Into the sea: capacity-building innovations and the maritime security challenge

Abstract

Maritime security capacity-building is a growing field of international activity. It is an area that requires further study, as a field in its own right, but also as an archetype to develop insights for capacity-building and security sector reform in other arenas. This article is one of the first to analyse this field of activity. Our empirical focus is on the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. Here, international actors have launched multiple capacity-building projects, initially in response to Somali piracy. We document the significance, extent and variety of capacity-building activities in this region and examine the ways in which capacity-building at sea has incorporated innovative characteristics that develop and expand the capacity-building agenda as traditionally understood. Our conclusion highlights the need to pay more attention to the maritime domain in international security and development studies and considers ways in which the maritime capacity-building experience may offer important lessons for other fields of international policy.

Keywords:

• Maritime security
• capacity-building
• security sector reform
• international interventions
• Western Indian Ocean

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 G7, “G7 Foreign Ministers’ Declaration,” 1.

2 AU, “2050 AIM Strategy,” 7–8.

3 Indian Ministry of Defence, Ensuring Secure Seas, 90.

4 République Français, “National Strategy,” 42.

5 See for example, Gebhard and Smith, “Two Faces of EU–NATO Cooperation”; Churchill, “Persisting Problem of Non-Compliance”; and Till, Seapower, Ch. 12.

6 See also Jacobsen, “Maritime Security and Capacity Building,” 238–56; and Khalid, “With a Little Help from My Friends,” 426–46.

7 Cornwall, “Buzzwords and Fuzzwords,” 472.

8 Eade, Capacity Building; Kühl, “Capacity Development”; and Venner, “Concept of ‘Capacity.’”

9 Eade, Capacity Building, 3.

10 Edmunds and Juncos, “Constructing the Capable State,” 7–8.

11 Venner, “Concept of ‘Capacity,’” 90.

12 Bueger and Edmunds, “Beyond Seablindness,” 1311.

13 Samatar, Lindberg, and Mahayni, “Dialectics of Piracy in Somalia,” 1378–81.

14 World Bank, Pirates of Somalia, xii–xiv.

15 Sander et al., “Conceptualizing Maritime Environmental Natural Resources,” 116–9.

16 Gluck, “Piracy and the Production of Security Space,” 652.

17 UK House of Lords European Union Committee, Turning the Tide on Piracy, para. 18.

18 Ejdus, “Here Is Your Mission,” 470.

19 For a review see Jackson and Bakrania, “Is the Future of SSR Non-Linear?”

20 Sandoz, Maritime Security Sector Reform, 1.

21 Edmunds, Security Sector Reform in Transforming Societies, 25–7.

22 Menzel, “Institutional Adoption and Maritime Crime Governance”; and UNODC, Global Maritime Crime Programme Annual Report 2018, 45.

23 UNODC, Global Maritime Crime Programme Annual Report 2018, 6–15, 42–9.

24 Bueger, Stockbruegger, and Werthes, “Pirates, Fishermen and Peacebuilding,” 356–81.

25 Bueger, “Drops in the Bucket,” 17.

26 Vreÿ, “Turning the Tide,” 1–23; and Oyewole, “Too Early to Celebrate!,” 579–80.

27 IMO Maritime Safety Division, Djibouti Code of Conduct, i.

28 IMO, “Jeddah Amendment to the Djibouti Code”; and Menzel, “Institutional Adoption and Maritime Crime Governance,” 153.

29 UNODC, Global Maritime Crime Programme Annual Report 2017, 10.

30 EU External Action Service, “Supporting the Development of Maritime Security.”

31 European Commission, Programme to Promote Regional Maritime Security, 4–7.

32 Van de Ven et al., Innovation Journey, 213.

33 De Búrca, Keohane, and Sabel, “Global Experimentalist Governance,” 478. The authors also cite Holley, “Facilitating Monitoring, Subverting Self-Interest,” as viewing experimentation as ‘active’ hypothesis testing ‘in the field’.

