Transnational security challenges and statehood in Africa: A case study of drug trafficking in Ghana

From a point of very little knowledge about illicit drugs in the 1980s, Ghana has evolved over the last three decades into a major transhipment point in the global supply and demand of narcotics. Apart from the resultant rise in Ghanaians involved in trafficking activities and the consumption of narcotics, the prevalence of the phenomenon has suggested a growing interface between the country’s emerging political culture and drug trafficking trends. Taking advantage of the recent provenance of Ghana’s experience, this study investigates the cause-effect relationships in the onset and impact of drug trafficking, as a transnational security challenge to statehood in Africa. Following a thorough analysis of available quantitative and qualitative data collected from multiple primary and secondary sources, the study establishes the centrality of state weaknesses in the cause-effect relationships surrounding the onset and existence of drug trafficking in Ghana. It finds that the existence of Ghana in the confluence of the interaction between internal and external factors made it vulnerable to the activities of criminal networks exploring new routes to markets in the global North. Upon emerging, traffickers have sustained the country’s weaknesses, worsened them in some cases and also initiated new forms through narco-corruption, intimidation, infiltration and state capture. The study argues, among others, that the rise in drug trafficking, and organised criminality more broadly, is more of a symptom of existing weaknesses and structural fault lines in the state than an initiator of state weaknesses by itself. The onset and existence of transnational organised criminality is thus an important indicator of the existence of certain forms of state weaknesses as well as weakening factors requiring responses. The transnationalisation of security challenges in a given region requires the prior existence of a regional weakness complex. Organised criminals are thus opportunistic in their activities and merely capitalise on existing weaknesses of the state. By their weakening impact on state institutions, drug trafficking activities erode the functional and juridical attributes of the states by influencing citizen perceptions of the appropriateness of institutions and the legitimacy of the state.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Political Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Atta-Asamoah, Andrews

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Akokpari, John

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12705

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/12705