From foes to partners : the 2024 Chagos Agreement as competitive hegemonic subordination

Abstract

Formal decolonization does not always end the hierarchical relationships it is meant to break. This is seen in the 2024 UK Mauritius Agreement over the Chagos Archipelago. After a fifty-year dispute between a former colonizer and its former colony, Mauritius secured recognition of sovereignty over the archipelago. Yet, the agreement's provisions such as the 99-year lease of Diego Garcia and restrictions on third-party strategic or military access without UK and US consent, severely fragments Mauritius' strategic and military sovereignty. This raises the question of why long-term adversaries would agree to an agreement that would give legal sovereignty, while retaining strategic control? Using Neo-colonial theory and Grovogui's concept of quasi-sovereignty, this research employs comparative-historical analysis, process tracing, and legal-textual analysis to assess treaty provisions, ICJ rulings, government policy documents, and administrative archival records to derive the mechanisms of interest. The findings reveal that the fragmentation of Mauritian sovereignty results from the residual coloniality of the relationship between the UK and Mauritius. This residual coloniality includes the persistence of unequal relations of legal, administrative, and strategic colonial sovereignty, where Britain, by virtue of the colonial legacy, is the only capable actor having the right to create those terms. The external rivalry between the US and China in the Indian Ocean, particularly China's naval expansion from 2008 to 2024, shaped the timing and severity of the settlement. It moved Britain and the US from outright denial of the decolonization claims towards a negotiated framework that meets decolonization norms, while preserving strategic dominance. This study argues that the treaty's provisions operate as a rival exclusion mechanism, enabled by coloniality and intensified by great power competition. These together create what this thesis calls "Competitive Hegemonic Subordination". Neither rivalry alone, but also residual coloniality, accounts for the subordination of formerly decolonized states by means of legally constructed and constrained forms of sovereignty.