Analyzing Maritime Insecurity in Ghana (AMARIS)
The negative impacts of maritime insecurities on development, trade and human security are increasingly recognised. What are the effects of current responses to maritime insecurity? How can countries with high levels of maritime insecurity be better supported? To answer these questions, AMARIS studied maritime crime and maritime security policy in Ghana.
AMARIS offers one of the first in-depth case studies of a country’s response to maritime insecurity. It investigated the manifestations of maritime crime in Ghana and the drivers and inter-sections. It studied the governance and capacity building response to them. AMARIS was implemented in close cooperation with SafeSeas and partners in Ghana.
THE PROJECT IS CLOSED
Project period: 2020-2023
Principal Investigator (PI): Christian Bueger
AMARIS was a three-year research and capacity building project. It was a partnership between the Departmental of Political Science, and three research institutions in Ghana.
The goal of AMARIS was to conduct a theory-driven and in-depth study of maritime security in Ghana. It investigated the manifestations of maritime crime in the country (work package 1), the governance responses to maritime security that have developed in the past twenty year (work package 2), and the capacity building assistance that is carried out in the country by international partners (work package 3). Ghana was seen as a paradigmatic case because it is a country in the Global South that can successfully govern its waters. The research revealed best practices, but also the tensions and challenges that persist. Theoretically the project drew on practice theory and specifically, assemblage thinking. Part of the project was also a junior analyst training school that aimed at advancing expertise in the Western African region.
Maritime piracy is the blue crime that often receives the majority of attention. Indeed, piracy in the Gulf of Guinea continues to dominate much of the news coverage of the region. Yet, blue crime is a wider problem. Environmental crimes, such as illegal fishing or waste dumping, port security, smuggling or stowaways are issues that also require consideration. The first work package of AMARIS investigated the manifestations of blue crime in Ghana to identify patterns, inter-sections between crimes and the core drivers behind them. This work package was led by the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center (KAIPTC). Its results provided major new insights into the logic of blue crimes.
Responding to maritime insecurities is a major inter-agency challenge in which not only different governmental agencies play a role, but also private actors and coastal communities. Deciphering this complexity and understanding how the relations between actors are arranged and governed was the ambition of work package 2 of AMARIS. Particular attention was paid to coordination tools such as maritime surveillance, coordination committees as well as maritime security strategies. Led by the Center for Maritime Security and Law in Africa (CEMLAWS), the work package provided one of the first studies of a national maritime security governance system. The results inform the wider discussion of how maritime security can be governed.
Many countries negatively affected by maritime insecurity struggle with developing the appropriate capacities to effectively respond. In consequence, many international donors are assisting these countries through capacity building projects. Ghana is no exception to this. The goal of the third work package of AMARIS was to study the challenges that emerge in capacity building as they concern power relations, coordination problems and sustainability issues. The work package was led by the Department of Political Science, supported by the University of Ghana.
AMARIS was led by the Department of Political Science. It continued the substantial research on maritime security that has already been carried out at the department. The project was part of the activities of the international SafeSeas research network on maritime security (www.safeseas.net). It was implemented through a partnership between the department and three research institutions in Ghana: the Center for Maritime Security and Law in Africa (CEMLAWS), the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center (KAIPTC) and the University of Ghana.
Christian Bueger
Katja Lindskov Jacobsen
External group-member
Kamal-Deen Ali, CEMLAWS
Emmanuel Kwesi Aning, KAIPTC
Ransford Gyampo, University of Ghana
Christian Bueger
Department of Political Science
Mail: christian.bueger@ifs.ku.dk
Phone: +45 35 32 50 66
Funded by:
AMARIS was funded for three years by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and administered byDanida Fellowship Centre
Project: Analyzing Maritime Insecurity in Ghana (AMARIS)
Period: 2020-2023