ABSTRACTABSTRACTWest Africa’s Moratorium on Importation, Exportation, and Manufacture of Light Weapons was adopted in 1998, and the Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons, their Ammunition, and Other Related Materials was adopted in 2006. The Moratorium and the Convention are more than two decades old, respectively. However, there is little knowledge of their effectiveness in reducing arms flow. This research evaluates how ECOWAS members implemented the Moratorium and Convention to determine compliance trends. It uses a theoretical framework of domestic political legitimacy as a crucial mechanism to explain compliance variations. Political legitimacy is imperative for states’ and domestic groups’ behavior, and its dearth can lead to obtaining arms illegally, which the Moratorium and Convention seek to prevent. The empirics use case studies about Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to infer how political legitimacy variations influence compliance with the agreement.KEYWORDS: State legitimacycomplianceproliferationcollective securityGhanaCôte d’ivoirestate fragilityconflictsmall arms and light weapons Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Additional informationNotes on contributorsDaniel Kofi BaniniDaniel Kofi Banini is an Instructor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Political Science at Eastern Illinois University. He earned a Ph.D. in Security Studies in 2021 from the School of Politics, Security & International Affairs, University of Central Florida, and an MA in Peace Studies from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. His research sits at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations, with interests in conflict processes, civil-military relations, environmental security, and governance, focusing on Africa.
Authors: Daniel Kofi Banini
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14702436.2023.2188199
Publish Year: 2023
