Diamonds, dependence and De Beers: monopoly capitalism and compliance with the Kimberley Process in Namibia

ABSTRACT

Why has Namibia, with a dependency on alluvial diamond wealth and location in sub-Saharan Africa, been able to comply with the Kimberley Process while other states in the region have not? The author's objective is to account for how domestic political economy can influence international agreements. He argues that diamond dependency in Namibia has facilitated compliance with the Kimberley Process. The case of how Namibia has responded to the Kimberley Process illustrates how De Beers has been able to constrain domestic policy and use the Kimberley Process as a way to maintain a virtual monopoly in domestic diamond production.

Translated abstract

[Les diamants, la dépendance et De Beers : le capitalisme de monopole et la mise en conformité avec le processus de Kimberley en Namibie.] Pourquoi est-ce que la Namibie, qui a une dépendance forte vis-à-vis de la richesse créée par le diamant alluvial et une localisation en Afrique sub-saharienne, a été capable de se mettre en conformité avec le processus de Kimberley alors que d’autres États de la région ne l’ont pas été ? L’objectif de cet article est d’expliquer comment l’économie politique nationale peut influencer les accords internationaux. L’auteur soutient que la dépendance vis-à-vis du diamant en Namibie a facilité la mise en conformité avec le processus de Kimberley. La manie`re dont la Namibie a répondu au processus de Kimberley montre comment le groupe De Beers a été capable de contraindre la politique nationale et l’utilisation du processus de Kimberley comme un moyen de maintenir un monopole virtuel sur la production nationale de diamant.

Main article text

Introduction

Few natural resources provide as much potential for both wealth and destruction as diamonds. In the late 1990s it was clear that many African conflicts, especially in Angola and Sierra Leone, were being funded by diamonds (Fowler 2000). This led to the creation of an international agreement to regulate the diamond trade, the Kimberley Process, which came into effect in 2003. This example of cooperation by states, non-governmental organisations and diamond companies has the goal of eliminating diamonds as a way to fund conflict through implementing a process in which all diamonds are certified. This goal has proven difficult, however, as countries vary considerably in their ability and desire to regulate the diamond trade. Nevertheless, some of the world's poorest states have invested scarce resources to stay in compliance with the process, despite the fact that the Kimberley Process has gained a reputation as a weak organisation in terms of its ability to sanction members (Gooch 2008; Grant 2013b; Jakobi 2013; Murphy 2011; Smillie 2010; Wetzel 2010).

Although many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have had difficulty complying and cooperating with the Kimberley Process, one exception is Namibia, the focus of this research. Namibian compliance is surprising because it has several of the same attributes commonly associated with noncompliance, including: a weak state structure; a high poverty rate; a reliance on alluvial diamonds,¹ which are more often tied to conflict (Le Billon 2008, 2012; Snyder and Bhavnani 2005); and difficulties with post-conflict state building (Vlassenroot and Van Bockstael 2008). However, what is different about Namibia is a high level of domestic diamond dependence on De Beers that has led to the state complying with the regime at a high level. This case is important to examine because it shows how historical dependence on natural resources can influence state responses to international regimes. Ultimately, as this research will illustrate in Namibia, this condition has led to policy outcomes that undermine state sovereignty and the ability of a democratic government to set resource policy on its own. The case of Namibia also shows that while the Kimberley Process may claim that its goal is to make it more difficult for ‘conflict diamonds’ to reach the global market, in practice it has largely been a regime that has benefited De Beers and a small political elite in Namibia, while making it more difficult for other private companies to successfully enter the Namibian diamond market.

Background

In the late 1990s, when the international community became more aware of how diamonds were fuelling conflict in Africa, the Namibian government became concerned that this could lead to a consumer boycott and a drop in the market for diamonds. In May 2000 Namibia was one of the first countries to start creating a system that could restore consumer confidence and ensure that diamonds on the global market had not originated in conflict zones. This would become the Kimberley Process certification scheme in 2003 (Grant and Taylor 2004; Wright 2004). Since this time Namibia has been a prominent part of decision making in the Kimberley Process; it has cooperated with other countries to help them comply; and it is generally regarded as a country in which the origin of diamonds is effectively monitored in most cases.

