Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali (Western Africa Series, 17) 184701268X, 9781847012685

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Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

WESTERN AFRICA SERIES The Economics of Ethnic Conflict: The Case of Burkina Faso Andreas Dafinger Commercial Agriculture, the Slave Trade & Slavery in Atlantic Africa Edited by Robin Law, Suzanne Schwarz & Silke Strickrodt Sects & Social Disorder: Muslim Identities & Conflict in Northern Nigeria Edited by Abdul Raufu Mustapha Afro-European Trade in the Atlantic World: The Western Slave Coast c. 1550–c. 1885 Silke Strickrodt The Politics of Peacemaking in Africa: Non-State Actors’ Role in the Liberian Civil War Babatunde Tolu Afolabi Creed & Grievance: Muslim-Christian Relations & Conflict Resolution in Northern Nigeria Edited by Abdul Raufu Mustapha & David Ehrhardt The Politics of Work in a Post-Conflict State: Youth, Labour & Violence in Sierra Leone Luisa Enria Overcoming Boko Haram: Faith, Society & Islamic Radicalization in Northern Nigeria Edited by Abdul Raufu Mustapha & Kate Meagher African Women in the Atlantic World: Property,Vulnerability & Mobility, 1660–1880 Edited by Mariana P. Candido & Adam Jones Order & Disorder in Northern Nigeria: Armed groups, Insurgency & Resistance* Edited by Adam Higazi & Laurens Bakker *forthcoming

Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

Dorothea E. Schulz

James Currey is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge Suffolk IP12 3DF (GB) www.jamescurrey.com and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue Rochester, NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com © Dorothea E. Schulz First published in hardback 2021 The right of Dorothea E. Schulz to be identifed as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library



ISBN 978-1-84701-268-5 (James Currey hardback) ISBN 978-1-80010-165-4 (James Currey ePDF)

The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate Cover photograph: People leaving the Friday Prayer at the Ba Seydou Sylla Mosque in the Djelibougou neighbourhood of Bamako (Amidou Sogodogo).

Contents

List of Illustrations

vii

Acknowledgements

ix



List of Abbreviations



Introduction 1

1

Demokrasi as the ‘rule of envy’

31

2

Cultural Performance and Political Legitimacy: The Political Biography of Jeli Praise, 1960–91

71

3

Decentralization and Political Legitimacy in Mali

4

Staging ‘culture’ and Political Legitimacy in the Era of Liberalization 131

5

Legitimacy in Question: The Challenge of Islamic Renewal

159



Conclusion: In Pursuit of Legitimacy

195



Postscript: ‘Rest in peace, democracy’?

201

xiii

103

Glossary

211

Bibliography

215

Index

235

Illustrations Maps 1

Regions of Mali

2 Region of Kita

21 22

Figures 1

Road leading from Kita market into the rural hinterlands west of Kita. In the background looms the Kita mountain Kita Kulu, famously evoked in jeli praise songs (source: DES) 34

2 Road in the main village of a commune in the region of Kayes. Its electrification shows that it is a rather prosperous and geographically advantageously placed village (source: DES)

37

3. Courtyards such as this are typical for the Kita rural hinterland in that they comprise several buildings, at least some of which are covered with corrugated iron roofs, which indicates a certain level of family prosperity (source: DES) 37 4 Women pursuing their daily chores in a rural courtyard in the region of Kayes (source: DES)

38

5 Poster announcing a religious event at Shaykh Cherif Haidara’s native village (source: DES) 170 6 A newly built mosque at the headquarter of Shaykh Haidara’s group Ansar Dine in Bamako-Bankoni (source: DES)

175

7 Sign of Shaykh Haidara’s travel agency Cherifla that, among other offers, sells ‘pilgrimage travel packages’ for the annual hajj to Mecca (source: DES) 175 8 Caricature: ‘Les élections au Mali expliquées en 3 images’, 19 March 2020

