Moving in Cycles: Explaining the Failure of Militarization to Address Illegal Mining in Ghana

Abstract

Mining contributes to Ghana's economic growth but also imposes significant social costs—land dispossession and unemployment—which have fueled the rise of illegal mining (galamsey). Galamsey, which intensified during the commodity boom of the 2010s, provides livelihoods while simultaneously worsening environmental degradation and social precarity. This study employs a qualitative desktop methodology, drawing on secondary literature, policy documents, and media reports, to examine the state's use of military crackdowns to response to galamsey. The findings demonstrate that military interventions have been largely ineffective, often raising human rights concerns and eroding state–community relations. Utilizing a network-based political economy framework, the paper argues that enforcement strategies are structurally misaligned, as they focus on frontline miners while leaving intact the networks of complicit political elites, financiers, regulatory actors, and traditional authorities. Effective responses, therefore, require coordinated, system-wide interventions that disrupt these networks rather than coercive, site-level enforcement.

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