Given that the ultimate goal of the Kimberley Process is for every diamond that originates or is imported into a country to be certified, this is the main focus when examining compliance. Several countries in sub-Saharan Africa have had difficulty complying with the Kimberley Process despite a high level of diamond production and varying state responses to the Kimberley Process, including: Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe. For instance, Angola's response to the Kimberley Process has varied over time, from initial reluctance to cooperate with the regime, to its current status as president, although the state continues to have a low level of compliance. This varying response to the Kimberley Process and continued low level of compliance in Angola are due largely to changes in market share among private actors in the country and the political geography of where diamonds are found (Munier 2014). While many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have made only minimal efforts to comply with the Kimberley Process (Smillie 2010), low levels of compliance are not always due to political will. Indeed, there are some countries in the Kimberley Process – a good example is Sierra Leone – that have cooperated extensively with the Kimberley Process but are unable to certify many of their diamonds, and thus their compliance rate is low (Grant 2012; Maconachie 2009). Only a few countries in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, have been viewed as complying with the process (Grant 2013a, 2013b).

Notwithstanding considerable debate and some journalistic accounts of attempts to regulate conflict diamonds, little theoretically informed research explores state responses to the Kimberley Process. Some scholars have examined how the Kimberley Process has led diamond companies to become ‘socialised agents’ that have taken on the norms of civil society and non-governmental organisations surrounding diamond certification (Bieri 2010; Kantz 2008). A recent study by Santiago (2014) shows that ‘norms’ around the diamond trade do not appear to have a high level of influence in how diamonds are sold and marketed at the retail level. This is similar to a central finding in the literature on ‘mineral certification schemes', in which consumers may think that they are buying a more ‘ethical’ or ‘fairly’ produced product, but in reality these attempts are about traceability of where minerals are originally mined and not necessarily positive changes in local mining conditions (Hilson 2014; Schroeder 2010). Where voluntary certification schemes may have helped local actors is in legitimising small-scale mining. This is especially the case in many sub-Saharan countries where the legal status of miners is unclear and they are marginalised by government policy in favour of large companies that have closer ties to the formal state structure (Childs 2008, 2014a, 2014b). However, this is not always the case as some governments buy from ‘illegal’ small-scale miners, benefiting from their lack of formal legal status (Hilson 2008). In some cases this trade has set up a ‘shadow’ state based on an informal economy that has placed large mining companies at a disadvantage (Reno 1995, 1999).

This study builds on this prior research on ‘certification’ schemes, by emphasising the notion that the reality of these attempts is far different from how they are usually portrayed by both private companies and governments. The Kimberley Process is different than ‘fair trade’ or other ‘ethically’ motivated attempts at mineral certification, in that to reach most of the ‘legal’ diamond market, countries need to be members. However, past research illustrates that different actors such as the governments, large diamond companies or small-scale miners stand to gain or lose considerably by the influence of certification schemes in the market, and that the level of ‘power’ over decision making varies between actors in the mining sector. Thus to examine the Kimberley Process, the ‘power’ dynamics between the state and private companies competing for market are essential to understand. Power will be defined as ‘the ability of a person or group of persons so to affect outcomes that their preferences take precedence over the preferences of others’ (Strange 1996, 17).

Past research has examined the power distribution of the Kimberley Process at the institutional level, showing how the high level of influence of De Beers over the Kimberley Process is a potential explanation for how it started (Haufler 2009a). For instance, Haufler (2009b, 103) states that:

the distribution of power among the states that created the system was less important in the creation of the system than the distribution of power among industry players. State power did come into play in terms of market power though.

This explanation for the origin of the Kimberley Process is notable because it gives a picture of the Kimberley Process as being among international cooperation schemes that involve states, but in which the power of member states is debatable, particularly in relation to the private diamond industry. This also presents the Kimberley Process as a function of power relations between states and major market players. The school of neoclassical economics makes a similar claim by arguing that private firms may welcome regulation as a way to lessen competition or to pass expenses onto the public sector that they may have had to pay themselves (Akerlof 1970; Peltzman 1976; Stigler 1971). According to this theory, many ‘regulators’ may have good intentions for society but the outcome of government regulation usually serves one set of economic interests over others. Thus, private actors can become involved in political policy making as a way to gain against competitors and turn a greater profit, as opposed to providing better services or making production cheaper through market competition. If we examine the Kimberley Process through this lens it could be argued that the process is, above all else, a public provision of a private good where most of the benefits go to large diamond companies, particularly De Beers, as a way for it to leverage its advantage over competitors.

