Authority and power in local orders: customary authorities, the state, and jihadist insurgency in Mali

Mali is mired in conflict and instability since 2012, when a coalition of secular and Islamist insurgents came close to overtaking the capital Bamako. The magnitude and rapidity of the crisis, together with its ongoing and expanding repercussions, laid bare institutional weaknesses, begging the questions of how governance was delivered before the crisis, and how it has evolved ever since, especially on a local level. The paper traces the evolution of state-customary authorities interaction towards tentative forms of cooperation. It examines how persistent insecurity after 2012, in a context of an ongoing insurgency, put customary authorities in fragile positions in processes and outcomes of local governance. In fact, the crisis brought armed groups as new prominent actors in local negotiations of stability and peace. The role of customary authorities expanded by filling the void left by the state, but it also eroded against the power of armed groups. Customary authorities face peculiar challenges from jihadist insurgents: these actors’ revolutionary project aims at replacing the state with alternative forms of order and governance, also by co-opting customary authority in their political strategies through violence and negotiation.