Abstract

This article examines whether the structural vulnerability of an island state can not only constrain autonomy but also become material for the production of emergent sovereignty. The empirical basis is provided by the seven-dimensional Burke Index profiles: Cape Verde scores 294.5 points out of 700, while Vanuatu scores 347.1. Vanuatu outperforms Cape Verde across all seven dimensions, with an aggregate gap of 52.6 points. Yet a higher resource profile is not equivalent to more coherent sovereign agency.

Both countries depend on external markets, maritime and air transport, imports, remittances, donors, and international institutions. They structure this dependence differently. Cape Verde has developed a relatively stable Atlantic architecture linking the European Union, Portugal, ECOWAS, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, international financial institutions, and a geographically dispersed diaspora. Vanuatu operates in a more competitive Indo-Pacific environment, drawing on relations with Australia, China, New Zealand, Japan, the World Bank, and regional organizations while converting climate vulnerability into international legal influence.

The principal conclusion is twofold. Vanuatu demonstrates the strongest conversion of vulnerability into Second-Order Sovereignty: the campaign it initiated led to the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on states’ climate obligations and to a subsequent General Assembly resolution. Cape Verde demonstrates a more durable nexus among Dependence Architecture, Reversibility, and Reproductive Sovereignty: its dependencies are institutionalized, partially distributed across several frameworks, and supported by a stable democratic system. Vulnerability therefore becomes a source of sovereignty only when a state retains the right to choose intermediaries, switch channels, limit external effects, and reproduce its governing capacity after each successive crisis.

1. Research Puzzle

Island vulnerability is usually described in terms of a deficit of scale: a narrow export base, high inter-island connectivity costs, import dependence, limited domestic markets, and heightened exposure to climate disasters. Cape Verde remains dependent on food and fuel imports, tourism, and remittances; the IMF points to the country’s sensitivity to price, trade, tourism, and climate shocks. In Vanuatu, 81% of the territory and 76% of the population are exposed to two or more natural hazards, and 25 natural disasters have been recorded since 2001.

Dependence, however, does not exist outside political organization. The same external flow may function as:

a unilateral lever for a creditor;

a diversified portfolio of partnerships;

an insurance mechanism against domestic shocks;

a channel for importing knowledge and infrastructure;

a source of an international coalition;

or a rent that erodes reputation and domestic institutions.

The research puzzle can therefore be stated as follows: under what conditions does structural vulnerability expand the space of choice, and under what conditions does it turn the state into an object of decisions made by external actors? The comparison is especially productive because Vanuatu scores higher in every dimension of the Burke Index, while Cape Verde demonstrates more coherent management of dependencies across several mechanisms.

2. Resource Profiles

The profiles support four initial observations.

First, Vanuatu’s advantage is universal in direction but moderate in magnitude. The largest gap occurs in the political dimension, at 11.9 percentage points, and the smallest in the economic dimension, at 3.5 points. This is therefore not a comparison between a resource leader and an outsider, but between two low- to medium-resource systems.

Second, the two configurations display almost identical internal unevenness. The range is 45.0 points for Cape Verde and 44.4 for Vanuatu. In both countries, cultural capacity substantially exceeds technological and military capacity. Potential compensation for material deficits must therefore operate primarily through culture, institutions, and external networks.

Third, the lowest scores concern the infrastructure of coercion and technological control. Cape Verde scores 23.1 in the technological dimension and 22.9 in the military dimension; Vanuatu scores 29.4 and 29.7. Both states must purchase, attract, or collectively organize functions that major powers can produce independently.

Fourth, the aggregate score does not explain the quality of conversion. Vanuatu’s score is 17.9% higher, yet actual outcomes point in different directions: the country achieved significant international legal influence in the climate sphere but lost visa-free access to the EU because of deficiencies in its citizenship-by-investment program. Cape Verde has a lower overall score but combines competitive democracy, a currency anchor, reserve buffers, and several institutional circuits of foreign policy.