Power relations between states and private actors can often vary considerably. Many scholars have pointed out that states that are dependent on primary commodities as a source of revenue will face policy constraints from multinational corporations and advanced economies (Frank 1966, 1978; Gale 1998; Strange 1996, 1998; Wallerstein 1974, 2004). Since political survival or staying in power is a nearly universal concern of political leaders, this can constrain economic decision making (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2005). Government actors may have to implement policies that they do not prefer ideologically or that lead to dismal results for most of the population, in order to satisfy powerful groups that are essential to them staying in power and protect economic activity that is a source of revenue.

To examine the condition of resource dependence on its ability to influence decision making, this study asks, why does Namibia comply with the Kimberley Process, when so many other states fail to comply? To answer this question I look to the domestic political economy of Namibia. My goal here is to illustrate that compliance with an international regime, while often portrayed positively, can reflect the undemocratic dominance of private domestic actors as opposed to the provision of an international good. Thus I hypothesise that: The greater the level of dependence a domestic economy has on diamond companies that are decision makers within the Kimberley Process, the greater the likelihood of state compliance.

The history of Namibian diamond dependence

To understand the present-day dynamics that led to compliance with the Kimberley Process in Namibia, it is important to examine how the present state became dependent on diamond wealth and how this shapes present-day policy choices. After Germany lost World War I Namibia became part of South Africa. With the South African government in power, this would lead to a joint extraction process in the diamond trade. In the early 1920s Ernest Oppenheimer bought up several smaller corporations and created the Consolidated Diamond Mines, which would later become De Beers (McIntyre 1998). This agreement placed Namibia's southwestern coast under control of a large private diamond corporation. A system of contract labour developed around the diamond industry in which workers signed a contract through the government, essentially making them the property of their private employers (Cooper 1999).

However, South African rule of Namibia would soon spark domestic opposition, and the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) was founded in the early 1960s to oppose South African rule in Namibia, and replace the apartheid system with majority rule. This would have significant implications for the Namibia–De Beers relationship. SWAPO initially argued that the existing 50–50 partnership with De Beers was incompatible with its socialistic goals. However, eight years before Namibia gained independence from South Africa, De Beers Chairman Harry Frederick Oppenheimer argued that no political arrangement in Namibia could survive independently, unless they took advantage of the money that could be made through a partnership with De Beers (Epstein 1982). His prediction appears to have been correct. In 1994 Namibia signed a 50–50 partnership with De Beers that would be renewed every five years (Stein 2001). Furthermore, De Beers also changed the name of its diamond-mining operations in Namibia to Namdeb, to reflect the joint agreement between De Beers and the Namibian state.

It is unclear when De Beers started to influence SWAPO. Maurice Temelsman, an influential American diamond trader with close ties to De Beers, allegedly has had ties to SWAPO since the 1960s (Amupadhi 2001), although the first president of Namibia Sam Nujoma (2001) says that talks between SWAPO and De Beers did not start till the late 1980s, when independence was inevitable. During the talks that took place after Namibian independence, Maurice Temelsman served as an advisor to SWAPO (Cooper 2001).

From early on, after independence, SWAPO has sided with De Beers over striking workers in the diamond mines. This happened both in 1992 when intervention by the government stopped a strike within a day, and again in 1993 (Bauer 1998). While having a joint agreement with a quasi-monopoly does not fit well with the ‘socialistic’ outlook that SWAPO has tried to portray, in this case it chose what may perhaps have been a pragmatic approach but in turn had the result of enriching party elites. Given the power base that the party has, while the arrangement with De Beers might not be politically popular, it does not appear as though the party has ever spent political capital on it. Cooper (2001, 321) characterises SWAPO as a ‘subsidiary of De Beers’ and goes on to say that:

the most telling example of Namdeb's centrality in the life of Namibia is the fact that most Independence Day celebrations held during Namibia's first decade of existence took place at DeBeers headquarters in Oranjemund rather than in the capital city of Windhoek.

