in EU and NATO missions.

Beyond the Euro-Atlantic core lies a more diverse economic periphery. In 2024, FDI came from Serbia, Russia, Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, with more than half of total inflows directed toward real estate. China’s Exim Bank financed most of the first section of the Bar–Boljare highway through a dollar-denominated loan that created significant debt and currency risk. Montenegro thus has many partners, but they perform different functions: the EU defines the institutional trajectory, NATO provides security, the euro supplies the monetary environment, China provides part of the infrastructure financing, and regional and other investors supply capital, real-estate demand, and tourism.

5. Conversion Sovereignty

Mauritius demonstrates strong conversion through a combination of political stability, human capital, financial specialization, and treaty diplomacy. Its agreements with the EU, India, China, and African groupings provide not merely access to different markets, but an opportunity to position a single jurisdiction as a connecting node between Africa and Asia. The OECD notes that the network of investment treaties has contributed to the country’s attractiveness as a regional financial center, although some agreements require refinement because of exposure to investment claims. Political, cognitive, informational, and economic resources form a positive feedback loop: predictability supports financial services, services finance expertise, and expertise enables regulatory adaptation.

Conversion nevertheless has limits. The revision of the tax treaty with India reduced the advantages of the earlier transit-investment model and required a shift from formal treaty shopping toward substantive economic presence and broader Africa–Asia positioning. This case shows that a resource becomes sovereign agency only when the state can restructure its specialization after the rules of an external center change.

Montenegro converts external ties primarily through institutional borrowing embedded in integration. EU negotiations provide a reform road map, access to expertise, and the prospect of greater investment predictability. NATO compensates for the limited scale of national military capabilities through collective security. Yet this conversion depends on the domestic capacity to implement imported norms. The European Commission has pointed to insufficient interministerial coordination, institutional fragility, and risks of political blockage, even as the government continued to pursue the integration agenda.

Mauritius’s advantage in the political and cognitive dimensions is therefore functionally important: it raises the conversion rate of external opportunities. Montenegro receives substantial external institutional support, but part of that resource is dissipated through coalition politics, administrative capacity constraints, and implementation gaps. This does not preclude future strengthening: the process of closing negotiating chapters may itself gradually enhance conversion capacity.

6. Dependence Architecture

Mauritius’s architecture more closely resembles a portfolio model. Trade is distributed across European, African, Indian, and Chinese regimes; diplomacy spans African, Indian Ocean, Lusophone, Francophone, and global organizations; and security relies on India while also being linked to broader Indian Ocean partnerships. Formally, this reduces the likelihood that a single center could control all channels simultaneously.

Functional analysis nevertheless reveals concentration. The EU is simultaneously a leading trading partner and a major source of tourists and investment. Three apparently distinct dependencies may therefore become correlated during a European recession or regulatory conflict. Indian support for the coast guard and maritime domain awareness strengthens Mauritius’s ability to monitor its vast maritime zone, but it also creates dependence on a principal supplier of equipment, training, and information. Overall diversification thus coexists with sector-specific bottlenecks.

Montenegro’s external architecture appears multiple, but it is organized around a dominant Euro-Atlantic vector. The EU encompasses trade, regulation, and prospective institutional membership; NATO provides security; and the euro constitutes the monetary unit. Serbia, Turkey, Russia, and other states supply tourists and capital, while China participates in infrastructure, but these ties do not constitute strategic alternatives equivalent to the European vector.

Paradoxically, such a hierarchy may be less vulnerable than poorly coordinated pluralism. The compatibility of EU rules, the monetary environment, and NATO security reduces transaction costs among dependencies. The price of compatibility, however, is high correlation: a political or economic crisis in relations with the EU would simultaneously affect trade, reforms, financing, and the membership prospect.

Under the DAS mechanism, Mauritius has an advantage in the breadth and interregional character of its portfolio, while Montenegro benefits from the institutional compatibility of its core. The first risk is the hidden concentration of flows on the EU and of security on India; the second is the transformation of the European center from leading to indispensable.

7. Alternative Sovereignty

An alternative exists only when it can be activated within an acceptable time frame and at a non-destructive cost. From this perspective, Mauritius’s numerous trade agreements create a genuine, though incomplete, reserve of options. Access to AfCFTA, COMESA, and SADC supports an African orientation; agreements with India and China provide an Asian track; and the deepened EPA provides a European one. These channels differ in regulation, logistics, and demand structure and therefore are not immediate substitutes, but they reduce the dependence of long-term strategy on a single market.

