What is going on with skew-sovereignty in island states?

Starting point: Two skews, one logic

If the first text of the series (Barbados vs. Nauru) described the digital and geopolitical distortion of sovereignty as a result of resource poverty, while Vanuatu and Haiti represent a qualitatively different — and more acute — stage of the same disease. This is not about dependence as a structural feature, but about skew-sovereignty as a prerequisite for institutional collapse: a situation where external actors not only complement the state, but consistently replace its key functions.

Vanuatu demonstrates a climatic and geopolitical skew: the state is formally sovereign, but its institutional independence is being eroded simultaneously by two streams - the growing climate threats, depriving the country of its resource base, and the competitive investments of China and Australia, turning every state facility into a geopolitical symbol. Haiti is a pole of crisis-institutional distortion: a state in which skew-sovereignty has entered an open institutional collapse — 90% of the capital is controlled by armed groups, the functions of government have been transferred to international missions for decades, and the state itself remains only as a legal shell.

In both cases, there is one result: sovereignty, which is very difficult to fix.

Burke Index (BSI): Two states in numbers

The Burke Sovereignty Index (BSI) measures the real sovereign potential of a state in seven dimensions, each of which reflects a separate domain of autonomy. The data for Vanuatu and Haiti clearly show not only the gap between the two countries, but also the critical vulnerabilities within each of them.

The gap of 164.3 points between Vanuatu and Haiti, the largest of all the pairs considered in this series, reflects a qualitative difference in the skewing stage. Haiti's cumulative score (182.8 out of 700, or only 26.1%) is evidence of a State in a state of progressive institutional disintegration.

Three key dimensions: What the numbers say

The political dimension captures the most striking contrast: Vanuatu is gaining 68.2 — a country with functioning elections and a multiparty system; Haiti — a catastrophic 18.7, reflecting the absence of a legitimate government since 2021 (since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise), a permanent state of emergency and the replacement of state power by criminal structures.

Economic dimension: Vanuatu has 46.1, Haiti has 21.4. The economy of Vanuatu, despite its debt dependence on China (about 40% of the external debt is accounted for by the Chinese Exim Bank), retains a working infrastructure. By the middle of 2025, Haiti's economy was virtually paralyzed: the groups earned from 60 to 75 million dollars annually only on extortion from container shipments, and legitimate trade collapsed.

The cognitive dimension is a particularly important indicator for analyzing the prospects of escaping the skew—sovereignty trap: 52.6 for Vanuatu versus 26.1 for Haiti. Without an educational and intellectual base, the state is unable to build its own institutions or rethink models of dependence. Haiti's cognitive score is a structural verdict: the country lacks the human resources for independent institutional recovery.

Vanuatu: Climatic and geopolitical bias

Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 islands in the Pacific Ocean, with a population of about 340,000, and has been independent since 1980. The official foreign policy doctrine of the country is: "We are friends to everyone and enemies to no one." In practice, this declaration describes not a policy, but a structural trap: a State unable to afford a choice between competing patrons monetizes its neutrality in the same way that Nauru monetized its territory.

China: Infrastructure as a sovereign takeover

Since 1982, when diplomatic relations were established, China has consistently built a presence in Vanuatu through infrastructure gifts and concessional loans. By 2024-2025, the result of this strategy has become visible: China has built and handed over to Vanuatu a parliament, a conference center, a stadium, offices of the Ministries of foreign Affairs and finance, and in July 2024, a presidential palace worth $31 million. The key-handing ceremony was attended by Chinese dancers with dragons, and the "China Aid" banner towered over the palace.

It's not just symbolic. China controls about 40% of Vanuatu's external debt — about $150 million according to data for 2025. All major construction projects are implemented with Chinese contractors and labor, which minimally stimulates local employment. The IMF rates Vanuatu as a country with a "moderate" risk of debt distress, with the caveat that the addition of new Chinese loans could put the country in the "high risk" category with a debt-to-GDP ratio above 50%.

Several experts explicitly qualify this strategy as "debt-trap diplomacy": the creation of financial dependence that can be converted into political loyalty. The presidential Palace, where the government operates, was built and paid for by a foreign power — this is the quintessence of skew-sovereignty: the very center of state power physically belongs to an external creditor.

Australia: Security as a counter argument

Australia reacts symmetrically. In August 2025, the parties signed the Nakamal Agreement, an agreement worth $500 million (about $326 million) for a period of 10 years. The document establishes Australia as Vanuatu's "main partner in policing," funds the creation of two data centers in Port Vila and Santo ($120 million), and allocates funds for climate resilience.

