Leaders

  • Rita Abrahamsen, School of International Development and GlobalStudies/Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
  • Michael C. Williams, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs

Overview

  • Resource extraction in Africa has recently come under intense international scrutiny, with concerns that oil and mineral extraction hinders development and increases conflict and state weakness. Yet to date very little is known about the private security within resource extraction. Global security actors and their clients are increasingly implicated in processes of state formation and governance, and the project analyses these dynamics in four countries: Ghana, Madagascar, Nigeria, and Tanzania. This project seeks to fill this knowledge gap, and to examine the ways that private security is part of a reconfiguration of state authority and political power. The project also has a particular focus on the activities of Canadian resource extraction companies, which are amongst the most significant players on the African continent.