Stephen Ellis prize awarded to Justin Hastings & Sarah Phillips for article on piracy networks

The journal African Affairs has awarded the inaugural Stephen Ellis prize to Justin Hastings & Sarah Phillips from the University of Sydney for their article 'Maritime piracy business networks and institutions in Africa'. The prize was awarded on 8 September during the ASAUK conference in Cambridge, UK. Stephen Ellis (1953-2015) was a greatly respected editor of African Affairs. According to the awarding committee, Hastings and Philips deserve the prize because of the way in which the article shows how political institutions in the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea shape and constrain sophisticated maritime piracy syndicates and their behaviour.
Read the committee's praise for the article.

Abstract of 'Maritime piracy business networks and institutions in Africa'

The two regions with the greatest incidence of maritime piracy in Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea, are also known for the low quality of the institutions underlying their political economies. This article investigates how institutions in these areas shape and constrain the sophisticated maritime piracy syndicates and their behaviour. Engaging with the literature on state failure and maritime piracy, we argue that norms and institutions constrain even criminal organizations like piracy groups, which often mimic and are embedded in the licit economy. In the Horn of Africa, pirates take structural and ideational cues from the licit economy and are constrained by the informal regulations that govern clan groups, rent-based economic activities, and collective security arrangements in Somalia. In West Africa, sophisticated piracy both preys upon and arises from the formal economy, specifically the international oil industry. As a result, piracy networks often mirror and draw from both the formal institutions in Nigeria used to regulate and protect oil production, and those engaged in oil production, processing, distribution, and transportation.

Read the full article.

Justin Hastings is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney.
Sarah G. Phillips is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Government and International Relations, Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney.

About the prize

Stephen Ellis (1953-2015) was a greatly respected editor of African Affairs, who played an important role in making the journal the success that it is today. The Stephen Ellis Prize for the most innovative article in African Affairs is intended to highlight and promote the kind of thought provoking, politically engaged and pathbreaking analysis that Stephen Ellis pioneered throughout his hugely influential career. The prize will be awarded to the article published in African Affairs that does the most to challenge existing preconceptions, raise issues of contemporary political importance, render complex topics accessible to broader audiences, or to introduce new ideas (whether theoretical, empirical or methodological) into African studies and the public understanding of Africa. 

The prize, which comes with a cash award of £100 and one year's free subscription to African Affairs, will be awarded every second year, for the most innovative article published in the previous two year period. The awarding committee for the prize includes at least two members from the Editorial Board of African Affairs, and the editors of African Affairs. More information about the prize on the website of African Affairs.

Stephen Ellis was one of the most prominent researchers of the ASCL. His last book, This Present Darkness: A History of Nigerian Organised Crime, was published posthumously last April.