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1. Algeria’s Borderlands: A Country Unto Themselves

Author:
Dalia Ghanem
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Smuggling goods across the border between Algeria and Tunisia has created a parallel economy for marginalized border populations. Law enforcement and smugglers alike must navigate these gray zones in state authority. In Algeria, state formation remains an evolving process, as evidenced by the situation in the country’s northeastern border regions. With Algerian officials in these areas permitting smuggling of petrol and certain other commodities over the border with Tunisia and smugglers weeding out security threats even as they go about their illicit trade, the two ostensibly adversarial parties complement each other. This unusual relationship furthers the intrusion of the state into citizens’ livelihoods even as it manipulates state authority.
Topic:
Law Enforcement, Economy, Borders, Trade, and Smuggling
Political Geography:
Algeria, North Africa, and Tunisia

2. When the dust settles: Economic and governance repercussions of migration policies in Niger’s north

Author:
Johannes Claes and Anna Schmauder
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations
Abstract:
Mobility has played an important role in Niger’s north throughout its history. Local populations, in response to droughts or shifting border regimes in Libya and Algeria, have traditionally been able to make changes to their livelihood strategies and have shown a remarkable capacity for adaptation, often through migration as a way of diversifying livelihoods. However, since the early 2000s, and particularly since 2016, this system has come under pressure as increasing collaboration with Western countries, whose agendas are aimed at curbing irregular migration from Africa to Europe, has reduced the options available for income generation. This paper lays out the emerging longer-term dynamics in the region in response to the criminalisation of smuggling in Niger in 2015 and the measures subsequently taken to curb northward migratory movements. It has discerned such effects on the local economy and on the perception of governance providers, who are often responsible for detecting and managing discontent.
Topic:
Economics, Migration, Governance, and Smuggling
Political Geography:
Africa, Libya, Algeria, and Niger

3. Algeria’s Borderlands: A Country Unto Themselves

Author:
Dalia Ghanem
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Smuggling goods across the border between Algeria and Tunisia has created a parallel economy for marginalized border populations. Law enforcement and smugglers alike must navigate these gray zones in state authority. In Algeria, state formation remains an evolving process, as evidenced by the situation in the country’s northeastern border regions. With Algerian officials in these areas permitting smuggling of petrol and certain other commodities over the border with Tunisia and smugglers weeding out security threats even as they go about their illicit trade, the two ostensibly adversarial parties complement each other. This unusual relationship furthers the intrusion of the state into citizens’ livelihoods even as it manipulates state authority.
Topic:
Economy, Borders, and Smuggling
Political Geography:
Algeria, North Africa, and Tunisia

4. Pulling Apart at the Seams: How the Smuggling and Narcotics Trade Are Helping to Reshape Governance in the Sahel

Author:
Andrew Lebovich
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
The jihadist takeover of northern Mali in mid-2012 caught many regional observers by surprise. For years, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and later the AQIM splinter group, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO in French), were seen largely as smugglers, criminals, and “narco-traffickers.” This perception led to a curious process by which some analysts dismissed the risk posed by these groups, while others (chiefly, Western governments) developed a near obsession with the prospect that money from smuggling operations, particularly drugs, would finance jihadist activity in the Sahara and Sahel.[1] While regional experts have since aggressively critiqued the notion of extensive ties between Sahelian militant groups and smuggling, particularly in the narcotics trade,[2] it is nonetheless important to assess the extent of these connections and how they fit into a larger regional context. ​ The purported link between cocaine trade and militant groups gained traction among outside observers due to the appearance of both in northern Mali at approximately the same time. Cocaine first began circulating through and in northern Mali in the early 2000s, while the group that would become AQIM, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), achieved notorious renown in 2003 with the kidnapping of 32 Europeans in southern Algeria. [3] Analysts also focused extensively on cocaine, despite the large circulation through and within the region of cannabis products, amphetamines, and other drugs.[4] However, the rise of smuggling networks and economies in the region long preceded the arrival of jihadist militancy. As anthropologist Judith Scheele and others have noted, smuggling in northern Mali began in the 1960s and 1970s with the trade in foodstuffs, especially powdered milk and pasta produced in Algeria, which was then re-sold in Mali and northern Niger.[5] In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, illicit or semi-licit (grey market) trades emerged, including the smuggling of subsidized petrol from Libya and Algeria into the Sahara, as well as the two-way movement of weapons, counterfeit or contraband cigarettes, and people.[6] This smuggling was itself part of an older process in a region that has always depended on the circulation of people and goods for survival...
Topic:
Crime, Al Qaeda, Borders, Drugs, and Smuggling
Political Geography:
Africa, Libya, Algeria, Mali, Sahel, Niger, and Sahara