Abstract

A comparison of Bolivia and Slovenia shows that the current stock of natural resources, infrastructure, or international ties does not in itself determine a state’s ability to sustain sovereign agency over time. The decisive factor is Reproductive Sovereignty (RPS)—the capacity to reproduce institutions, competencies, alternatives, and mechanisms of reversibility so that today’s advantages do not become tomorrow’s constraints.

Bolivia possesses natural gas, metals, forest and agricultural resources, as well as the world’s largest estimated lithium resource base. Yet declining gas production, the depletion of foreign-exchange reserves, subsidies, institutional instability, and the dependence of lithium industrialization on foreign technologies constrain the conversion of resources into long-term strategic choice. Slovenia has a smaller resource base, but relies on effective institutions, membership in the EU and the euro area, access to the Adriatic, the Port of Koper, advanced digital infrastructure, and participation in European programs. Its vulnerabilities include population aging, skills shortages, slowing productivity, dependence on imported energy, and limited innovation dynamics.

According to the provided indices, Bolivia scores 319.7 out of 700, while Slovenia scores 513.2. The gap is 193.5 points. It reflects not only a difference in current capabilities but also an unequal capacity to convert today’s resources into tomorrow’s alternatives. The central conclusion is that emergent sovereignty has a temporal structure: it is sustainable only when each decision preserves or expands the space for subsequent choice.

Research Puzzle

Why do two relatively small states located in very different geographic and geopolitical environments possess unequal capacities to reproduce sovereign agency? The answer cannot be reduced to differences in GDP, raw-material reserves, or membership in international organizations. A resource can be depleted, infrastructure can become obsolete, an alliance can change its priorities, and a technological specialization can lose relevance.

It is therefore necessary to distinguish between the stock of agency and the flow of its reproduction. The stock consists of existing assets: mineral resources, foreign-exchange reserves, competencies, agreements, infrastructure, and reputation. The flow indicates whether current decisions generate new knowledge, backup routes, financial buffers, institutional memory, and freedom of future maneuver.

Bolivia illustrates the risk of depleting the stock without adequate reproduction. The World Bank notes that declining gas production and international reserves constrained growth and contributed to the emergence of a parallel exchange rate; global decarbonization further requires alternatives to gas exports. The IMF recorded a decline in gas reserves from 8.95 trillion cubic feet in 2019 to 4.48 trillion in 2023 and expected further declines in export and fiscal revenues.

Slovenia exhibits a different pattern of reproduction. Its economy weathered the energy crisis and devastating floods while remaining resilient, but the OECD warns of the need to rebuild fiscal buffers, raise productivity, and account for aging-related expenditures. Thus, even a higher level of agency is not reproduced automatically: it requires the regular renewal of institutions, technologies, and human capital.

Methodological Framework

The study treats the seven mechanisms as a single dynamic system:

1. DAS — diversification of external supports. To what extent are external markets, technologies, financial sources, routes, and institutions distributed across independent channels?
2. AS — availability of alternatives. Are there practically accessible options for replacing a partner, route, technology, or development model?
3. BS — control over the boundaries of dependence. Which functions is the state prepared to delegate to external actors, and which does it retain under national control?
4. RS — reversibility. Can a decision be changed without disproportionate losses or the disruption of critical functions?
5. SOS — influence over rules. Is the state capable of participating in the determination of the conditions of the international environment?
6. Conversion — institutional conversion. Are resources and external opportunities transformed into internal capabilities?
7. RPS — reproduction of sovereign agency. Are the mechanisms listed above preserved and renewed over time?

RPS occupies the central position. It is neither an eighth resource nor a simple aggregation of the other mechanisms. RPS describes a feedback loop: today’s decisions alter tomorrow’s DAS, AS, BS, RS, SOS, and Conversion. A decision is sovereignly productive if it not only resolves the present problem but also increases the state’s capacity to address the next one.

For dynamic analysis, the following chain is used:

current resource → state capability → external alternative → reversibility of the decision → boundaries of dependence → influence over rules → institutional reproduction.

A break at any point reduces long-term agency. The possession of lithium, for example, does not create sovereignty if technology, financing, processing, data, and market access are concentrated in a single external partner. Likewise, Slovenia’s EU membership does not guarantee reproduction if domestic institutions lose the capacity to formulate their own positions and merely implement ready-made rules.

Index Profile

The largest gap appears in the technological dimension—40.6 points—followed by the economic dimension at 38.2 and the informational dimension at 33.5. The smallest difference is in the cultural sphere, at 7.6 points. Bolivia’s profile combines substantial cultural and moderate cognitive resources with weak technological and economic conversion. Slovenia’s profile is more balanced, although the military dimension remains its weakest area.