3. Research Method

Emergent sovereignty is defined as the systemic outcome of the interaction among seven mechanisms:

ES = F (C, D, A, R, B, SO, P)

where C = Conversion Sovereignty; D = Dependence Architecture; A = Alternative Sovereignty; R = Reversibility Sovereignty; B = Boundary Sovereignty; SO = Second-Order Sovereignty; and P = Reproductive Sovereignty.

The central nexus of the study is DAS + AS + RS + RPS: the architecture of dependencies, the availability of alternatives, the reversibility of decisions already taken, and the capacity to reproduce this system over time. Conversion, Boundaries, and Second-Order are treated as mechanisms that transform this nexus, respectively, into a resource, a controlled space, and influence over rules.

Four hypotheses are tested:

H1 - diversification premium hypothesis: dependence increases agency when the same function can be supplied by several partners or institutions.

H2 - vulnerability-as-bargaining-capital hypothesis: a recognized external threat can be converted into assistance, concessional financing, legal norms, and coalition leadership.

H3 - reputational constraint hypothesis: monetizing a sovereign attribute generates short-term revenue but reduces long-term autonomy if external partners cease to trust state institutions.

H4 - reproduction hypothesis: diversified dependence remains a sovereign resource only when an administrative apparatus exists that can coordinate partners, monitor projects, and learn after crises.

The Burke Index is used as a baseline matrix rather than as a ready-made measure of emergent sovereignty. Causal assessment draws on official data and decisions from the IMF, the World Bank, the EU, the International Court of Justice, and national authorities.

4. Conversion Sovereignty

Cape Verde: Converting Location and Diaspora

Cape Verde converts its island location into a tourism, transport, and potentially digital resource. This model remains concentrated: according to the World Bank, 93% of tourists arrive from European markets, so a slowdown in Europe simultaneously reduces export earnings and direct investment. Record tourist flows in 2024 supported the current account and international reserves, but stress tests show that debt remains sensitive to an export shock because activity is concentrated in tourism.

A second channel is the diaspora. Remittances amounted to 10.5% of GDP in 2024; their sources are distributed among Portugal, the United States, and France, which accounted on average for 30%, 24%, and 22% of inflows, respectively, over the past decade. Roughly half of the Cape Verdean population lives abroad, and remittances reached 12% of GDP in 2022. Demographic vulnerability is thus converted into a foreign-exchange buffer, a transnational knowledge network, and potential investment capital.

A third channel is the digital conversion of geography. The Praia branch of the transatlantic EllaLink cable has operated since June 2022, providing connectivity with Europe and Latin America at capacity of up to 30 Tbit/s. The low technological score of 23.1 shows that physical connectivity is not yet equivalent to technological sovereignty, but it creates an opportunity to turn an intermediate location into a digital hub.

Vanuatu: Converting Risk into Flows and Influence

Vanuatu converts vulnerability along three dimensions. The first is climate diplomacy. A campaign launched by Pacific students and advanced by Vanuatu led to the 2023 consensus resolution of the UN General Assembly requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice; the Court delivered its unanimous opinion on July 23, 2025. In May 2026, the General Assembly adopted a follow-up resolution promoted by Vanuatu and aimed at putting the Court’s conclusions into practice. Physical danger was converted into a legal initiative of global scope.

The second dimension is labor mobility. In 2023, about 16,500 Vanuatu citizens worked under seasonal schemes in Australia and New Zealand; their earnings could be ten times higher than those available at home, and remittances were directed toward education, health care, and housing. In 2025, remittances reached 14.8% of GDP, supported by the expansion of regional labor programs. A shortage of domestic employment is thus converted into income and household human capital.

The third dimension is the citizenship-by-investment program. In 2024 it generated about 7% of GDP, compared with 14% in 2020. This is a case of rapid monetization of a sovereign attribute - citizenship - but also a case of failed conversion: inadequate applicant screening led the EU to terminate visa-free access for Vanuatu citizens. Short-term fiscal rent reduced the international utility of the national passport and narrowed future alternatives.