De Beers has a clear influence over political decision making in Namibia, given its centrality to the economy. It is also important to point out that since the beginning of the Kimberley Process, De Beers has been very influential in the agreement. In fact, some observers have argued that De Beers is more influential than the states in the process and that the agreement is a public provision of a private good (Haufler 2009b). The Kimberley Process has allowed De Beers, and by extension Namibia, to argue that the diamond trade is largely conflict free, thus perhaps creating a high level of consumer confidence. It is clear that diamond dependence has been an inescapable dynamic of Namibia's political economy long before the Kimberley Process began, and until the present. This historical legacy leads to a possible explanation for compliance with the Kimberley Process in that it is clear that diamond dependence has strong historical roots.

Since diamond dependence has been a central feature of Namibia's political and economic development, it important to recognise that the introduction of policies designed to comply with the Kimberley Process originated both as a result of and with the constraints brought about by a high level of historical dependence on the diamond trade. The fact that Namibia is diamond dependent answers on a basic level why it would not want to face sanctions from the Kimberley Process, as this would cut it off from most of the global diamond trade. However, given the weak nature of the Kimberley Process, and the fact that it has never pushed sanctions against a major diamond producer (Gooch 2008; Grant 2013b; Maconachie 2009; Smillie 2010), it only partially explains why Namibia goes far above a basic level when it comes to compliance and commitment to the process. Thus I examine in depth how domestic diamond dependence facilitates compliance through the ability of De Beers to transfer its preferred policy positions into government policy and how De Beers has used Kimberley Process regulations to gain market advantage.

The ability for De Beers to constrain SWAPO policy

Namibia's dependence on the diamond industry raises the potential for De Beers to be able to transfer its preferences regarding Kimberley Process compliance into Namibian government policy. This is a useful avenue of inquiry for Namibia as SWAPO had long opposed the role of De Beers in Namibia, but signed a 50–50 agreement with De Beers in 1994 which would ensure that the new Namibian government would be heavily dependent on De Beers (Stein 2001).

Since De Beers first entered Namibia, the company has had the ability to constrain the potential policy choices of local decision makers, and this influence continues today. How profits are split between the government and De Beers is not public information and considerable aspects of Namdeb's relationship with the state are kept secret (Boer and Sherbourne 2003; Rieckmann 2008). Unlike Botswana, Namibia does not hold direct shares in De Beers, however there is a representative from the Namibian government on the board of directors (Rieckmann 2008). For Namdeb, the board of directors is also split 50–50 with six being appointed by the government and the other six by De Beers (Mbwale 2010).

Table 1 shows that diamond production in Namibia stayed steady during the 1990s, even during the political transition to SWAPO rule in 1994, and that diamond wealth remained an important part of the economy throughout. Also, diamond proceeds represented a big part of overall GDP and are the main export.

Table 1.

Diamond dependence.

Year	Diamond mining % of tax revenue	Diamond mining % of GDP	Diamonds as % of merchandise exports
1993	8.8	6.4	37
1994	11.0	7.6	32
1995	7.4	6.0	35
1996	6.0	7.8	38
1997	7.1	7.5	41
1998	13.8	7.2	32
1999	6.6	8.2	38
2000	6.2	7.1	43
2001	9.0	9.3	40
2002	12.9	10.1	32
2003	17.5	7.1	22
2004	5.4	8.1	29
2005	6.6	6.9	27
2006	4.6	8.5	28
2007	4.8	5.7	18
2008	4.3	7.5	19
2009	2.4	3.7	14
2010	3.3	5.0	15
2011	0.0	6.0	17
2012	5.4	8.5	22

Source: Chamber of Mines of Namibia 2012; Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare 2012

Since Namibia gets a large amount of its economic activity from the diamond trade, it is unlikely that the government could quickly change policy in this area. Some parts of Namibian society would want this industry to be nationalised but this would likely lead to lower productivity (Boer and Sherbourne 2004). Furthermore, the threat of nationalisation or the removal of De Beers from Namibia would not be a credible threat given its reliance on both tax revenue and unknown earnings from its arrangement with De Beers. Therefore, policy in diamond sector has been and will continue to be constrained by De Beers in the future.

Give and take

The relationship between the government and De Beers is not completely a one-way street. The joint extraction process has led to the government having a stake in decision making surrounding diamond policy that it might not have, given other arrangements. This is important because it gives the Namibian government influence over how many diamonds are extracted. The amount of diamonds produced only tells part of the story of Namibia's immense diamond wealth. Namibian diamonds are worth more per unit than those of any other country, with Angola coming a rather distant second (Ibid.). Increases in marine diamond mining should also allow Namibia to profit from the diamond trade at a comparable level in the future (Ibid.). So, even if the amount of diamonds that are mined declines over time, diamond wealth is likely to continue its role as an important part of the Namibian economy and in turn the political system.