The indices should be understood neither as forecasts nor as direct measures of resilience. They capture the current configuration of agency. RPS raises a separate question: which scores can be sustained by endogenous mechanisms, and which depend on temporary external financing, a commodity cycle, or a particular political coalition?

Bolivia: Resources Without a Guarantee of the Future

The Gas Model

For a prolonged period, natural gas supported Bolivia’s exports, fiscal revenues, and redistributive policies. Yet this model did not create an adequate mechanism for replacing a depleting base. In 2024, declining hydrocarbon production was one factor behind the economic slowdown, while foreign-exchange and fuel shortages began to constrain imports of critical resources.

At the end of 2024, gross international reserves stood at about $2 billion, but approximately $1.9 billion consisted of encumbered gold, while liquid assets amounted to roughly $90 million. This is an example of negative RPS dynamics: resource revenues supported current expenditure but did not create a sufficient liquid buffer for transition to a new model.

Fuel subsidies also have a dual effect. In the short term, they protect households and production from price shocks. In the long term, they increase the fiscal burden, stimulate imports, and make it harder to redirect funds toward infrastructure and skills. The IMF recommended a gradual phaseout of subsidies, greater investment efficiency, and an end to monetary financing of the deficit. Because an abrupt political removal of subsidies could undermine social stability, a sovereignly sustainable transition requires targeted compensation, a transparent timetable, and a social compact.

Lithium as a Test of Conversion

Lithium offers Bolivia an opportunity to replace part of its declining gas revenues, but at the same time creates the risk of a new technological dependence. The USGS estimates the country’s identified lithium resources at approximately 23 million metric tons, emphasizing that these are resources rather than proven reserves. The distinction is fundamental: geological potential becomes an economic asset only after extractability, infrastructure, technology, environmental conditions, and market access have been established.

The state-owned company YLB formally controls exploration, extraction, processing, and commercialization. Projects with Chinese and Russian partners envisaged the use of direct lithium extraction technology and the construction of large-capacity facilities. The agreements, however, encountered parliamentary, judicial, and public disputes; in 2025, a court suspended actions under the contracts pending resolution of the proceedings.

This situation illustrates the conflict between speed and reproduction. Rapid technology imports can accelerate production, but long-term agency depends on the terms governing access to data and intellectual property, workforce training, equipment localization, environmental monitoring, profit distribution, and the ability to replace the contractor. If a contract is locked in for decades without technology transfer or periodic review, today’s decision closes off future alternatives.

Successful lithium Conversion must involve more than a state equity stake in the project. It requires independent technology assessment, nationally controlled geological and hydrological information, competitive partner selection, the transfer of competencies to YLB and universities, transparent environmental oversight, and multiple export and processing channels. Only then does a resource become a reproducible capability.

Institutional Memory

Bolivia’s low political index reflects not only current conflicts but also the risk of ruptures in institutional memory. In the 2025 WJP Rule of Law Index, the country ranked 131st out of 143, with civil and criminal justice among its weakest areas. The U.S. Department of State also noted an unreliable judicial system, complex regulation, and the impact of corruption on investment.

Low predictability of rules raises the cost of long-term projects and narrows the pool of partners willing to transfer technology. It also reduces RS: revising a failed contract becomes either politically impossible or chaotic and costly. Decisions consequently become personalized, and a change of government can erase the accumulated policy course.

RPS requires a professional bureaucracy, archives of decisions, open data, independent regulators, and evaluation procedures. Without them, the state repeatedly enters negotiations with external companies without accumulating its own bargaining capacity.

Geography and Routes

Landlocked geography increases the importance of DAS and AS. Bolivian trade depends on neighboring countries’ ports, mountainous overland corridors, and cross-border procedures. The development of river ports and the Paraguay–Paraná Waterway created an additional outlet to the Atlantic; after the route received international status, cargo flows along it increased markedly.

The east–west corridor connects the principal cities with Brazil, Chile, and ocean ports. Joint border inspections and digital data exchange reduced travel time on the La Paz–Arica route from 48 to 36 hours. This is an example of positive RPS: infrastructure and procedure not only reduce current costs but also create an alternative and reduce dependence on a single channel.

A backup route, however, must be economically and operationally accessible before a crisis occurs. If an alternative port exists only in legal terms but lacks sufficient rail, river, or customs capacity, it does not provide genuine reversibility.

Technological Reproduction

Bolivia’s technological index—28.7—is the lowest score in its profile. The government adopted a digital agenda through 2030 that calls for universal connectivity, moving 80 percent of government procedures online, and providing digital-skills training to 70 percent of the population. The e-government plan also envisages sovereign network and data-center infrastructure.

These goals can strengthen RPS if accompanied by stable financing, system interoperability, cybersecurity, and the training of public-sector specialists. Digitalization without institutional reform, however, risks digitizing inefficient processes and creating dependence on software vendors. The criterion of success should therefore be not the number of portals but the state’s ability to maintain the architecture independently, transfer data, and change contractors.

