Making Peace, Building the State. Relations between Central Government and the Sahelian Peripheries in Niger and Mali

In this study, Mathieu Pellerin and Yvan Guichaoua examine the methods of peacemaking respectively chosen by Mali and Niger, both exposed to fairly similar security challenges. The approach developed by the authors jointly analyses the evolutions of the protest mobilisations and the forms of governance developed by the states to maintain their security hegemony. Rebel mobilisations and state responses are complexified over time and adapt to each other. Mali and Niger tend to deploy similar, often short-term, strategies for security governance. However, the inclusive efforts and institutional peace intermediaries operate relatively effectively in Niger. In Mali, the communal arms race, partially encouraged by the state, has worsened a security environment that is already structurally more fragile than in Niger.