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The paper explores connections between corruption and military effectiveness. It positions efforts to defeat Boko Haram in Nigeria within the doorstep of governance challenges. The empirical evidence has documented how the ebb and flow of corruption affected the effectiveness of military responses to defeat Boko Haram. The findings reveal that corruption in the defence sector weakened the military’s capacity to respond to security threats swiftly. However, efforts to address corruption positively led to enhanced military capacity, leading to a temporary victory.
The argument that incumbent politicians are frequently reelected into office gained traction in the legislative literature – giving birth to the incumbency advantage theory. This paper investigates why incumbents lost elections they are supposed to win – subjecting the incumbency advantage theory to new scrutiny. Using interview data collected in 2017 examining Ghana's 2016 parliamentary and presidential elections, including relying on data from the Electoral Commission (EC) and parliamentary archives, the article evaluates the sources of incumbency disadvantage among Ghanaian sitting legislators. It traces the growing trend in incumbency disadvantage to: (a) the overbearing effects of a strong executive arm of government on the legislature, (b) management of primary elections, (c) effective opposition party dynamics, and (d) perceptions of incumbent parliamentarians' governance effectiveness. The evidence emerging from Ghana shows incumbents are susceptible to electoral defeats as their challengers, contrary to the dominant view that incumbents' defeats are challenging, especially in African politics.
Recent scholarship has claimed that peacekeepers are more likely to mutiny or attempt military coups against their governments after returning home. These trends stand in contrast to the case of Ghana, which witnessed a perhaps unprecedented transition out of the “coup trap” to stable democratic rule, including multiple transfers of power to the political opposition while providing substantial and ongoing peacekeeping manpower. This is especially interesting given Ghana’s infamous mutiny in the Congo and the coup against Kwame Nkrumah, had their roots in peacekeeping. Potentially seen as a deviant case through the lens of recent scholarship, as evaluation of Ghana’s experience illustrate that different leaders under various regime types deliberately utilized peacekeeping deployments as a coup avoidance strategy. This experience has also acted as a tool to gain military resources from foreign donors, while the government has deliberately made efforts to avoid mission hardships and perceptions of victimization seen in other contingents.
An increasing number of African countries are experiencing electoral power shifts, indicating that more voters are switching loyalties between parties and candidates. Theories that pin electoral change in Africa on clientelism, patronage, and ethnic cleavages fail to account for the dynamics surrounding these shifting loyalties. This study probes the factors that pry swing voters away from core supporters in African elections. Using data from a nationally representative sample of over 3000 voters across Ghana, we find evidence that voters exempted from positive clientelist inducements (gifts) were more likely to cast swing votes. We also find that voters exposed to negative clientelism (wary of violence or forceful forfeiture of benefits after elections) were more likely to cast swing votes. Nonetheless, voters wary of violence but who have received gifts in exchange for their votes were less likely to swing their vote, indicating that negative clientelism is only effective when accompanied by positive inducements. Finally, we find that voters who prioritize parties' performance records were more likely to switch their votes from one party to another. Our results imply that the rising political power shifts on the continent are driven by an increasing share of voters unencumbered by clientelist inducements and a rising determination to prioritize national interests over parochial benefits.
This thesis examines the proliferation of small arms within the West African corridor. Despite a number of the few initiatives to limit small arms proliferation, the ECOWAS region is still awash with small arms. This research tests the hypothesis that the ECOWAS Convention may not be effective in preventing illicit weapon flow in the region. This hypothesis is based on the following premises: that effective nonproliferation regime should (a) have the political will and support at the state, and at the regional level; that (b) small arms trade is a multifaceted global problem, as such, a global cooperation with nonproliferation regimes is also vital for the success of such regimes.
West Africa's dominant sources of security threats have shifted in the past 20 years from large-scale civil wars to low-intensity conflicts previously unaccentuated. This dissertation takes on three of these new security threats; a) crop farmer (farmer) and animal herder (herder) tensions, b) small arms proliferation, and c) corruption and security. The clashes between farmers and herders have assumed significant security dimensions in the past decade, yet, we have a limited understanding of the conflict processes. I examined farmer-herder contestations in chapter two from climate-change conflict nexus and common-pool resource (CPR) governance perspectives. First, I argue that the recent farmer-herder skirmishes are evidence of climate volatility, positing that extreme climatic factors have contributed to these clashes' frequency and severity. Second, I assess how local CPR regimes in the conflict hotspots exacerbate the tension by considering these resources' social embeddedness and the implications of different user stratifications. The analysis draws on detailed interview data gathered in the conflict hotspots in the Kwahu enclave in the Eastern Region of Ghana in 2020 to explain the mechanisms. The climate-conflict literature has developed an affinity for large-N approaches, with few studies emphasizing qualitative methods. Qualitative approaches can emphasize location-specific conditions of the conflict dynamics to illustrate variations at the micro-level. For which no quantitative data exist, for instance, power relations between groups or CPR design principles to cope with the exigencies of climate extremes and intergroup tensions, fieldworks or interview approaches can provide better contextualization. They can pinpoint the broader causal dynamics critical for understanding climate–conflict links but are easily ignored by methods focusing on the narrow relationships between mainly two variables. The study reveals that a) seasonal variability affects farmer-herder conflicts, with the intensity (frequency and fatality) peaking during the heart of the drought period and b) ambiguous CPR governance regimes and weak land rights also feature prominently as the conflict driver. The third chapter investigates how state legitimacy influences the demand for small arms and light weapons (SALW) and how this, in effect, provokes conflicts in the West African subregion. Specifically, I evaluate the Economic Community of West African States' (ECOWAS) nonproliferation regime on small arms. I argue that the state's legitimacy is the mechanism that determines if it will import arms outside the legal routes and if conflict will follow. The analysis uses qualitative evidence of SALW proliferation data with a state legitimacy index to explain the tendency to comply with the collective security agreement. The second part uses case studies about Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire (CD1), and Nigeria to draw further inferences on how state legitimacy crises induce small arms demands and undermine compliance with the nonproliferation agreement. The findings reveal that state legitimacy bodes well for not acquiring arms outside the legal channels. The evidence also suggests that state capacity, an essential mechanism in treaty compliance, has little impact on states' ability to implement the regime. State capacity plays a marginal role because countries with domestic legitimacy problems acquired arms with little adherence to the security regime because of 'insecurity and the constant need to be on high alert. This makes state capacity a secondary factor as countries decide not to enforce the regime rules because of domestic legitimacy problems. In Ghana, state legitimacy pointed in the direction of compliance, while in CDI and Nigeria, diminished state legitimacy led to conflict, reducing the ability to implement the regime. Chapter four explores links between political corruption, and national security, using Boko Haram in Nigeria as a case study. I argue that corruption is a security problem because it diverts resources away from national security issues, predisposes resource distribution to patronage networks that co-opt state institutions, and distorts counterinsurgency success. The empirical analysis, drawn from micro-qualitative evidence from financial statements, military records, and terrorism data, finds that corruption enervated military capacity while strengthening insurgency effectiveness. This study makes links between corruption and insurgency in a novel way and expands our grasp of what makes counterinsurgency successful. Chapter five summarizes the general findings and reveals how the project contributes to our understanding of security dynamics in the West African subregion. Overall, the evidence illustrates that it is difficult to provide security without some fundamental government legitimacy, governance effectiveness, and more importantly, without considering how ecological scarcity, which has become more pronounced recently, threatens security nationally and at the micro-levels.
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.
