Maritime piracy business networks and institutions in Africa

Hastings, Justin V.; Phillips, Sarah

doi:10.1093/afraf/adv040

Cited by 18 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…While robust economic figures are hard to come by – even for UN officials working on the ground for this purpose 4 – there are several reasons making it unlikely that there would have been vast differences between their economies. Both regions have a roughly commensurate population size (though Somaliland is probably larger – (UNFPA 2014)), 5 with economies that are predominantly centred on pastoralism, the exchange of services, and the receipt of remittances from members of the diaspora (Hastings & Phillips 2015). Being largely pastoral, the economies of both Puntland and Somaliland would have been fairly equally affected by the nine-year ban that was imposed by Saudi Arabia on Somali livestock exports until late 2009.…”

Section: Comparing Puntland and Somalilandmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…7 Pirates have themselves also sometimes justified their actions in terms of Somalia's institutional weakness, arguing that its lack of a coastguard allowed foreign fishing vessels to encroach on Somali territorial waters and plunder the country's once lucrative fishery stocks. Pirates have routinely reasoned that they were justified in attacking foreign vessels as a way of recovering some of the lost income from fishing, and of defending Somalia's territory (Bueger 2013; Dua 2013; Hastings & Phillips 2015).…”

Section: Somaliland's Institutional Capacitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this paper, we explore these deeper mechanisms by looking at micro-level dynamics of maritime piracy (and its absence) in Somalia. Piracy has plagued a number of countries on the continent, notably those in the Gulf of Guinea (Nigeria, Togo and Benin) and Horn of Africa (particularly Somalia) (Murphy 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013; Chalk 1998, 2008; Kaplan 2009; Daxecker & Prins 2013, 2015 a ; Hastings & Phillips 2015), and we argue that exploring the local nuances of this phenomenon offers a window into the violence and criminality often associated in the literature with African state institutions. We exploit in-country variation in piracy incidence in different regions of Somalia – widely framed as the ‘world's most comprehensively failed state’ ( The Economist 2008) – to investigate how some territories with low state capacity nonetheless deter piracy and maintain relative order.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Order beyond the state: explaining Somaliland's avoidance of maritime piracy

Hastings

Phillips

2018

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

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How do some places with weak institutional capacity avoid being caught in the cycles of violence and criminality so often associated with African institutions in the ‘failed states’ literature? This paper exploits in-country variation in piracy incidence across different regions of Somalia to investigate how some territories with low state capacity can nonetheless deter piracy and provide relative order. We find that the usual explanation – state ‘failure’ in Somalia, compared with a reasonably functional government in Somaliland – does not withstand scrutiny. Somaliland's lack of piracy was not due to ‘strong’ state institutions, but can be attributed to the strength of a discourse that emphasises Somaliland's ‘inherent’ capacity for order against the disorder supposedly endemic to the rest of Somalia. The exploration of the discursive underpinnings of Somaliland's supposed ‘piratelessness’ has implications for understanding the relationship between state institutions, political order and violence, particularly where the state does not exercise a monopoly on force.

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Section: Comparing Puntland and Somalilandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Somaliland's Institutional Capacitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Order beyond the state: explaining Somaliland's avoidance of maritime piracy

Hastings

Phillips

2018

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

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“…Drawing on the extant literature linking elections and criminal violence, we expect that competitive elections threaten to disrupt agreements between pirate groups and local elites. Collusion between pirates and local governing authorities frequently has been identified as essential for the flourishing of pirate organizations since such connections help stabilize the environment in which pirates operate (Hastings 2012;Hastings and Phillips 2015;Murphy 2009;Shortland and Varese 2014). Hastings (2012, p. 689), for example, observes that incidents in the South China Sea essentially disappeared once the Chinese government cracked down on pirate-government collusion.…”

Section: Electoral Competition and Maritime Piracymentioning

confidence: 99%

The politicization of crime: electoral competition and the supply of maritime piracy in Indonesia

Daxecker

Prins

2016

Public Choice

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Electoral competition in weak institutional settings has been shown to increase criminal violence, in particular homicides. Electoral competitiveness, by virtue of threatening the ability of incumbents to maintain informal corruption agreements with criminal networks, is argued to increase crime because of violent competition among criminal groups over future influence. We link elections to maritime piracy, a form of criminal behavior that has increased substantially since the end of the Cold War and for which cross-national, temporally and spatially disaggregated data are available. We argue that electoral competition reinforces piracy because political changes threaten to disrupt collusive agreements between pirates and government authorities. Anticipating a disruption of criminal activity, pirates elevate their attack rates before political changes undermine these agreements. This disruption effect suggests that jurisdictions holding competitive electoral contests should experience more maritime piracy. We test our hypothesis on electoral competitiveness and piracy with subnational data for the 1999 and 2004 elections in Indonesia. Our results show that piracy escalates in proximity to highly competitive electoral districts.

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“…In West Africa, sophisticated piracy both preys upon and arises from the formal economy, specifically the international oil industry. As a result, piracy networks often mirror and draw from both the formal institutions in Nigeria used to regulate and protect oil production, and those engaged in oil production, processing, distribution and transportation. — Hastings and Phillips (2015, pp. 555-576)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Impact of Strategic Change Management on the Maritime Crude Oil Transportation Industry in Nigeria

Aluko

Odularu

2019

The Review of Black Political Economy

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Maritime transportation plays a strategically crucial role in the diversification of the Nigerian economy due to its trade (exports and imports) facilitation role in enhancing value chain competitiveness. Thus, this paper investigates the role of strategic change management (SCM) on the Nigerian Maritime Crude Oil Transportation Industry (MCOTI) within the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Further, the study finds that both managers and end-users think a 'radical change' rather than a 'gradual change' is needed in the MCOTI in Nigeria. However, both managers and end users gave significantly different reasons for a radical change in the industry. For example, most managers argued that government intervention through deregulation, increased investment in technology and trade facilitation infrastructural development are critical for the survival, restructuring, repositioning, expansion and growth of the industry (in terms of ship registry and number of cabotage vessels in Nigerian coastal waters), while end users focused on product pricing and availability as well as increased opportunities for the vulnerable and economically disadvantaged.

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Maritime piracy business networks and institutions in Africa

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Order beyond the state: explaining Somaliland's avoidance of maritime piracy

Order beyond the state: explaining Somaliland's avoidance of maritime piracy

The politicization of crime: electoral competition and the supply of maritime piracy in Indonesia

Understanding the Impact of Strategic Change Management on the Maritime Crude Oil Transportation Industry in Nigeria

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