The reaction of Vanuatu's Prime Minister, Jotham Napata, is revealing: right in parliament, he stated that both countries were using "strategic interests" to interfere in Vanuatu's internal affairs. According to him, in the initial version of the Nakamal Agreement, Australia included provisions on "oversight of critical infrastructure" — which Vanuatu demanded to exclude precisely as a threat to sovereignty. Notably, while fighting for sovereignty against one agreement, Vanuatu simultaneously signed the Namele Agreement with China.

In May 2026, Vanuatu approved both the Chinese and Australian pacts simultaneously. This is the perfect illustration of skew-sovereignty in action.: the state does not choose a patron, it tries to balance between the two, and both sides are aware of this and compete to become more indispensable.

Climate Bias: Skewing’s Invisible Agent

Climate pressure is added to the geopolitical pressure. Vanuatu is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world: the archipelago is regularly exposed to cyclones, earthquakes, floods and tsunamis. In December 2024, an earthquake damaged the capital Port Vila, causing loss of life and destruction of infrastructure. Reconstruction requires external assistance — and each natural disaster increases dependence on external donors who finance reconstruction on their own terms.

The climatic factor produces a special type of skewing: the state cannot refuse external assistance, since its absence means not just economic difficulties, but the literal physical disappearance of part of the territory. Vulnerability to natural disasters is a permanent lever of pressure that all external actors have at their disposal.

Citizenship by Investment: Passport as the last sovereign resource

Like Nauru at the time, Vanuatu has found another way to monetize sovereignty: citizenship by investment programs. The official website of the Vanuatu Citizenship Office offers several programs, including the Real Estate Option Program (REO), launched in 2021. The sale of passports brings significant income to the state, but creates a specific risk: the state that sells citizenship is gradually turning national identity into a financial instrument — another step towards blurring the sovereign content behind the facade of a sovereign form. The scandal of 2025 over the sale of diplomatic passports abroad is a symptom of the same disease.

Haiti: Crisis and institutional imbalance

Haiti is the first state in the world created by the uprising of enslaved people (1804), and the first independent state in Latin America and the Caribbean. This historical grandeur underscores a cruel paradox: the country, which has become a symbol of the struggle for sovereignty, has become a laboratory for its consistent destruction.

Haiti's political BSI score (18.7) is not a measurement error. This is a diagnosis of a state that does not actually govern either its capital or most of its territory.

The UN as a surrogate of the state: 30 years of external management

Since the 1990s, Haiti has been regularly governed by international missions, each of which was called upon to "restore State institutions" - and each left, leaving the state weaker than before its arrival.

Timeline of external governance:

• UNMIH (1993-1996): introduced after the military coup against President Aristide; the first multinational mission to "restore democracy"

• MINUSTAH (2004-2017): launched after the second overthrow of Aristide; 13 years of operation, survived the catastrophic earthquake of 2010; was accompanied by scandals about sexual violence and an epidemic of cholera brought by peacekeepers

• MINUJUSTH (2017-2019): Justice support mission, ended the era of the "blue Helmets" in Haiti

• MSS (2024) → Gang Suppression Force (2025 – present): After the assassination of President Moiz in 2021 and the takeover of the capital by groups, a new multinational mission under the command of Kenya, renamed the Gang Suppression Force (GSF ) by UN Security Council Resolution No. 2793 in October 2025

The key analytical question is: Why have government institutions not been established in 30 years of international presence? A Cambridge scholar (Cambridge Univ Press) explicitly points out that the discourse of the "failed state" not only simplifies reality, but also glosses over the role of international actors in the very process of nation-building. The UN missions replaced the state, rather than building it — creating dependence instead of autonomy.

Viv Ansanm: A parallel state as a new sovereign

After the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021, Haiti entered a phase that can no longer be described through the traditional categories of "weak state" or "instability."

In September 2023, an event occurred that fundamentally changed the political topography of the country: the two largest criminal associations, G—9 and G-Pop, merged into the Viv Ansanm coalition led by Jimmy Chérizier (a former elite police officer). Since February 2024, Viv Ansanm has launched systematic attacks on state institutions.

By mid-2025, the results of these offensives had been documented by the UN:

• More than 90% of Port-au-Prince is under the control of criminal gangs (haitidocs+1)

• The coalition has extended control to 3 out of 10 departments of the country — Artibonite, Center and West

• For the period January–September 2025 — at least 4,384 dead, 1,899 injured, 491 abductions

• 1.4 million people were forced to leave their homes, the largest internal displacement in the history of Haiti

• 5.7 million people are facing acute food insecurity; humanitarian supplies in many areas are distributed through networks controlled by the groups themselves

It's not just "gang violence." Viv Ansanm has built a parallel management system: systematic extortion from businesses and residents (60-75 million dollars annually from container shipping alone), shadow taxation of roads and markets, and a permit system for the movement of people and goods. As the Americas Quarterly states: "For tens of thousands of Haitians, paying fees for crossing provinces has become a common expense. Gangs are not just predators; they act as de facto sovereigns."