204

viii  Illustrations 9

Sign outside the headquarter of imam Dicko’s organization CMAS in the Bamako neighbourhood of Magniambougou Faso Kanu (source: Souleymane Diallo, permission granted)

206

The author and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and individuals listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

Acknowledgements This book is the product of research, intellectual exchange, and friendships spanning more than twenty-five momentous years of Mali’s postcolonial political history. Writing the book has felt in equal measure like an enjoyable challenge and a curse. It has gone through so many instantiations that I, literally, lost track of all the versions written. The debts I incurred during the years of working on it are many and it would be impossible to name all the individuals whose help was essential to the process of composing it. I just want to mention a few ones whose input was particularly helpful for me at crucial steps of research and writing. My greatest debts and gratitude go to all the interlocutors and colleagues who, since my first research visit to the rural hinterlands of Kita in 1993, contributed to the making of this book through their intellectual input and by taking a keen interest in my project. My host families and informants in the various research locales helped me enormously with their thoughtful responses, insights, patience, hospitality and logistical support. They generously shared their views, aspirations, and concerns, taking me to family and other social events and making me witness their deep appreciation for the aesthetics of cultural forms. Members of the administration in Kita and Bafoulabé were kind enough to take an interest in my project. Many of them went out of their way to help me during different stages of research. Employees from the national broadcast station the Office de Radio et Télévision du Mali (ORTM), the directors and radio speakers of local radio stations in Kita, Bafoulabé, Kokofata, San, Segu and Bamako, and several other journalists helped me immensely with orienting myself in the shifting fields of local politics and their various intersections with central state institutional dynamics. I was fortunate in meeting Mory Soumano from the Malian national radio and television station ORTM at an early stage of my research, in 1992. His unfailing wit, thorough cultural knowledge, and analytical input on the micro-politics of rural family life were essential to understand the parameters of social, economic and cultural life that inform the ways people in this particular rural zone have assessed and reworked their

x  Acknowledgements

relation to state politics, institutions, and actors over the past six decades. The late Brehima Kassibo’s and Madou Keita’s insights into the complex, local–national dynamics unfolding around administrative decentralization crucially influenced my thinking about these matters. I am deeply grateful for the unwavering support I received from colleagues and friends during my nomadic years of moving to and fro across the Atlantic. Foremost, I would like to thank the late Harold Scheffler and Jan Simpson,Yale University, Ute Luig, formerly at the Free University of Berlin, and Jean and John Comaroff, Harvard University, for their intellectual generosity, friendship, and hospitality. The late Moishe Postone, University of Chicago, did not read a single line of this manuscript but debates with him were infinitely inspiring in thinking about mass mediation, commodification, and cultural objectification in Mali. Anne Keita and her family accepted me with great hospitality in their midst during so many years. Your warmth, strength and power of introspection, Anne, are sorely missed by so many of us! Four visiting fellowships, at the University of Chicago, at Cornell University, the University of Oslo, and the Free University, Berlin, and a sabbatical term during my appointment at Indiana University, offered me stimulating work environments and the time and peace to pave my way through different instantiations of the book manuscript. Arguments developed in the different chapters of the monograph were presented at different conference venues, workshops and seminars at the University of Amsterdam and Free University, Amsterdam, the University of Basel, Cambridge University, University of Chicago, Free University and Humboldt University, Berlin, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, University of Giessen, University of Hannover, Harvard University, and University of Leipzig. I feel deeply indebted to all the colleagues who, on these occasions, offered me critical feed-back and helpful suggestions. In addition, I wish to name two colleagues whose input at a late stage of writing helped me immensely in sharpening my argument: Christine Chwaszcza, my former colleague at the University of Cologne, whose warm friendship and sharp-minded comments have contributed in equal measure to finalizing the manuscript. And Souleymane Diallo who, since his early years as a doctoral student at the University of Cologne, has grown into a weighty interlocutor, close colleague, and family friend. In Cologne, Anna Krämer and Moira Marklewitz did first-rate jobs in assisting me with preparing the final version of the manuscript.