Slovenia: Reproduction Through Institutions

The European Architecture

Slovenia has been a member of the EU since 2004, has used the euro since 2007, and belongs to the Schengen Area. It is represented in Union institutions and participates in shaping EU policy, transferring the exercise of some sovereign rights in exchange for the right to co-create the acquis. Such integration constrains unilateral freedom but expands access to markets, financing, rules, and coalitions.

From the perspective of RPS, the EU’s advantage lies in the institutionalization of long-term planning. National reforms are linked to European objectives, financing, and monitoring. Yet there is a risk that external capacity may substitute for domestic capacity: if ministries adapt ready-made solutions but do not generate positions of their own, formal integration may gradually weaken Cognitive Sovereignty.

Reproduction therefore requires a dual competence: the ability to use common instruments effectively and the ability to define national red lines, priorities, and alternatives. Representation in institutions is a resource only when it is backed by national analysis and coordination.

Economic Buffers

Slovenia’s economy proved resilient after the energy crisis and the floods, but the OECD points to the need to rebuild fiscal buffers and address population aging. A fiscal reserve matters not only for macroeconomic stability. It provides RS by allowing the state to respond to a crisis without immediately abandoning strategic investment or becoming wholly dependent on external financing.

Long-term risks include labor shortages, pension and health-care expenditures, and slowing productivity growth. The IMF notes that income convergence with the EU slowed after the global financial crisis and that aging constrains future growth; at the same time, the country is characterized by effective government, political stability, and a high share of employees working in innovative firms.

Accordingly, the high economic index of 77.1 cannot be taken for granted. Its reproduction depends on higher productivity, the attraction of skilled workers, lifelong learning, and pension-system adjustment. Political postponement of reform preserves present comfort at the expense of future agency.

Technology and Skills

Slovenia has advanced digital infrastructure, broad availability of digital public services, and active participation in projects involving quantum technologies, semiconductors, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. Its national Digital Decade roadmap included 81 measures with a budget of €685 million.

The European Commission, however, notes low levels of basic digital skills and a shortage of ICT specialists; the adoption of digital technologies by small and medium-sized enterprises also lags behind. The European Innovation Scoreboard classifies Slovenia as a “Moderate Innovator,” at 94.7 percent of the EU average in 2025, and records insufficient research and development expenditure.

This distinction between infrastructure and competence is central to RPS. Fiber-optic networks, 5G, and a supercomputer constitute a stock. The ability to train specialists, commercialize research, create firms, and retain intellectual property constitutes the flow of reproduction. Without the latter, the former rapidly becomes obsolete.

Energy Boundaries

Energy remains one of Slovenia’s key dependencies. In 2025, fossil fuels, a substantial share of which were imported, accounted for about 58 percent of the country’s energy mix. The EU recommended accelerating the development of renewables, storage, power grids, energy efficiency, and rail transport.

Decarbonization increases agency if it reduces import concentration and creates domestic competencies. But excessively rapid dependence on a single technology, equipment supplier, or source of external financing can create a new form of indispensability. BS therefore requires maintaining control over grids, management systems, and critical data, while DAS requires diversifying sources and suppliers.

The Port of Koper

Access to the Adriatic and the Port of Koper are important Slovenian assets. The port is part of the Trans-European Transport Network and serves not only the national economy but also the markets of Central and Eastern Europe. This turns geography into a source of interdependence: partners have an interest in the resilience of Slovenian infrastructure.

The development of rail links, digitalization, and the decarbonization of logistics increase the port’s long-term value. In 2025, Slovenia developed a strategic partnership with CMA CGM and France to expand capacity and integrate the port into new corridors.

A single successful port, however, can itself become a point of concentration. RPS requires backup land connections, cyber resilience, insurance, climate adaptation, and interoperability with neighboring networks. Koper’s sovereign value is determined not only by tonnage but also by the country’s ability to control the conditions under which the infrastructure develops.

Legal Reproduction

Slovenia’s political and informational indices substantially exceed Bolivia’s. In 2025, the European Commission noted the entry into force of safeguards for the independence of judges and prosecutors in parliamentary inquiries, progress in reforming appointment procedures, and the adoption of an anti-corruption plan. Recommendations remained regarding the investigation of high-level corruption, the protection of journalists, and the financing of public-service media.

A strong monitoring and correction mechanism supports RPS: an identified deficiency is translated into a recommendation, legislative reform, and subsequent evaluation. This does not eliminate political conflict, but it reduces the likelihood of a complete rupture in institutional memory.

