The African Traditional Authority and Violent Conflict Nexus: Traditional authorities trapped in the middle between a warring state, radical armed groups and clashing communities in Central Mali

Abstract

While traditional authority and violent conflict have both been characteristic for the African continent and studied frequently in academia, the relation between these two phenomena has remained profoundly under-researched. In recent years the Central Malian regions of Mopti and Ségou have become the theatre of intensifying violent conflict dynamics in which traditional authorities and their communities have increasingly become confronted with severe destabilization, insecurity and violence perpetrated by radical armed groups and communal militias. It is argued in this thesis that these traditional authorities have become caught in a difficult position between the state, radical armed groups, which both have posed physical threats and undermined their governance capacity, and inter-communal violence which they have been attempting to pacify. The main purpose of this thesis is to identify, analyze and theorize the ways in which traditional authorities in Central Mali have affected and been affected by these conflict dynamics since the start of Mali’s crisis in 2012. In the search for these connections this thesis adopts Charles Tilly’s relational mechanisms-processes framework. It is argued that traditional authorities are linked to the two main identified conflict processes, namely radical armed mobilization and inter-communal polarization, through the relational mechanisms of co-optation attempts, intra-communal brokerage, and inter-communal brokerage. The thesis explains how these concepts relate to the main identified ways in which traditional authorities in the region have suffered from, responded to and more generally been connected to violent conflict dynamics in Central Mali.