Dr. Brandon C. PrinsDepartment of Political Science

University of Tennessee-Knoxville

The Continuing Threat of Maritime Piracy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Funding for this project provided by the Office of Naval Research through the Minerva Initiative grant # N00014-14-1-0050.

Drivers of Maritime PiracyInstitutional Fragility

Relative Deprivation/Grievance

Geographical Conditions

Opportunity

Loss-of-Strength Gradient

1

Describing Piracy

Sub-Saharan African Piracy Global Piracy Heat Map

3

Trends in Sub-Saharan African Piracy

4

• Somali piracy drove global counts higher beginning in 2009

• 2000 still represents height of global piracy due to attacks off Indonesia

• Somali piracy has dropped dramatically since 2011

• Nigerian piracy has increased

Piracy Counts in 9 Sub-Saharan African Countries

Piracy in 9 Sub-Saharan African Countries

5

• These 9 countries are the most piracy-prone in Sub-Saharan Africa• Globally, countries in South and South East Asia experience considerable

piracy• Somali piracy has dropped significantly, but so far at least 7 incidents

through May 8, 2014. • Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has increased and so too has the violence

associated with Nigerian piracy

Status of Vessels when Attacked

6

• Comparison of piracy in 9 Sub-Saharan countries with all other piracy-prone states

• Temporal comparison using 2005-2008 and then 2009-2013

• In non-Sub-Saharan African countries there is little difference in status of attacked vessels across time

• But the percentage of ships attacked while steaming has increased substantially in Sub-Saharan African countries

• Driven mostly by Somali piracy, but also by Guinea Gulf piracy

• Sophistication of pirates

Violence of Piracy

7

• Violence associated with Sub-Saharan African piracy is greater than other piracy-prone regions – more hijackings and more ships are fired upon

• Somalia obviously an outlier• Nigerian piracy may have fewer hijackings but weapons are

involved in more of the attacks

Success Rate of Pirate Attacks

8

• Success rate of pirate attacks has not changed much in non-Sub-Saharan African countries from 2005-2008 to 2009-2013

• The success rate of pirate attacks has dropped substantially in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2005-2008 to 2009-2013. This is not just driven by Somalia but is also true of Guinea Gulf piracy as well

Violence Comparisons

9

• Violence has surged in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade

• Maritime piracy represents only a small subset of the violence observed.

• Extensive political, social, and terrorist violence occurs in these countries

Correlates of Maritime Piracy

10

• Minerva project explores the drivers of maritime piracy• Government weakness, economic grievance, geographic conditions and

opportunity all associate with piracy• These drivers of piracy tend to be strong in Sub-Saharan African countries• Governments are weak (SFI Score, but can also use extractive capacity as

measure)• Countries are poor with large numbers of unemployed young men• Large populations provide ample recruits• Pirates can evade security forces with ease it appears

Correlates of Maritime Piracy

State Weakness Economic Deprivation

11

Power Projection and Piracy Figures show that the effect of

state weakness on piracy increases with increasing distance between capital and coastline

Weak states cannot project power over territory effectively and so pirates strategically locate themselves outside of a government’s political reach

12

Distance to Piracy from Capital Cities

Piracy Data Source: IMB

Distance (Kilometers)

Strong States 674.63

Weaker States 480.54

Failed States 425.46

Least Corrupt (Top 3rd) 846.56

Partially Corrupt (middle 3rd) 563.15

Most Corrupt (Bottom 3rd) 427.24

• We see that as state strength increases, piracy moves farther away from capital cities.

• The same relationship occurs with a measure of government corruption.

13

Focus on Nigeria

14

The map shows geo-coded piracy data, geo-coded armed conflict data, and geo-coded terrorist attacks

There may be a connection between armed insurgency and maritime piracy and or terrorism and piracy.

We have looked at the temporal relationship between armed conflict and piracy and find that piracy does appear to increase in the year after armed conflicts

Piracy may help fund insurgent and terrorist movements in some countries

Armed Conflict, Terrorism and Piracy in Nigeria, 2009-2013 (Blue Dots = Armed Conflict; Red Dots = Terrorist Attacks; Green Dots = Piracy Incidents)

More micro-analyses may help with prediction

15

• Weather patterns affect piracy in certain countries

• Monsoon winds drive piracy down in Greater Gulf of Aden, especially summer monsoon

• Increases in rainfall during summer months in Gulf of Guinea have similar, but weaker effect for Nigerian piracy

Economic Drivers of Piracy

16

• We look at the relationship between crude oil production and price of sugar as indicators for the strength of the legal economy in Nigeria. As crude production increases and as the price of sugar increases, workers should gravitate towards the legal economy and away from piracy

• We find a weak by negative relationship between both crude production and sugar price and piracy for 2009-2013.

• Unsure how robust this finding is.• Compare to value of fish catch off

Somalia

Global Piracy and Predictions

Country 2014 Risk

Prediction

2013 Piracy Count

Somalia High 7

Nigeria High 31

Togo Moderate 7

Ivory Coast Moderate 4

Ghana Moderate 1

Guinea High 1

Cameroon Moderate 0

DRC High 0

Tanzania High 1

The figure below shows true global piracy counts by year (spikes) and our model prediction (dashed line). Our model predicts 248 piracy incidents in 2014. Currently IMB reports approximately 81.

17

• Red = High Risk• Orange = Moderate Risk• Yellow = Low Risk

Overall Objectives of Minerva Research Project

Build a theoretical model of maritime piracy Existing research concentrates on state fragility and economic deprivation as drivers of piracy We theorize that the effects of both factors are conditioned by distance (loss of strength

gradient, which is defined as the ability of governments to enforce order over distance) Our project will explore distance from several different angles

Geographic Economic Cultural

Operationalize loss of strength gradient We need measures of critical factors affecting maritime piracy (fragility, deprivation, distance)

Geo-code all piracy incidents Reconcile the various datasets that currently exist on maritime piracy Build Database on Pirate Organizations in 4 or 5 countries Use theoretical model to build country-level & sub-national (for several countries) risk indices Forecast piracy events at the country and sub-country levels of analysis Build a web-based portal to access data and map piracy incidents

18

Research QuestionsIs the relationship between state strength and

maritime piracy conditional on power projection?Is the distance between regime power centers and

piracy incidents influenced by regime strength?Are piracy events spatially and temporally correlated

and if so can we use this information to forecast piracy into the future?

Does political conflict within countries exacerbate piracy or correlate with piracy?

Do insurgent and or terrorist groups use piracy as a funding arm?

19

Contact Information Email – bprins@utk.edu

Web - http://brandonprins.weebly.com/maritime-piracy.html

Twitter – www.twitter.com/piracyscience

20