Mechanism Outcome

Vanuatu is more effective at converting vulnerability into political and legal visibility; Cape Verde is more effective at converting it into regular economic flows. Yet conversion is more sustainable in Cape Verde because tourism, the diaspora, and digital connectivity form several channels. In Vanuatu, climate leadership is a high-quality conversion, whereas citizenship by investment shows how fiscal vulnerability can encourage a decision that undermines long-term agency.

5. Dependence Architecture

Cape Verde: Atlantic Layering

Cape Verde’s architecture comprises several overlapping circuits. The Special Partnership with the EU has operated since 2007 and is the only arrangement of its kind between the EU and an African country; cooperation covers governance, development, the green economy, and employment. Team Europe includes the EU, the European Investment Bank, France, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Spain; EU grant financing for 2021-2027 amounts to EUR 44 million.

The European circuit is complemented by membership in ECOWAS and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP). This allows Cape Verde to act simultaneously as a West African, Lusophone, and Atlantic state. Different functions are distributed across different networks: trade and currency gravitate toward Europe; regional legitimacy toward Africa; language and diaspora toward the Lusophone world; and macrofinancial buffers toward the IMF and World Bank.

The principal concentration remains European. Since 1999, the escudo has been rigidly pegged to the euro at CVE 110.265 per euro. European markets dominate tourism and remittances, so several formally distinct channels may be exposed to the same correlated shock. The architecture is institutionally diversified but less diversified geoeconomically.

Vanuatu: A Competitive Donor Portfolio

Vanuatu distributes external financing among Australia, China, the World Bank, Japan, and New Zealand. In 2023, these five partners supplied 84% of the country’s official development finance: Australia 36%, China 18%, the World Bank 11%, Japan 10%, and New Zealand 9%.

This structure does not eliminate dependence, but it prevents complete monopolization of the donor function. Geopolitical competition increases the supply of resources. Australia remains the largest donor, while China has become the second-largest bilateral donor and finances roads, government buildings, and other visible projects. At the same time, competition creates conditionality risks: infrastructure, telecommunications, ports, and security become subjects of strategic bargaining rather than development alone.

After the earthquake of December 17, 2024, Vanuatu activated a rapid World Bank instrument and received USD 12 million in grant financing without a debt obligation. This illustrates the advantage of a multiple architecture: when physical destruction occurs, the state can switch from the ordinary budget to a pre-agreed crisis mechanism.

The portfolio nevertheless has a debt tail. Between 2008 and 2023, Vanuatu received an average of USD 190 million in official financing annually; 19% came as loans, predominantly Chinese road credits. Donor diversification therefore increases the immediate availability of resources but does not guarantee symmetry of terms or project quality.

Mechanism Outcome

Cape Verde has an institutionally dense but geographically Eurocentric architecture. Vanuatu has a geographically competitive but project-fragmented architecture. The former is more predictable and more compatible with macroeconomic planning; the latter offers greater bargaining opportunities but imposes higher demands on coordination, project appraisal, and debt management.

6. Alternative Sovereignty

Cape Verde: Multiple Identities as an Infrastructure of Choice

Cape Verde can shift emphasis among European, African, Atlantic, and Lusophone orientations without fully abandoning any of them. The Special Partnership with the EU does not preclude ECOWAS membership, while close ties with Portugal do not eliminate the role of the United States and France as centers of the diaspora and remittance flows. Here, alternatives are constructed not as geopolitical pivots but as reallocations of functions within compatible networks.

Debt policy demonstrates the possibility of changing the instrument without rupturing the relationship with the creditor. In 2023, Portugal and Cape Verde agreed to redirect EUR 12 million in debt payments into a climate and environmental fund, with the possibility of extending the mechanism to the entire EUR 140 million debt owed to the Portuguese state. The debt is not automatically cancelled; rather, its function changes from an external constraint into domestic climate financing.

The monetary alternative is more limited. The euro peg provides a price and reputational anchor but requires reserve protection and alignment of interest-rate policy with ECB dynamics. The ability to switch partners in trade or project financing is not equivalent to the ability to change the monetary regime quickly.

