The New Barbary Wars: Forecasting Maritime Piracy

Abstract

This paper extends systematic analyses of maritime piracy by verifying the robustness of empirical results and examining the forecasting ability of empirical models. Recent research by Ward, Greenhill and Bakke () finds that statistically significant relationships frequently offer poor guidance when it comes to anticipating the inception of civil war. We assess the predictive ability of purported causal factors of piracy using evaluative statistical tools such as receiver‐operating characteristic plots, out‐of‐sample predictions, and outlier analysis. Statistical results for in‐sample and out‐of‐sample tests show that while factors such as military capacity, population size, coastline length, and trade volumes are statistically related to piracy, state fragility has by far the strongest predictive effect despite only being moderately statistically significant in the models. Outlier analysis demonstrates that while several countries experience higher numbers of piracy incidents than predicted, empirical models are generally robust to the presence of outliers. For policymakers, the findings suggest that counter‐piracy efforts focused on capacity‐building measures have the greatest potential for reducing the piracy threat.

Enforcing order: Territorial reach and maritime piracy

“…The ability to implement policy spatially also seems more broadly relevant for criminal violence like piracy rather than insurgency, since unlike some insurgent groups, pirates do not intend to capture the state center. 14 Not only do we see evidence that crime prevention efforts by public authorities have a deterrent effect, supporting the notion that increasing the hazards of capture and punishment decreases criminal activity (Sherman, 1990; also see Braga, 2001), but evidence also shows that the distance between country capitals and piracy location increases as government capacity improves (Daxecker and Prins, 2015).…”

“…We include four additional control variables in our models. Existing research on piracy shows that GDP per capita, regional trade levels, and the number of ports significantly affect piracy (Coggins, 2012; Daxecker and Prins, 2013, 2015; Hastings, 2009; Jablonski and Oliver, 2013). GDP per capita is used as an indicator of economic opportunity and we use data from the World Bank.…”

Does criminal violence spread? Contagion and counter-contagion mechanisms of piracy

“…Since this is the first study using such spatially and temporally fine-grained data, there is no existing model against which I can compare these ROC curves. The only available in-sample prediction exercise is provided by Daxecker and Prins (2015). Using country-year as unit of analysis, their model for all piracy incidents has an AUC of 92%.…”

Order beyond the state: explaining Somaliland's avoidance of maritime piracy

“…Second, geography and structural factors could help to explain the low level of piracy emanating from Somaliland: its coastal areas are less populated than Puntland's, and offer less mountainous terrain for refuge; the coastline is also considerably shorter than Puntland's is, and is closer to the state of Djibouti, which has taken a role in managing piracy. Coastline length and mountainous terrain have both been used as control variables in quantitative studies of conflict incidence (Fearon 1999; Fearon & Laitin 2003; Daxecker & Prins 2015 a , 2015 b ). Yet, pirates themselves do not usually hide in mountainous terrain, given that they generally anchor their ships on the coast.…”

“…In this paper, we explore these deeper mechanisms by looking at micro-level dynamics of maritime piracy (and its absence) in Somalia. Piracy has plagued a number of countries on the continent, notably those in the Gulf of Guinea (Nigeria, Togo and Benin) and Horn of Africa (particularly Somalia) (Murphy 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013; Chalk 1998, 2008; Kaplan 2009; Daxecker & Prins 2013, 2015 a ; Hastings & Phillips 2015), and we argue that exploring the local nuances of this phenomenon offers a window into the violence and criminality often associated in the literature with African state institutions. We exploit in-country variation in piracy incidence in different regions of Somalia – widely framed as the ‘world's most comprehensively failed state’ ( The Economist 2008) – to investigate how some territories with low state capacity nonetheless deter piracy and maintain relative order.…”