Addressing Security Challenges: Strategic Management of Sovereignty in Small States

This study aims to examine how small states—particularly those in the developing world—strategically deploy sovereignty to address their security challenges. Small states, particularly those in the developing world, must contend with inherent structural vulnerabilities that compel them to seek external anchors of security. Determining on whom to rely and by what means remains a persistent strategic dilemma. Different strategic orientations each carry their own advantages and drawbacks. Choosing among them requires not only an assessment of the sources of risk, but also an appreciation of how future developments may alter the strategic landscape. For small states, this constitutes a persistent and long-term challenge. Yet the modern principle of sovereignty not only offers these states an institutional guarantee of survival, but also provides crucial support for diversifying their security strategies. At the same time, small states possess distinct advantages—moral leverage, strategic flexibility, and numerical plurality—that allow them, under certain conditions, to convert weakness into agency. Drawing on these attributes, they can engage in the strategic deployment of sovereignty to transform what appears to be a “no-win situation” into one of expanded opportunity. This paper argues that, through the strategic deployment of sovereignty, small states are not only able to secure additional guarantees of safety, but in some cases also succeed in reshaping their strategic environment—altering the very narrative of “marginalization.” In terms of sovereign practice, infrastructure—understood as the material manifestation of how state power shapes and reorganizes space—captures the shifting frontier of national interests and the evolving modes of sovereignty applied within it. In contemporary contexts, it has increasingly become central to international strategic interaction. Accordingly, this study employs infrastructure as the lens through which to examine how small states treat sovereignty both as an instrument of power and as a strategic resource, using strategies of “pivoting” and “embedding” to turn vulnerability into opportunity. At the conceptual level, they actively reshape the meaning and boundaries of sovereignty by selectively absorbing, rejecting, or advocating norms, thereby shifting from a passive stance within the international order to a more proactive, and sometimes innovative, role. The findings suggest that the strategic and occasionally creative ways in which developing small states mobilize sovereignty not only enhance their own security, but also position them as consequential actors in driving normative and institutional change. These dynamics illuminate broader patterns within the small-state category and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of sovereignty in theory and practice.