Counter-Piracy Governance: A Praxiographic Analysis

Pirates are back on the agenda of world politics. How is the international community responding to piracy and what makes it so difficult to address the problem? This project analyses the international response to contemporary maritime piracy. Notably in response to Somali piracy a wide variety of actors has become engaged in counter-piracy since 2008. Actors include the UN Security Council, the NATO, the EU, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), but also various national and regional security and development actors. Together a complex set of new institutions and fora has been put in place, leading to unique web of relations that this project describes as a "global security governance arrangement under construction". In the project I want to understand how this arrangement works, why and when it succeeds and fails.

To do so I conduct the first major systematic analysis of this arrangement from a political science perspective. To understand the arrangement illuminates and hopefully improves policy making in the domain of counter-piracy and maritime security. Yet, the type of analysis developed in the study has also implications that go beyond the immediate case of counter-piracy. I draw on and further develop theoretically and methodologically a perspective that is relatively recent to political science and international relations. It has been introduced as a "practice turn" or as "international practice theory". This perspective focuses on practice as the core unit of analysis. In the project I draw on practice theory and use praxiographic methodology centered on a strategy of zooming in and zooming out. In three research phases I investigate four counter-piracy governance processes in depth (zooming in) as well as the relations between actors and sites (zooming out). I conduct in-depth studies of counter-piracy governance on an international level by studying the UN Contact Group, and on a regional level by investigating initiatives in East Asia, Eastern and Western Africa. The analysis then is a major contribution to the research agendas of International Relations in at least three ways.

1) The project develops an innovative eclectic analytical framework to interrogate security governance arrangements. It is an eclectic framework since it aims "to demonstrate the practical relevance of, and substantive connections among theories and narratives constructed within seemingly discrete and irreconcilable approaches" (Sil and Katzenstein 2010:3). I combine different approaches to security often understood as mutually exclusive. I do so in relying on a practice-theoretical approach that has the capacity to combine these. The project develops an innovative framework and advances the debates about what can be achieved with practice theory.

2) The analysis is important for the debates in security studies on how contemporary threats are governed. A vibrant agenda around the framework of securitisation theory has approached the construction processes of threats, such as transnational organized crime or HIV/Aids. On the one side the project adds the securitisation of piracy to the discussion. But it also extends the discussions in two major ways. It fills a blind spot of a current agenda that concentrates on representations and constructions. A focus on practice helps to also pay attention to the practical consequences for actions such as the use of force. The focus on practice also widens the understanding of problem construction in situating securitisation among a range of other problematisations (such as an economic or a humanitarian one).

3) The project is of immediate relevance for the emerging inter-disciplinary field of piracy studies. Much of piracy studies are exclusively policy-oriented. Others focus on the behavior of pirates or on the "root causes" of piracy. The project intervenes in piracy studies in demonstrating that is important to also pay attention to the broader implications of piracy.

The project conducts the first major investigation of the evolving counter-piracy regime. The results of the project will be beneficial for three target groups: 1) counter-piracy practitioners in governments and international organisations, 2) the shipping industry, 3) the larger interested public.

The project results and the developed 'thinking tools' will be beneficial for practitioners in governments, the military and international organisations. Results and tools will assist practitioners in orientation and navigating the field. The gaps, contradictions and tensions identified will help in improving and re-designing counter-piracy policies and its governance arrangements. The research is directly beneficial for actors involved in institution building. This includes the Maritime Security and Anti-Piracy team of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UK based NATO Shipping Center and the EU's Naval Force Headquarter, and the EU's Crisis Management and Planning Directorate of the European External Action Service, notably for the implementation of its recently launched EUCAP NESTOR mission. These institutions have already expressed interest in the project (see project partners). In addition the project's work will be beneficial to the work of the Maritime Security Team of the Politics Directorate of the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office and to the work of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime which is involved in implementing institution building measures in West as well as East Africa Project.

The second group of beneficiaries are actors from the shipping industry, most directly the associations representing it. The shipping industry is one of the main victims of piracy, and the project results assist in informing industry representatives about political developments as well as identifying opportunities of where their lobby interventions or investments could make a difference. Beneficiaries are notably the associations Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO), International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (INTERTANKO), International Association of Dry Cargo Owners (Intercargo), and the International Maritime Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce (IMB-ICC), all of which are very active in counter-piracy policy and have their security divisions based in London. Notably the IMB-ICCs director has expressed great interest in the project. Furthermore, beneficiaries include representatives of the growing industry of private maritime security providers, such asthe London-based Security Association for the Maritime Industry (SAMI).

The third group of beneficiaries is constituted by the wider Welsh, UK as well as international public. Although piracy receives quite some media attention, the problem is frequently presented as over-simplified and stereo-typed (Ali and Muhrad 2009, Collins 2012). Journalists frequently report on piracy incidents and counter-piracy policy. In response to the piracy-studies.org blog, I have been contacted by the media on several occasions (see CV). In the project such contacts will be intensified by developing the blog and addressing the news media more directly. Working with the media is important given that counter-piracy is costly and it is therefore crucial to explain whether this money is spent well or should be spent on alternative measures.

As further expanded in the Pathways to Impact, the project aims at developing a sustainable form of dialogue with practitioners and journalists. This includes social networking in the form of the project based blog and participation in online counter-piracy networks. Two workshops will bring international practitioners together with academics. In addition, presentations at industry-oriented conferences (e.g. Transport Security Expo), invitations to practitioners to give lectures in Cardiff (2 per year), and media interviews will ensure that the audiences are reached.