Vanuatu: Maneuvering among Partners

Vanuatu derives alternatives from competition among external powers. Australia offers aid, labor mobility, and security; China offers infrastructure, loans, and grants; New Zealand provides labor schemes and development assistance; international banks provide grants, loans, and crisis instruments. No single partner supplies the entire set of functions.

The climate coalition creates an alternative to the donor-recipient relationship. Vanuatu acts not as an applicant for aid but as the organizer of a group of states and the initiator of a legal process in which major emitters become addressees of obligations. This is a qualitative transition from choosing among resource suppliers to changing the basis on which resources ought to be provided.

Practical freedom to switch nevertheless remains constrained by transport and scale. The liquidation of Air Vanuatu in May 2024, three cyclones in 2023, and the December 2024 earthquake simultaneously affected mobility, tourism, the budget, and project implementation. The formal presence of several partners does not provide an alternative route if domestic transport infrastructure ceases to function.

Mechanism Outcome

Cape Verde’s alternatives are institutionalized and compatible but concentrated around Europe. Vanuatu’s alternatives are competitive and politically significant but more costly to manage and more vulnerable to material disruption. Vanuatu gains greater bargaining space among donors; Cape Verde gains greater predictability when switching among formats of cooperation.

7. Reversibility Sovereignty

Cape Verde: Buffers and the Transformation of Obligations

The fixed exchange rate reduces short-term monetary flexibility, but reserve buffers increase the reversibility of fiscal and external-economic decisions. The IMF projected international reserves to stabilize at roughly 5.5 months of imports and assessed the country’s capacity to service obligations to the Fund as adequate. Reserves do not eliminate an external shock, but they provide time for adjustment without immediately abandoning the currency regime.

The debt swap with Portugal is a mechanism of functional reversibility: the payment obligation remains, but its economic outcome is redirected to a national climate fund. The limitation is that procurement under the original arrangement is tied to Portuguese companies, meaning that part of the control remains with the creditor.

The weakest point is inter-island transport. The IMF regards inadequate connectivity among the islands as an obstacle to spreading the benefits of tourism, while problems at state-owned transport companies create fiscal risks. If an island lacks a backup carrier or route, the decision to specialize in tourism becomes less reversible.

Vanuatu: Crisis Flexibility and Accumulated Irreversibility

Vanuatu has experience rapidly mobilizing external assistance after disasters. A World Bank instrument allowed previously approved financing to be repurposed into an emergency reconstruction grant after the 2024 earthquake. Remittances, grants, and the recovery of tourism support foreign-exchange reserves even as the current-account deficit widens.

Several key decisions, however, have low reversibility. The liquidation of the national airline destroyed accumulated transport capacity; declining citizenship-by-investment revenue left a structural gap in the budget; and past credit-financed infrastructure generates future repayments. The EU permanently revoked visa-free access, so the reputational damage from the citizenship program cannot be undone by a single amendment to current procedures.

The political system sought to increase reversibility through institutional stabilization. In the first national referendum, held on May 29, 2024, voters approved amendments restricting MPs from switching parties and requiring party affiliation. The goal was to reduce the frequency of government changes and give cabinets a longer horizon for policy implementation. Such stabilization, however, reduces the freedom of an individual MP, creating a trade-off between the reversibility of individual coalition choices and the predictability of state strategy.

Mechanism Outcome

Cape Verde provides greater financial reversibility through reserves, monetary discipline, and the restructuring of obligations. Vanuatu has developed stronger emergency switchability but carries a larger stock of irreversible losses in transport, passport reputation, and debt. Crisis assistance helps a state recover after a shock, but it does not substitute for the capacity to limit the scale of damage in advance.

8. Boundary Sovereignty

Cape Verde: Boundaries of Reliability

Stable democracy is the principal domestic constraint on external dependence. Competitive elections and periodic transfers of power between rival parties take place, while civil liberties are generally protected. This makes external agreements more predictable and reduces the likelihood that donor and investment flows will become personalized.

Cape Verde also draws a boundary between borrowing and climate policy. The climate fund financed through the debt swap is to have transparent rules for governance and resource use; the IMF specifically emphasized the need to structure it as a treasury subaccount. Sovereignty here is defined not by receiving money but by the capacity to embed an external flow within the state’s own budgetary procedure.

