This chapter applies localized peace enforcement theory to a subnational analysis of patterns of dispute escalation in Mali. In order to investigate whether the previous chapters’ experimental findings generalize to real-world operations, the chapter presents the results of two analyses of UN peacekeeping efforts to prevent the onset of communal violence in the central Malian region of Mopti. The first study leverages a geographic regression discontinuity design to compare dispute escalation on either side of the Burkina Faso–Mali border. The border splits similar areas into those “treated” with UN peacekeeping patrols (on the Mali side) and “control” areas without peacekeeping (on the Burkina Faso side). The findings indicate that peacekeeping reduces the likelihood of communal violence. The second study delves deeper into the data with an analysis of UN peacekeepers from different countries deployed to the same regions of Mali and uncovers further evidence in line with the predictions of the theory. Rather than comparing UN peacekeeping in countries with against those without a peacekeeping operation, the study compares UN peacekeepers from different contributing countries – Togo and Senegal – deployed to the same area.

This chapter examines the fraught relationship between jihadism in central Mali and an ethnic group, the Peul, that has simultaneously furnished numerous recruits to the jihadists and become a target of collective punishment by the state. The jihadists in central Mali and those in northern Mali, beginning formally in 2017 but informally several years earlier, were part of the same organization. Yet the political approach taken by jihadists in the center differed substantially from that taken by their peers in the north; in particular, jihadists in the center cultivated a starker “ethnicizing” discourse but were simultaneously less interested than their northern counterparts in drawing local politicians into their coalition. The chapter analyzes how Peul politicians have responded to the jihadist leader Amadou Kouffa, highlighting ways in which shared religion and ethnicity provided common ground for communication but ultimately not for compromise, let alone coalition-building. The chapter argues that central Mali represents a case of jihadist coalition-building that, by its implicitly anti-elite stance, offers substantial possibilities for grassroots recruitment while simultaneously foreclosing the possibility of absorbing some of the most important political blocs on the scene.