Mauritius also retains multiple diplomatic audiences. On decolonization issues it can mobilize African states and the UN General Assembly; in trade it can work with the EU and regional groupings; in maritime security it can rely on India; and on climate and island-state issues it can cooperate with small island states. Such specialization converts membership in different institutions into optionality.

Montenegro’s alternatives are asymmetric. Tourism and investment involve partners from the EU, Serbia, Turkey, Russia, the United States, and other countries, limiting the monopoly of any single source of capital. In the strategic sphere, however, a genuine shift away from the EU and NATO would entail enormous institutional, reputational, and security costs. The Chinese loan demonstrated the availability of alternative infrastructure financing, but also showed that an external alternative can increase debt and currency vulnerability.

Mauritius therefore has greater horizontal optionality across regions, whereas Montenegro’s alternatives largely supplement rather than replace the European core. This lowers its AS, while also protecting it from costly strategic oscillation: not every formally available change of course is beneficial to sovereignty.

8. Reversibility Sovereignty

Mauritius demonstrates political and diplomatic reversibility through sustained electoral competition. The 2024 elections produced a peaceful transfer of power and a decisive victory for the opposition alliance, demonstrating the system’s capacity to change governments without disrupting its basic international and economic frameworks. Institutional continuity across changes of government reduces the cost of adjusting foreign policy.

Economic reversibility is weaker. Tourism infrastructure, financial specialization, imported energy, and maritime logistics cannot be redirected quickly. High debt and the need for climate investment also narrow fiscal space. Multiple agreements therefore expand choice over a horizon of several years, but do not guarantee rapid switching during a shock.

Montenegro provides a revealing example of the technical restoration of reversibility. The dollar-denominated Chinese highway loan created currency risk, but a subsequent hedge shifted debt service into euros and reduced costs: by early 2025, the government reported cumulative savings of €11.94 million, while the outstanding balance stood at approximately €603.4 million. Cognitive, financial, and international resources interacted here to partially neutralize the original dependence.

More broadly, Montenegro’s reversibility is constrained by euroization and EU integration. The country uses the euro without membership in the euro area and without participation in European Central Bank decision-making. This provides price and exchange-rate stability, but precludes national devaluation and an independent monetary policy. EU accession and further legal harmonization create still higher exit costs, although they may simultaneously transform unilateral rule-taking into participation in rule-making.

The RS result is mixed. Mauritius better preserves the political and diplomatic capacity to redistribute external ties; Montenegro has demonstrated a more concrete ability to restructure a specific financial obligation, but its strategic trajectory is less reversible.

9. Boundary Sovereignty

The boundaries of permissible dependence are defined not by self-isolation but by rules governing access to territory, finance, data, infrastructure, and the political process. Mauritius combines openness with regulatory adaptation. Its removal from enhanced FATF monitoring following anti-money-laundering reforms demonstrated an ability to adopt external standards, restore the reputation of its financial jurisdiction, and preserve international business. At the same time, compliance with the standards of an external regime means that the boundaries of financial autonomy are established through interaction with global regulators.

The most difficult test of BS concerns security and Agalega. Indian infrastructure and operational support expand surveillance of Mauritius’s exclusive economic zone, but it requires transparent national rules defining access, command, data use, and the limits of foreign presence. Without such rules, maritime-security resources risk becoming a source of asymmetric dependence.

Montenegro establishes boundaries primarily through European norms and security mechanisms. Sanctions alignment, NATO participation, and planned foreign-investment screening make it possible to limit external influence over critical infrastructure and technologies. Yet domestic institutional problems—the vulnerability of media regulators, political pressure, and weak responses to disinformation—reduce the capacity to enforce these boundaries in practice.

Montenegro’s cultural score is slightly higher than Mauritius’s, but strong identity is not equivalent to BS. In a polarized environment, cultural and historical ties to different centers may facilitate balancing, but they may also provide external actors with domestic channels of influence. Boundary Sovereignty therefore depends on enforcement, ownership transparency, and institutional legitimacy, not merely on cultural resilience.

10. Second-Order Sovereignty

Mauritius provides the most compelling example of second-order sovereignty through its long-term legal and coalition strategy concerning the Chagos Archipelago. In 2019, the UN General Assembly endorsed the International Court of Justice’s conclusion that the decolonization process had not been lawfully completed, by a vote of 116 to 6. In 2021, a special chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea recognized Mauritius as the coastal state in relation to Chagos, and in 2023 it established a binding maritime boundary with the Maldives.