The May 2025 decision of the US State Department and the July decision of the UN Security Council to classify Viv Ansanm as a terrorist organization did not change a single square kilometer of real control.

GSF Failure: An International Response That Doesn't Work

Gang Suppression Force is a fundamentally new form of international response to the crisis. The authorized force ceiling is 5,500 officers; in fact, about 1,000 are deployed due to the fact that the contributing States withdraw contingents after the terms of their secondment expire. A coordination failure between the GSF and the Haitian National Police (HNP) is exacerbating the operational shortfall.

In the elections scheduled for August 30, 2026, Viv Ansanm announced its intention to create a political party and sent a letter to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General requesting negotiations. Analysts at the British Institute for Security Studies (BISI) assess as a "realistic possibility" that Viv Ansanm will deploy political allies inside the electoral infrastructure before candidate registration closes. This will mean a transition to a new phase: criminal skew-sovereignty is formalized and becomes part of official state institutions.

Theoretical understanding: Why this skewing is "hard to fix"

Of the seven dimensions of the Burke Index, cognitive is the least discussed and the most determinative of the long-term fate of the state. Haiti has 26.1. This means that even if all groups disappear tomorrow and all international missions leave, the country will not have the human and intellectual base to build institutions independently. Skew-sovereignty creates cognitive poverty, and cognitive poverty makes it impossible to get out of skew-sovereignty. This is a classic institutional

Substitution effect vs. construction effect

The critical difference between "helping" and "building" external actors is as follows: replacing government functions (as the UN missions in Haiti did) creates dependence; building government capacity (the theoretical goal of the same missions) reduces it. Cambridge University Press researchers state that in the 13 years of MINUSTAH, the mandate of "building state capacity" has not been realized — international actors were interested in managing instability, not in eliminating it.

In the case of Vanuatu, Chinese infrastructure builds facilities, but not competencies. There is a presidential palace, with a technological BSI score of 29.4. Australian police officers provide security, but do not build a sovereign police potential. Cognitive BSI score — 52.6: moderate, but insufficient to break the infrastructural dependence.

The self-reinforcing logic of skewing

Both countries exhibit the same pathological dynamics:

1. Structural vulnerability (climate/historical crisis) creates primary skewing

2. The first skewing weakens state institutions

3. Weakened institutions cannot withstand further skewing.

4. External actors fill the vacuum, deepening dependence

5. Deep dependence makes a sovereign reversal structurally impossible without an external catalyst

In Vanuatu, this cycle is in the early stages and potentially reversible — the political BSI score (68.2) indicates the preservation of the institutional core. In Haiti, the cycle has passed the point of no return: the political score (18.7) captures a State that is no longer a real subject of its own sovereignty.

Divergent trajectories

Vanuatu and Haiti are not just two examples of skew-sovereignty, but two different scenarios for its development.

Vanuatu still retains room for maneuver. A functioning parliament, multiparty elections, and diplomatic activity — the political score (68.2) and cultural score (73.8) attest to the preservation of identity and institutional framework. Prime Minister Jotham Napat directly accuses both great powers of interference — this is already the voice of sovereignty, albeit limited. However, the window of opportunity is narrowing: every new palace, every new debt, every new security agreement is another lock on the door of a sovereign reversal.

Haiti is in a situation that BISI describes as "a nominally sovereign State, meaningfully controlled by an actor recognized as a terrorist organization." The August 30, 2026 elections are the last bet on restoring formal political legitimacy. But with the GSF with 1,000 instead of 5,500 fighters, with Viv Ansanm, who has already announced political ambitions, and with a cognitive score of 26.1, and this exit needs conditions that don’t exist.

Conclusion: When sovereignty ceases to be an asset

Barbados and Nauru, discussed in the first text of the series, have monetized sovereignty — turned it into a commodity. Vanuatu and Haiti have gone further: their sovereignty is not just sold, but spent. The difference is fundamental.

Vanuatu pays the price of sovereignty for infrastructure and security — in a climate of vulnerability that leaves no choice. Haiti paid with sovereignty for temporary stabilization, in an institutional vacuum that does not allow for recovery.

In both cases, the Burke Index captures one thing: a state that has given away the political, economic, and cognitive dimensions of sovereignty to external actors loses not only control, but also the ability to regain it. This is what makes skew-sovereignty — especially in its crisis-institutional form — a phenomenon that is "hard to fix."