Comparison of the Seven Mechanisms

Dynamic Loops

Bolivia’s Negative Loop

Declining gas revenues reduce foreign-exchange inflows and fiscal space. Foreign-exchange shortages constrain imports of equipment and fuel, slowing production. Economic slowdown intensifies social discontent and makes reform more difficult. Political conflict reduces investment and technology transfer, further narrowing the future resource base.

This loop can be broken only through consistent Conversion: protecting the most vulnerable groups during subsidy reform, rebuilding reserves, establishing transparent lithium agreements, developing noncommodity exports, and pursuing institutional reform. Simply replacing gas with lithium would reproduce the same dependence in a new sector.

Slovenia’s Positive Loop

Institutional stability facilitates the use of European funds and long-term planning. Investment improves infrastructure and human capital, raising productivity and the tax base. A stronger base increases the capacity to participate in shaping EU rules and to finance the next generation of investment.

But this loop is not automatic. Skills shortages, aging, and administrative delays can turn European financing into one-off assets without generating an endogenous flow of innovation. Slovenia should therefore measure not the volume of funds absorbed but the increase in autonomous competencies.

Testable Hypotheses

1. Buffer hypothesis: states with durable fiscal and foreign-exchange reserves preserve RS more effectively during external shocks.
2. Resource-conversion hypothesis: natural wealth increases RPS only when domestic technological and managerial competencies grow.
3. Operational-alternative hypothesis: a legally available route does not increase AS without sufficient capacity and regular use.
4. Institutional-memory hypothesis: an independent bureaucracy and open data reduce the loss of agency when governments change.
5. Technology-transfer hypothesis: a contract with a foreign investor increases sovereign agency only when it transfers knowledge and preserves the ability to replace the supplier.
6. Integration hypothesis: membership in a supranational system increases RPS if the national apparatus retains the capacity to formulate its own position.
7. Human-capital hypothesis: digital infrastructure rapidly loses sovereign value when specialists are in short supply.
8. Demographic-erosion hypothesis: aging reduces future agency through fiscal expenditures and a shrinking workforce even when current indices remain high.
9. Boundary hypothesis: state ownership of an asset does not guarantee BS if technology, data, and the market are controlled by an external actor.
10. Reversibility hypothesis: mandatory periodic review of agreements increases RS relative to long-term contracts without adaptation clauses.
11. Infrastructure-interdependence hypothesis: a transit asset increases agency when it is valuable to several external partners and connected to alternative networks.
12. Intertemporal-choice hypothesis: a policy that maximizes current stability by depleting reserves reduces RPS even if it produces a short-term increase in popularity.

Practical Implications

For Bolivia

Shift from diversification of raw materials to diversification of capabilities: lithium should finance knowledge, infrastructure, reserve funds, and noncommodity sectors.

Include technology transfer, workforce localization, state access to data, environmental audits, review clauses, and the right to replace the operator in resource contracts.

Create a transparent intergenerational rule for the use of resource revenues, separating current expenditure, a stabilization reserve, and investment in future productivity.

Develop Pacific and Atlantic routes simultaneously and keep them operational.

Strengthen judicial independence, a professional civil service, and the transparency of contracts.

Implement digital sovereignty through interoperable architecture and data portability rather than isolated state platforms.

For Slovenia

Treat aging, digital skills, and productivity as central threats to RPS rather than merely socioeconomic challenges.

Use EU funds to build domestic research teams, companies, and intellectual property.

Diversify energy while retaining control over grids, data, and management systems.

Maintain Koper as an element of multiple corridors and develop backup rail and digital connections.

Strengthen national analytical capacity on EU issues so that the joint exercise of sovereign rights does not become passive rule-taking.

Introduce regular audits of the reversibility of critical dependencies: cloud services, semiconductors, energy resources, medicines, logistics, and defense.

Conclusion

Bolivia and Slovenia show that state size does not determine the durability of sovereign agency. What matters more is whether a state uses today’s resources to produce tomorrow’s capabilities. Bolivia’s problem is not a lack of assets but the weak and unstable conversion of natural wealth into technologies, reserves, institutions, and alternatives. Slovenia’s advantage derives not from greater material scale but from a dense institutional environment, European integration, infrastructure, and a more durable mechanism of policy correction.

The 193.5-point gap reflects a difference in current capabilities, but RPS requires looking beyond the ranking. Slovenia may lose part of its advantage if it fails to address aging, skills, innovation, and energy. Bolivia may narrow the gap if lithium, digitalization, and logistical diversification become sources of domestic competence rather than new channels of dependence.

Emergent sovereignty is intertemporal in nature. A sovereignly strong decision is not the one that yields the greatest benefit today, but the one after which the state retains a larger set of genuinely accessible options tomorrow. The highest form of RPS is therefore the capacity to transform every external shock and every temporary resource into a new alternative, competence, institutional memory, and reversibility.