34 Lopez, “Rethinking Regionalism and the Politics of Regionalisation,” 663–88.

35 MacLeod and Wadrop, Operational Analysis at Combined Maritime Forces, 3.

36 Bueger, “Territory, Authority and Expertise,” 625.

37 IMO Maritime Safety Division, Djibouti Code of Conduct, 2.

38 European Commission, Programme to Promote Regional Maritime Security, 1–2.

39 Ibid., 8.

40 Ricigliano, “Networks of Effective Action,” 445–6.

41 Donais, “Security Sector Reform,” 42.

42 Jackson and Bakrania, “Is the Future of SSR Non-Linear?” 16–21.

43 Bueger and Edmunds, “Beyond Seablindness,” 1303–4.

44 Swarttouw and Hopkins, “Contact Group on Piracy,” 12–3.

45 Ibid., 11, 14, 17.

46 Missiroli and Popowski, “Foreword,” 4.

47 Houben, “Operational Coordination of Naval Operations,” 31.

48 Guilfoyle, “Prosecuting Pirates,” 75–7.

49 Houben, “Operational Coordination of Naval Operations,” 33.

50 UNODC, Global Maritime Crime Programme Annual Report 2017, 10.

51 Ibid,11.

52 Steinberg, “Free Seas,” 270; and John Mack, The Sea. A Cultural History, 74.

53 Seychelles News Agency, “Seychelles Taking Steps.”

54 Bueger, Effective Maritime Domain Awareness, 7.

55 Ibid, 4.

56 RMIFC, “About RMIFC”; and Seychelles News Agency, “Soon in Seychelles.”

57 Doorey, “Maritime Domain Awareness,” 124–41.

58 Edmunds, Juncos, and Algar-Faria, “EU Local Capacity Building.”

59 Ejdus, “Here Is Your Misson,” 472–4.

60 Edmunds, Juncos, and Algar-Faria, “EU Local Capacity Building,” 232.

61 Houben, “Operational Coordination,” 32.

62 Ejdus, “Here Is Your Misson,” 472–4.

63 Edmunds and Juncos, “Constructing the Capable State,” 13–4.

64 Ahmed, Unravelling the Puzzle of Piracy, 44–6.

65 Le Blanc, Freire, and Vierro, Mapping the Linkages between Oceans, 20–3.

66 Edmunds, Juncos, and Algar-Faria, “EU Local Capacity Building.”

67 Ejdus, “Here Is Your Mission,” 474–5.

68 Jakobi, Global Governance and Transnational Crime, 6–7.

69 Percy, “Counter-Piracy in the Indian Ocean.”

Additional information

Funding

Research for this article has benefited from grants from the British Academy (GF16007), Economic and Social Research Council (ES/K008358/1; ES/S008810/1) and the European Union Horizon 2020 programme (award no. 653227).

Notes on contributors

Christian Bueger

Christian Bueger is a Professor of international relations at the University of Copenhagen, an Honorary Professor at the University of Seychelles and a research fellow at the University of Stellenbosch. His work focusses on maritime security governance, practice theory and the sociology of expertise. He is the author of International Practice Theory (with Frank Gadinger), and his articles have appeared in journals such as the European Journal of International Relations and International Studies Quarterly.

Timothy Edmunds

Timothy Edmunds is a Professor of international security and Director of the Global Insecurities Centre at the University of Bristol. He is founding Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of International Security for the British International Studies Association. His work addresses issues of security sector reform, civil–military relations and capacity-building, with a recent focus on the maritime environment. His current research focuses on responses to transnational organised crime at sea. His authored or edited books include British Foreign Policy and the National Interest (2014, ed. with Jamie Gaskarth and Robin Porter) and Security Sector Reform in Transforming Societies (2007).

Robert McCabe

Robert McCabe is a research fellow in maritime security with the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University. Previously he worked as a postdoctoral research associate with the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University on the British Academy Sustainable Development Programme-funded project SafeSeas. He holds a PhD in international security and an MA in military history and strategic studies from Maynooth University. He is the author of Modern Maritime Piracy: Genesis, Evolution and Responses (Routledge, 2017) and several articles addressing maritime security, development and governance topics.