The government of Namibia, through its 50–50 partnership with De Beers, has been able to pursue some policies that the private diamond sector would not pursue on its own. For instance, through Namdeb in 2007 the Namibia Diamond Trading Company was established, although De Beers did not view this as being economically optimal (Mbwale 2010). It is clear that the government of Namibia had an incentive to try to polish more diamonds as this would add to jobs and more revenue for the state, in contrast to sending them to De Beers’ polishing centres in London. Polishing diamonds domestically in Namibia has implications for certifying diamonds as well (Oliver 2011). These diamonds are certified not only as originating in Namibia but also as being polished in Namibia (Rieckmann 2008). The government has viewed this as being a way to get the most out of its diamond wealth as polished diamonds are often worth far more than those still in a rough form.

Despite the ability of the Namibian government to get De Beers to implement some policies that it would not pursue on its own, this does not necessarily downplay the influence of De Beers on the Namibian government. It is likely that decision makers in De Beers view the joint extraction agreement with the Namibian government as lasting far into the future, so it makes sense to make some sub-optimal policy choices in the interest of keeping the overall relationship satisfactory for both actors. Also, there is little evidence that the government of Namibia could get De Beers to change policy in a way that would be clearly to the latter's disadvantage or could pursue government policies in the diamond sector that would seriously marginalise De Beers.

The use of the Kimberley Process as a way to maintain monopolistic policies by De Beers

Without the Kimberley Process, certifying that diamonds did not originate in conflict zones may have been left up to private companies. Some private companies have gone beyond just Kimberley Process regulations in trying to assure that their product is not related to conflict (Responsible Jewelry Council 2014). Thus, the Kimberley Process allowed private diamond companies to pass some of the cost of regulating diamonds onto states. Given the close relationship between De Beers and the Namibian government, this dynamic can be clearly observed as both had a mutual interest in creating a diamond regulation system that is at least perceived as being successful. Overall, it is likely that both De Beers and the Namibian government calculated the costs of implementing the Kimberley Process against the possibility that the diamond market could lose consumer confidence, and concluded that the latter would be far more costly. At the very least, given De Beers' prominent role in the Kimberley Process and the Namibian economy, it appears as though the Namibian government is constrained in implementing policies that reach a satisfactory level of compliance.

Few other diamond companies have existed in Namibia outside of De Beers. One exception, and possibly the only company ever to challenge De Beers in Namibia, is the Lev Leviev group (Boer and Sherbourne 2004). As with the activity of any diamond company, their activities have important implications for the success of the Kimberley Process. In the case of Namibia, this also presents an interesting opportunity for understanding how Kimberley Process rules, and the motives of those who seek to implement them, can influence state behaviour.

Lev Leviev group

Lev Leviev became a multi-billionaire by polishing diamonds and controlling a large amount of the market, first in Russia, and then in Angola (Goldman 2003). Lev Leviev has had a strategy of being involved in every area of the diamond supply chain and negotiating directly with governments. This has made him a competitor of De Beers worldwide. While De Beers still controls the vast majority of the diamond market, this position does appear less inevitable than in the past. The Lev Leviev group has nowhere near the media visibility that De Beers has, so when De Beers was being criticised for its role in the Angolan diamond trade this allowed the Lev Leviev group to take a larger share of the country's diamond-mining operations. The Lev Leviev group is secretive, even for a diamond-trading company, and has been controversial for building settlements on the West Bank in Israel and building private prisons, and many will argue that local communities have not benefited from mining operations that the company has led (Chafets 2007).

Lev Leviev entered Namibia in 2001 when he spent $30 million dollars on a marine diamond-mining operation called Namco, which would ultimately go bankrupt (Boer and Sherbourne 2004). The first president of an independent Namibia, Sam Nujoma, was optimistic about Lev Leviev's entry into Namibia's diamond market, allegedly because he saw it as a way to make the diamond industry more beneficial for local communities (Kaure 2011). Lev Leviev's commitment to polishing diamonds in Namibia was an attractive option as this would lead to more revenue staying in the country. There is reason to believe that the Lev Leviev group may have used financial resources to influence government policy. One example is that Sam Nujoma was given a bursary to study at the University of Namibia by the Lev Leviev group in 2005 (Kaure 2011).