Maritime, digital, and transport boundaries remain materially permeable. Geography makes the country an important Atlantic node and a potential maritime-security partner; NATO points to its location between Africa, Europe, and the Americas and to opportunities for maritime cooperation. The low military score of 22.9 means that control over these spaces depends on partnerships rather than autonomous force.

Vanuatu: Custom as a Constitutional Boundary

Vanuatu embeds cultural and property limits on external influence directly in its Constitution. All land belongs to indigenous customary owners and their descendants; custom is the basis of land ownership and use, and perpetual ownership rights belong to indigenous citizens. Transactions between an indigenous owner and a foreigner require government consent.

The linguistic arrangement also reflects multilayered sovereignty: Bislama is the national language, while Bislama, English, and French are official languages; customary law continues to operate as part of the national legal system. The state does not erase the colonial legal legacy but places it alongside a national language.

The citizenship-by-investment program, however, blurred the boundary of political membership. Selling citizenship to persons without an enduring connection to the country turned membership in the political community into a fiscal instrument. The EU response showed that external actors can redefine the price of such a boundary by depriving all citizens of visa-free access because of the way new members were admitted.

Mechanism Outcome

Cape Verde draws boundaries primarily procedurally - through democracy, budgeting, and regulatory standards. Vanuatu draws them substantively - through customary land, language, and indigenous membership. Yet Vanuatu itself reveals an internal contradiction: strong protection of land coexists with the commercialization of citizenship.

9. Second-Order Sovereignty

Vanuatu: Vulnerability Changes International Law

Vanuatu represents one of the strongest contemporary examples of Second-Order Sovereignty for a small state. It did not merely demand climate finance; it raised the question of states’ legal obligations and the consequences of violating them. The General Assembly’s consensus request in 2023 led to the International Court of Justice’s unanimous 2025 advisory opinion, which affirmed the applicability of climate treaties, human rights law, the law of the sea, customary international law, and the duty to prevent transboundary harm.

The subsequent General Assembly resolution in May 2026 welcomed the opinion, called on states to act in accordance with their international obligations, and provided for a further report by the Secretary-General. Despite low technological, economic, and military scores, Vanuatu succeeded in changing the language and procedure of global climate responsibility.

This is precisely the emergent effect: the cultural legitimacy of an island society, the cognitive work of lawyers and a youth coalition, diplomatic networks, and material climate vulnerability reinforced one another. No single dimension can explain the result.

Cape Verde: Creating a Financial Precedent

Cape Verde’s influence appears in the financial-institutional sphere. The debt-for-climate-investment swap with Portugal was presented as a mechanism that could be replicated with other bilateral creditors. The country used debt and climate vulnerability not merely to obtain a concession but to propose a model for redirecting debt payments toward resilience investment.

Cape Verde also acts as an institutional bridge between the EU and Africa. Its unique Special Partnership with the EU and membership in African and Lusophone organizations allow it to test forms of cooperation that do not presuppose EU membership. This effect remains weaker than Vanuatu’s legal achievement: it changes financing and partnership practices but does not create an equally universal international rule.

Mechanism Outcome

Vanuatu clearly outperforms Cape Verde in Second-Order Sovereignty. It converted existential vulnerability into an international legal process addressed to all states. Cape Verde converts vulnerability into financial and partnership innovations, but their diffusion depends on voluntary replication by creditors.

10. Reproductive Sovereignty

Cape Verde: Institutions and the Transnational Nation

Cape Verde’s capacity to reproduce agency rests on competitive democracy, relatively reliable institutions, and the diaspora. Freedom House characterizes the country as a stable democracy with regular transfers of power and gives it a freedom score of 92 out of 100.

Political predictability helps sustain the currency regime, relations with the EU, and IMF programs across electoral cycles.

The diaspora simultaneously strengthens and weakens reproduction. Remittances support reserves and households, while knowledge and capital accumulated abroad can be used for entrepreneurship and technological development. Persistent emigration, however, reduces the domestic skills base and makes resilience dependent on economic conditions in host countries.

