Brian Benjamin Crisher and Mark Souva, Florida State University Naval power is a crucial element of state power, yet existing naval datasets are limited to a small number of states and ship types. Here we present 147 years of naval data on all the world’s navies from 1865 to 2011. This country-year dataset, which we … Read more

By Anamika Twyman-Ghoshal The lack of reliable piracy data has been identified as one of the main obstacles to contemporary maritime piracy research (Worrall, 2000; Ong-Webb, 2007). Research to date has focused on selected types of piracy or on particular geographical regions where piracy occurs, usually relying on single sources of data or being wholly … Read more

Insights from an ESRC sponsored Ideaslab on Maritime Security at Cardiff University, 26-27 June 2014 By Jan Stockbruegger and Christian Bueger, Cardiff University The concept of maritime security is one of the most recent additions to the vocabulary of international security. If security at sea used to be discussed in the frame of concepts such … Read more

By Adriana Erthal Abdenur and Danilo Marcondes de Souza Neto In the fluid, highly uncertain context of the post-Cold War period, rising powers have begun to engage more intensely in region-building, redefining their strategic vicinities through a combination of inter-state cooperation and military build-up. Although this topic has been addressed in depth with respect to … Read more

by P.V. Rao The unstable and fragile political regimes of many of the African littoral countries in the Indian Ocean Region compound the problems of managing their maritime domains. Maritime criminal and illegal operations are confined not only to the coastal states but also to the island states of the continent. The inability of these … Read more

Christian Bueger & Anna Leander Insights from a CRIC Seminar supported by CBS Maritime, Copenhagen Business School, 26 May 2014 The fight against Somali piracy has sparked a range of interesting innovations of how the international community approaches an international problem. This includes new means of international cooperation, such as the Contact Group on Piracy … Read more

Paul Hallwood and Thomas J. Miceli University of Connecticut Modern day maritime piracy is a world-wide phenomenon that poses a serious threat to international shipping.  An economic approach to the control of maritime piracy is based on the general economic theory of law enforcement that views offenders (pirates) as rational decision makers who would respond … Read more

Global Directions, Merton College Oxford in Conjunction with the Royal Navy Hudson Trust Anja Shortland, Julia Amos and Sarah Percy The third international maritime security conference was held at Merton College, Oxford on 1 and 2 April 2014 with over forty delegates. It involved two days of lively conversation, stimulated by short presentations on various … Read more

Jan Stockbruegger, Cardiff University In the past, the maritime domain has not featured prominently on the policy agenda of the African Union and Regional Economic Communities (RECs). Neither the 1963 founding Charter of the Organization of African Unity (OUA), nor the 2002 Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU the successor of the AOU) contain … Read more

By Christian Bueger The European Union (EU) has been one of the driving actors of counter-piracy: EUNAVFOR Atalanta is one of the core naval force providers, the EU has been one of the core sponsors of the UNODC’s Counter Piracy Project, EUTM Somalia provides military training in Somalia, and the Critical Maritime Routes Program intends … Read more