The West African nation of Mali has been in crisis since 2012. That year, a northern separatist rebellion led by members of the Tuareg ethnic group, set in motion a chain of events that reverberates to the present. The country’s challenges now include a fractious landscape of ethnically-tinged militias, a jihadist insurgency in the north, and widespread, multi-layered insecurity (including jihadism, banditry, and inter-communal violence) in the central regions of Mopti and Segou. These trends draw on larger histories of rebellion and conflict in Mali, especially since the 1990s.
This report addresses the following question: why, amid Mali’s crisis, does the political status quo persist, both in Bamako and in the country’s conflict zones? To answer this question, the paper examines two core factors – the politics that enable and drive violence, and the flaws that hamper existing frameworks for peace and stability.

The report makes two, interrelated arguments. First, armed conflict in Mali benefits certain politicians and does not typically threaten many other politicians’ survival or interests. The central state would almost certainly prefer to end the conflict, but its limited means prevent it from doing so. Thus the central authorities seek ways to manage and shape the endemic violence that they cannot eliminate. The management of violence in both northern and central Mali revolves around controlling regional capitals (or making deals with the de facto administrative authorities there) and accepting that state authority progressively diminishes as one leaves the regional capitals and moves into the surrounding areas…