A Theory of Power Convergence: From Cumulative Individual to Recursive Sovereign — Bukele, Traoré, Trump, and Berlusconi

The framework of power convergence developed in prior work has shown how individuals can accumulate influence across structural, coercive, symbolic, psychological, and networked domains, operating beyond traditional institutional boundaries. Existing analyses, however, treat political authority as a downstream consequence of this process, leaving unresolved what occurs when convergence reaches the level of the state. This paper introduces the concept of recursive sovereignty to describe a threshold condition in which the relationship between the cumulative individual and the institutional order undergoes qualitative transformation. At this threshold, the individual no longer merely operates across domains of power but begins to constitute the conditions under which juridical authority is recognized and reproduced. Sovereign convergence is defined not by the scale of accumulated power but by a relational inversion in which institutional structures become integrated into the convergent system itself. The paper identifies three mechanisms through which this threshold is approached and crossed—legitimacy inversion, coercive alignment, and feedback closure—and examines them through comparative case studies of Nayib Bukele, Donald Trump, and Ibrahim Traoré. The cases are chosen to vary the strength of institutional buffering: Bukele represents rapid and legible crossing in a weakly buffered environment; Trump represents a staged and oscillating approach in a strongly buffered one, advanced through a second cycle whose outcome remains contested; and Traoré represents context-dependent crossing against a minimal institutional baseline. Together they demonstrate that the threshold is a relational condition defined by structural inversion rather than a fixed level of accumulation. A negative case—a fully convergent individual who does not cross the threshold—confirms that the concept discriminates between sovereign convergence and merely personalized or media-centered power. The analysis argues that sovereign convergence is characterized by a structural paradox: the recursive integration that produces short-term durability simultaneously generates systemic fragility, as tightly coupled domains raise the likelihood of cascading failure. By extending the framework of power convergence to the domain of sovereignty, the paper provides an analytical means of identifying when and how convergence may cross into a sovereign reconfiguration of political authority. NOTE: This paper is the third in a series on power convergence and the cumulative individual: Paper 1: A Theory of Power Convergence: The Cumulative Individual (January 2026) Paper 2: A Theory of Power Convergence: Epstein, Assange, and Ye as Cumulative Individuals (March 2026)