Technological reproduction remains a weak link. Cable infrastructure creates access, but the score of 23.1 indicates a shortage of indigenous technological capacity. An emergent effect will arise only if connectivity is converted into national competencies, redundant channels, digital services, and cyber resilience.

Vanuatu: Migration and Institutional Deficit

Vanuatu reproduces collective responsibility through customary land, local communities, Bislama, and constitutional recognition of customary law. These institutions preserve the connection among territory, community, and political membership even under high dependence on external financing.

Labor mobility creates an ambiguous cycle. Earnings in Australia and New Zealand finance education, housing, and health care, increasing household resilience. Yet large-scale worker outflows can deepen domestic skills shortages; the IMF explicitly identifies labor shortages as a risk to the economy and to investment implementation.

Political fragmentation also limits the reproduction of strategy. The 2024 amendments were designed to curb frequent party switching by MPs and repeated no-confidence votes. Their adoption demonstrates the system’s capacity for self-correction, but the scale of the problem means that a high political score of 68.2 should not automatically be interpreted as durable executive capacity.

Repeated disasters create a risk of institutional exhaustion: the state apparatus must continually shift from development to reconstruction. In 2023, two cyclones caused damage amounting to roughly 12% of GDP; these were followed by the liquidation of Air Vanuatu and the 2024 earthquake. Without reserves, personnel, and durable procedures, external assistance may reproduce infrastructure without necessarily reproducing the state capacity required to manage it.

Mechanism Outcome

Cape Verde is stronger at reproducing formal-institutional agency; Vanuatu is stronger at reproducing cultural-communal agency. Both countries use migration as an external circuit of reproduction but face the risk that remittances will compensate for, rather than eliminate, deficits in domestic opportunity.

11. Systemic Comparison

The systemic linkage among mechanisms in Cape Verde operates as follows. Political stability increases partner confidence and sustains a multilayered Dependence Architecture. The euro peg and IMF programs create macrofinancial predictability; the diaspora and tourism supply foreign exchange; the debt swap expands the reversibility of obligations; and partnerships with the EU, ECOWAS, and CPLP preserve alternative diplomatic platforms. The system’s weakness is the correlation among flows: tourism, remittances, investment, and the currency regime are all substantially tied to Europe.

In Vanuatu, interaction is more volatile. Climate vulnerability creates moral and legal legitimacy; this is converted into coalitions, the ICJ opinion, and access to climate finance. Competition between Australia and China expands the choice of infrastructure partners, while labor programs turn a shortage of jobs into remittances. Yet political fragmentation, limited administrative capacity, and repeated disasters make the portfolio difficult to coordinate. One form of dependence can therefore produce agency while another undermines it: climate diplomacy increases influence, whereas passport sales reduce reputation.

12. Testing the Paradox

The comparison confirms the possibility of sovereignty produced from vulnerability, but it does not confirm an automatic relationship between the degree of vulnerability and the level of agency.

First, vulnerability becomes a political resource only after institutional processing. Vanuatu’s climate risk would not by itself have produced an ICJ opinion. The outcome required a youth initiative, legal expertise, a diplomatic coalition, a consensus General Assembly resolution, and a subsequent implementation mechanism.

Second, the number of dependencies is not the same as their diversification. Cape Verde has numerous European partners, but a common European crisis could simultaneously affect tourism, remittances, and investment. Vanuatu engages with geopolitically competing partners, yet individual infrastructure projects may remain concentrated around a single external contractor and creditor.

Third, external recognition of vulnerability can expand choice, while the commercialization of trust can narrow it. Vanuatu successfully converted climate vulnerability into international law, but converting citizenship into revenue led to the loss of EU visa-free access. These are opposite outcomes of the same Conversion mechanism.

Fourth, Vanuatu’s higher index score does not imply superiority across all mechanisms. Vanuatu has stronger Second-Order Sovereignty and more pronounced cultural-land boundaries. Cape Verde demonstrates more durable democratic procedures, financial buffers, and institutionally compatible external ties. Vanuatu’s 52.6-point advantage therefore reflects greater initial potential, but not a proportional difference in sustainable strategic capacity.