The agreement signed with the United Kingdom in May 2025 recognizes Mauritius as sovereign over the entire archipelago, including Diego Garcia, while granting the United Kingdom the rights necessary to operate the base for an initial 99-year term. This outcome illustrates an SOS chain: limited military power was offset by international law, an African coalition, institutional decisions, and negotiations. Mauritius influenced not a one-time concession, but the legal characterization of decolonization and maritime rights.

The agreement also demonstrates the limits of victory. The United Kingdom retains broad powers on Diego Garcia, while Chagossian representatives and UN experts have criticized the insufficient protection of the right of return and compensation. A state’s Second-Order Sovereignty may conflict with the rights of the community on whose behalf it acts. Formal recognition of sovereignty therefore cannot automatically be equated with full Boundary or Reproductive Sovereignty.

Montenegro’s SOS is transitional. For now, the country primarily adopts the EU acquis rather than participating in its creation. Negotiations, however, allow it to secure transitional periods, technical arrangements, and accommodations for national conditions. In July 2026, the provisional closure of the competition and customs-union chapters brought the number of closed chapters to 18. If accession occurs, unilateral regulatory dependence will be partly converted into representation within EU institutions. Until then, Montenegro remains a rule-taker with limited but growing bargaining influence.

Mauritius therefore has an advantage in realized SOS. Montenegro possesses a potential conversion mechanism: membership may reduce formal optionality while increasing participation in the rules that structure its own dependence.

11. Reproductive Sovereignty

Mauritius reproduces agency through regular changes of government, a relatively capable administration, financial and legal expertise, and sustained participation in multiple international regimes. The 2024 elections confirmed a peaceful transfer of power; however, the disproportionate 60–0 result in directly elected seats and the concentration of executive power create a risk of weakened parliamentary oversight. Reproducibility requires not only a strong cabinet, but also mechanisms for correcting errors.

Mauritius’s financial jurisdiction likewise demonstrates adaptation: after external regulatory pressure, the country implemented AML/CFT reforms and restored compliance with international standards. Long-term constraints—population aging, low productivity, high debt, and climate-related expenditures—may nevertheless erode expertise and fiscal buffers. If a network of agreements requires continuous complex coordination, the quality of the state apparatus becomes an independent constraint.

Montenegro reproduces agency through the EU accession process: each closed chapter embeds norms, procedures, and administrative competencies. By July 2026, more than half of the chapters had been provisionally closed, and preparation of the accession treaty had begun. NATO membership provides institutional continuity in defense planning that could not be created through national resources alone.

At the same time, coalition heterogeneity, political crises, staffing gaps, and insufficient coordination create a risk of formal norm adoption without durable implementation. Montenegro’s RPS model depends on whether external EU incentives become domestically embedded procedures capable of enduring after accession conditionality disappears.

Mauritius has an advantage in its already established autonomous administrative and diplomatic tradition. Montenegro is building formal institutional density more rapidly, but for now remains more dependent on an external integration anchor.

12. Systemic Comparison

The seven mechanisms form a chain rather than a list. In Mauritius, broad DAS creates Alternatives; political and cognitive resources enable Conversion; legal coalitions generate SOS; and administrative continuity supports RPS. Yet external-economic concentration and security reliance on India constrain BS and short-term RS.

In Montenegro, the chain begins with the European anchor. The EU and NATO strengthen Conversion and RPS while simultaneously narrowing AS and RS. The hedge on the Chinese loan shows how cognitive-financial capacity can restore part of reversibility. Future EU membership may compensate for fewer alternatives through higher SOS—a transition from rule-taking to participation in rule-making.

13. Testing the Paradox

The comparison supports the thesis of “sovereignty through interdependence” only conditionally.

The first condition is functional substitutability. Multiple partners increase sovereign agency if at least two can provide the same critical function. Mauritius has several trade orientations, but its maritime-security dependence is considerably more concentrated. Montenegro has many investors, but neither China, Serbia, nor Turkey constitutes a full alternative to the EU as an institutional complex.

The second condition is low shock correlation. Formally distinct tourism, investment, and trade flows may depend on the same economy, currency, or transportation system. The number of agreements must therefore be adjusted for common sources of risk. The EU performs multiple functions simultaneously for both countries, although concentration is greater in Montenegro’s architecture.