The bursary could therefore be seen as a way for the Namibian government to leverage more favourable terms with De Beers, as Lev Leviev had challenged De Beers in other regions. Also, allowing Lev Leviev to gain influence was successful in pressuring De Beers to spend more on polishing diamonds inside Namibia (Goldman 2003; Isaacs 2005). In fact, many in the media saw Lev Leviev's entrance into Namibia as a way to challenge De Beers directly and some De Beers officials admitted that Lev Leviev's entrance into Namibia concerned them (The Economist 2004).

In 2011 the Namibian police took 1825 diamonds from the Lev Leviev group that were not certified and unlikely to be from Namibia (Globes 2012). Namibia also involved Interpol in the investigation. This was a crime that appeared international in nature as diamonds were most likely being smuggled to Israel (Globes 2011). Some who were found with the diamonds say that they were following orders from the Lev Leviev office in Tel Aviv, Israel and that the diamonds had been smuggled into Namibia, a clear violation of Kimberley Process rules (Kisting 2012). One worker, Gabi Shitrit, was allegedly sent back to Israel the night of the illicit diamond discovery, possibly because he was going to talk about the company's activity (Kisting 2011). The Namibian Diamond Trading Company decided to no longer sell diamonds to the Lev Leviev Group, allegedly because of the uncertified diamonds. This greatly hurt the polishing operation of the Lev Leviev group in Namibia and the company's future prospects in the country have been greatly diminished and remain unclear (Nyaungwa 2012).

The Namibian government, in dealing with Lev Leviev, shows that it takes the smuggling of uncertified diamonds seriously, especially if it plays to its economic advantage. This case of finding uncertified diamonds in the Lev Leviev group's factory shows that the Namibian police are willing to work with Interpol, even in cases where people are only suspected of crossing state lines (Haufiku 2014). Since it is likely that uncertified diamonds cross the Namibian border frequently, catching Leviev could be interpreted as ‘tactical policing’, especially when the inclusion of Interpol is taken into consideration. Regardless, this no doubt puts De Beers in a more dominant economic position if the Leviev group is no longer a challenger in Namibia, and this incentive may influence the Namibian government to act more forcefully than it otherwise would. With the decline of the Leviev group in Namibia, Kimberley Process violations give the Namibian government the ability to break ties with a company that appears to have lost what minimal influence it once had on decision making.

Unlike De Beers, who has been influential in setting up the rules of the Kimberley Process and is usually viewed as a company which encourages compliance, the Lev Leviev group has had little influence on the process and is therefore unlikely to have the same level of commitment to it. In Angola, Lev Leviev has been controversial as there are reports of diamonds being smuggled to escape taxation and an overall lack of interest in complying with the process. Furthermore, the Lev Leviev group in Angola has had controversial associations with arms traders, although there is no evidence of being involved in the arms trade directly (Gordon, Ahmimed, and Ngolo 2004). While Leviev once controlled the entire diamond trade in Angola, it now competes heavily with De Beers for market share. The government of Angola has become increasingly more willing to cooperate with the Kimberley Process as the market share of De Beers has steadily increased after the resolution of a court case allowed De Beers back into the country (Munier 2014).

De Beers and capital investment in Namibia

Few if any other companies in Namibia have the resources to ensure compliance with the Kimberley Process beyond De Beers. At the very least, compliance is more costly for competitors, thus making the market inherently more difficult to enter. De Beers has been able to make expensive capital investments in Namibia that would be difficult for other companies to make. For instance, in 2011 the company announced that it would spend N$5 billion dollars so that diamond mines off Namibia's southern coast could continue after 2015, which is how long they were predicted to stay open without any changes (Cloete 2011). As the future of diamond mining in Namibia continues to be increasingly based on marine mining, this gives De Beers a further advantage over potential competitors. In 2013 De Beers extracted a record 1.6 million carats from the ocean (Brandt 2014a). The success of marine diamond mining has come through high capital investment from De Beers that would be far more difficult for other potential competitors. For instance, De Beers has announced it will invest N$100 million dollars in a new ship for marine diamond mining (Brandt 2014b). If diamond mining in Namibia continues to be increasingly offshore this will make it more costly to enter the market. Given the high level of capital investment De Beers has made in Namibia's diamond industry in recent years, in comparison to other potential competitors, De Beers has the most capacity to comply with the Kimberley Process, whereas any competitor entering the market would have a more difficult time paying these costs.