13. Typology of Dependence

The comparison makes it possible to distinguish four types of dependence.

Vulnerability increases sovereignty when dependence is insurance-based or portfolio-based; anchoring dependence produces a mixed result; extractive dependence reduces agency. The same partner or instrument may move from one category to another as conditions change.

14. Theoretical Conclusions

The study refines the model of emergent sovereignty through six propositions.

Dependence and sovereignty are not antonyms. Sovereignty is defined not by the absence of external ties but by control over their architecture.

Diversification must be measured by function. Multiple donors do not create an alternative if all of them finance the same irreplaceable transport or digital node.

Vulnerability can generate a bargaining premium. A small island state can convert existential risk into coalition legitimacy and influence over international norms.

Correlated dependencies create hidden concentration. Different flows originating in the same geoeconomic space may disappear simultaneously.

Reputation is part of the infrastructure of sovereignty. Revenue obtained by degrading the quality of citizenship or regulation may be smaller than the cost of lost external rights and trust.

Reproduction matters more than one-off mobilization. Receiving aid after a disaster does not yet demonstrate agency; agency is shown by the capacity to reduce the damage from the next disaster and preserve personnel, procedures, and backup channels.

Conceptually, the outcome can be expressed as follows:

ES = V x (Df + A + R + SO) x P - (Cd + I + E)

where V = recognized vulnerability; Df = functional diversification of dependencies; A = availability of alternatives; R = reversibility; SO = second-order influence; P = reproducibility; Cd = concentration; I = irreversibility; and E = institutional exhaustion. The formula is not intended for mechanical calculation. It shows that vulnerability acts as a multiplier only when it is processed positively by institutions; otherwise, it magnifies the penalties.

15. Limitations of the Study

The Burke Index profiles are accepted as provided. Without open primary indicators, the year of measurement, weights, and uncertainty intervals, they cannot be used as precise causal estimates. Numerical gaps describe the structure of initial potential but do not measure the effectiveness of the seven mechanisms.

The comparison also confronts different types of threat. Cape Verde is exposed primarily to drought, sea-level rise, external prices, and transport fragmentation; Vanuatu simultaneously faces cyclones, earthquakes, volcanism, and geopolitical competition. The same military or technological score may therefore have different functional meanings.

Further quantitative testing should measure:

   the concentration of external flows by partner and correlated region;

   the share of grants, concessional loans, and commercial debt;

   the number of backup transport, energy, and digital routes;

   the time required to mobilize crisis financing;

   the share of external projects managed by national personnel;

   the cost of switching among partners;

   the retention of skilled workers and institutional memory after disasters.

Conclusion

Cape Verde and Vanuatu confirm that structural vulnerability can be not only a constraint but also raw material for the production of emergent sovereignty. Cape Verde structures it through democratic reliability, its Special Partnership with the EU, African and Lusophone institutions, the euro anchor, the diaspora, reserve buffers, and debt-for-climate instruments. Vanuatu does so through a competitive donor portfolio, labor mobility, constitutional protection of customary land, and exceptional climate leadership.

These models, however, produce different forms of agency. Cape Verde is more effective at turning dependence into a predictable system of reproduction and financial reversibility, but remains geoeconomically concentrated on Europe. Vanuatu obtains greater bargaining and normative returns from partner competition and climate vulnerability, but suffers from a deficit of coordination capacity, infrastructural fragility, and reputational losses from citizenship by investment.

Dependence therefore becomes a source of sovereignty under four conditions: it is distributed across functionally independent channels; the state retains a realistic capacity to switch; obligations do not create excessive sunk costs; and national institutions can reproduce the governance of the network after a crisis. Where these conditions are absent, external resources merely compensate for vulnerability in the current period. Where they are present, vulnerability creates coalitions, financing, legal norms, and alternatives that the state could not have produced from domestic resources alone. This is why 347.1 versus 294.5 is an important baseline characteristic, but not a ready-made ranking of the emergent sovereignty of Vanuatu and Cape Verde.