The third condition is a manageable switching cost. Chinese financing gave Montenegro an infrastructure alternative, but dollar exposure and the debt burden made switching costly; hedging later partially restored RS. An alternative that creates excessive irreversible commitments does not increase sovereignty.

The fourth condition is boundary-setting capacity. The state must screen investment, protect data, regulate foreign presence, and prevent political capture. If multiple dependencies open several channels of domestic influence without effective filters, they reduce rather than increase agency.

The fifth condition is participation in rule-making. Reducing the number of alternatives may be rational if the state gains a voice in the institution on which it depends. Montenegro’s possible EU membership therefore cannot be interpreted solely as an increase in dependence. It may strengthen SOS even as it reduces reversibility.

Mauritius’s overall 72.3-point advantage is consistent with its more developed conversion, diversification, and legal diplomacy, but it is not their mathematical cause. Montenegro provides a counterexample to additivity through individual mechanisms: despite its lower technological and economic profile, it was able to technically reduce the currency risk of a major loan and is institutionalizing security through NATO and reform through the EU.

14. Typology of Multiplicity

An optimal system does not maximize the number of partners. It provides redundancy for critical functions, limits the joint impact of shocks, preserves standards compatibility, and prevents the cost of portfolio management from exceeding the benefits of diversification.

15. Testable Hypotheses

The comparison yields the following hypotheses for subsequent quantitative testing.

H1. Emergent sovereignty is positively associated not with the number of partners, but with the inverse of functional concentration across critical sectors.

H2. Diversification increases agency more strongly when partners belong to different geoeconomic and currency zones.

H3. Institutional compatibility among dependencies increases Conversion and RPS, but under excessive concentration reduces AS and RS.

H4. Hedging, review clauses, and phased financing reduce the negative effect of external debt on sovereignty.

H5. Membership in a supranational institution increases emergent sovereignty when the gain in Second-Order Sovereignty exceeds the loss of Reversibility and Alternatives.

H6. Political and cognitive capacity amplifies the effect of multiplicity only when an interagency center exists to manage external dependencies.

H7. International legal coalitions allow states with limited military capacity to achieve disproportionately high SOS.

Empirical testing requires calculating concentration separately for trade, tourism, FDI, debt, energy, digital infrastructure, security, and expert competencies. A single aggregate count of external ties would obscure the distinction between portfolio and complementary architectures.

16. Limitations

The Burke Index profiles are used as provided. The absence of a publicly available calculation methodology, observation year, primary indicators, weights, and confidence intervals prevents the 72.3-point gap from being treated as a statistically established causal magnitude. The Index serves as an initial map of resources.

The comparison is also asymmetric in regional context. For Mauritius, optionality means balancing among several regions and organizations; for Montenegro, it primarily concerns the modalities of integration into the European system. The same mechanism may therefore have different normative objectives: Mauritius’s AS presupposes preserving multiple directions, whereas Montenegro’s SOS may grow through deepening a single direction.

Treaties and memberships do not guarantee the practical availability of alternatives. A more rigorous study would require data on partner shares, switching times, debt currency, technology localization, data control, ownership structure, and administrative capacity. It is also necessary to distinguish voluntary interdependence, dependence arising from resource scarcity, and dependence locked in by sunk investments.

Conclusion

Mauritius and Montenegro show that multiple dependence can generate sovereignty, but only when organized as a system. Mauritius combines a higher resource profile with an interregional network of trade agreements, international organizations, and legal coalitions. This creates opportunities for conversion, long-term switching, and influence over rules, most clearly demonstrated by the Chagos strategy. Constraints emerge where outwardly distinct flows are concentrated on the EU and maritime security on India.

Montenegro has a lower aggregate score, but it is not a passive object of external governance. It uses European integration as a mechanism of institution-building, NATO as a means of converting limited military capacity, and financial hedging as an instrument for restoring the reversibility of the Chinese loan. Its dependencies, however, form a hierarchy: the European center increasingly combines trade, legal, monetary, and foreign-policy functions, while other partners remain largely supplementary.

The central paradox is resolved by distinguishing quantity from architecture. A new tie increases emergent sovereignty if it provides a backup function, reduces concentration, is compatible with the rest of the system, permits exit, and does not erode domestic boundaries. It reduces sovereignty if it merely adds another creditor or channel of influence without creating substitutability. Thus, 468.2 versus 395.9 is an important description of resource inequality, but not a ready-made answer to the question of autonomy. Emergent sovereignty arises from the way a state connects resources, dependencies, and institutions into a reproducible architecture of choice.