If we take the theory of Haufler (2009b) that the Kimberley Process is largely the public provision of a private good, it would appear as though the potential would exist for De Beers to set up rules in the Kimberley Process that would favour it in competition with other firms. At the very least, it is unlikely that De Beers would agree to a certification process that would be difficult to follow for its local companies and states within which it is active. Smaller firms are unlikely to be as concerned with reputational benefits that the Kimberley Process may offer, as to many consumers De Beers and the diamond industry are synonymous. Also, De Beers has the ability to influence states in which it is a major economic player to push for sanctions against companies that fail to comply with Kimberley Process regulations. This could be due both to a desire by De Beers to lessen competition and/or an interest in keeping states where it is the biggest diamond producer above criticism that could come from an uncertified diamond supply. In Namibia, the experience of the Lev Leviev group, along with De Beers’ near monopoly over the domestic diamond trade, would suggest that there is more to a high level of compliance with the Kimberley Process than just ridding the region of diamonds that are related to conflict; it is also a way in which De Beers can leverage its advantage over competitors.

Conclusion: Namibia's democratic deficit and diamond certification

The dominant role of De Beers in both the Kimberley Process and in Namibian politics helps explain why Namibia has been more inclined to comply with the Kimberley Process. Since De Beers was influential in setting up rules that make up the Kimberley Process, it is clear that it set up rules that the company expected to follow. De Beers has followed Kimberley Process regulations in Namibia by transferring policy preferences and the cost of compliance onto the Namibian government. Other companies that have entered the Namibian diamond market have lacked both the will and possibly the resources to certify diamonds, and the Namibian government has been quick to try to eliminate the trade of smuggled diamonds. Some of this may be because a tainted diamond supply in Namibia would appear bad for De Beers in general, even if De Beers had nothing to do with compliance violations. More importantly, this is a way for De Beers to raise the costs of competitors entering the Namibian diamond market, as it is proportionately more costly for them to spend resources on certifying diamonds and paying taxes to the Namibian government than it is for De Beers.

Since De Beers has more influence on the domestic decision-making process in Namibia than any other economic actor, it is clear that its preferences when it comes to the Kimberley Process are reflected in government policy. As long as De Beers remains the dominant economic force in Namibia, it is likely that the government will take compliance with the Kimberley Process seriously. Also, from this study we can predict that countries in which the diamond sector is dominated by companies that have not been as influential as Namibia, in both the Kimberley Process and the domestic political decision-making process, are unlikely to comply at as high a level. The main reason for this is that companies that do not have an influence on the Kimberley Process are unlikely to have policy preferences to comply that are as strong as those of Namibia: thus, the governments where these firms are dominant will reflect this (Munier 2014).

The Kimberley Process has provided the government of Namibia with some benefits, as it has more influence in the decision-making process than in most international agreements (Bieri 2010; Grant 2013a, 2013b), and it is a way for the government to portray itself as having a commitment to international regimes, regardless of how strong this commitment actually is. However, the Kimberley Process has also reinforced Namibia's historical dependence on diamond wealth and ensured that De Beers would be able to maintain monopolistic practices in the region. Thus, this study shows that the mechanisms that give rise to compliance with international agreements can be of a dismal nature for economic competition and democratic practice. The Kimberley Process has allowed a monopolistic company, De Beers, to implement its policy preferences through an international regime, as opposed to having sovereign states decide what approach to take toward diamond certification. As this article has shown, in Namibia, a high level of compliance with the Kimberley Process is grounded in historical diamond dependence, thus the international regime's influence is far from optimal for domestic decision makers and those who would desire to have a more broad-based level of economic participation.

Note

1

Alluvial diamonds are found in dirt and require low start-up costs to extract. This type of diamond is often contrasted with kimberlite diamonds, which require a large amount of expensive equipment to extract from underneath the ground.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the faculty at Western Illinois University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for providing support for this research programme. Also, I would like to thank attendees at both the Midwest Political Science Association Conference and the International Relations and Comparative Politics Brownbag group for constructive comments on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Nathan Munier is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Nebraska. He specialises in international relations and comparative politics.

References

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