Acknowledgements  xi

Finally, I am immensely grateful to my entire family for offering unfailing moral and logistical support, during rocky and more peaceable times; and to my daughter Dussuba Johanna, who, maturing into a strongwilled, vivacious teenager, has become ever-more effective in making me calibrate the work-life imbalance of academic writing.

Abbreviations ADEMA-PASJ Alliance pour la Démocratie au Mali – Parti Panafricain pour la Liberté, la Solidarité et la Justice (commonly referred to as ADEMA) AMUPI Association Malienne pour l’Unité et le Progrès de l’Islam AQMI Al-Qaida au Maghreb Islamique CMA Coordination des Mouvements de l’Azawad CMAS Coordination des mouvements, associations et sympathisants de Mahmoud Dicko CMDT Compagnie Malienne pour le Développement du Textile CMLN Comité Militaire de Libération Nationale CNID Congrès National d’Initiative Démocratique CTSP Comité de Transition pour le Salut du Peuple de la République du Mali GSIM Groupe de Soutien à l’Islam et aux Musulmans (Arabic, Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, JNIM) GSPC Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat HCIM Haut Conseil Islamique du Mali HCUA Haut Conseil pour l’Unité de l’Azawad MAA Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad MNLA Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad MUJAO Mouvement pour le Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest ODR Opérations de Développement Rural OPAM Office de Produits Agricoles du Mali ORTM Office de Radio et Télévision du Mali PSP Parti Progressiste Soudanais RPM Rassemblement pour le Mali UDPM Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien US-RDA Union Soudanaise-Rassemblement Démocratique Africain

Introduction In March 2012, Mali plunged into chaos, thereby reversing its earlier role of a Western donor darling hailed as an exemplar of successful democratic transition in many political science and popular press publications. Following the toppling of President Amadou Toumani Touré by a group of disgruntled officers on 22 March, several separatist and Muslim militant groups operating in the Saharan border regions swiftly seized upon the opportunities afforded by political instability and occupied the country’s northern regions. Even after the military occupation of major parts of the north by French and African forces in January 2013, instability and insecurity persisted there. Meanwhile, after a period of political turmoil shaped by shifting power wrangles within the political elite in the capital Bamako, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was elected the new president in Mali, under the watchful eyes of armed Western forces. Since then, in spite of international military presence and of the signing of a Peace Treaty by many armed oppositional groups in July 2015, groups of militants continue to challenge the central state in the name of an Islamic theocratic order and to launch attacks on state institutions and actors in north-eastern Kidal, central Macina, and the southern border region to Ivory Coast. In addition to these signs of insecurity and political turmoil in the territorial margins of the nation-state, Mali’s government and state institutions are increasingly tested by numerous organizations and leaders, all of whom invoke Islam as a blueprint for a better political and moral order. How could it be that these various initiatives, particularly those employing the ‘symbolic language of Islam’ (Eickelman 2000), have emerged as a serious challenge to the political order and current government in Mali, and garner support among the country’s various urban and rural populations? This book argues that the concept of ‘legitimacy’, as well as explorations of its concrete empirical manifestations, are key to understanding the political disarray and insecurity to which Malians have been exposed in recent years. With this argument, I make a two-fold intervention. First, contrary to the critique – or wholesale dismissal – of the concept of ‘legitimacy’ in some of the social science literature, I maintain that ‘legitimacy’ is a valid, useful, and necessary concept to make sense of the fate of contemporary polities,

2   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

in Africa and elsewhere, regardless of whether these polities have been interpreted as ‘failed’, ‘strong’, ‘weak’, or ‘patrimonial’. Second, I insist that the term ‘legitimacy’ requires conceptual clarification and precision to advance scholarly analyses of politics in Africa, and in Mali more specifically. Since the 2012 coup d’état, a number of authors have employed the term ‘legitimacy’ to analyse what they view as Mali’s political ‘crisis’ (e.g.Villalon and Idrissa 2005: 50–1; Wing 2008, 2013; Hagberg and Körling 2012; Whitehouse 2012; Gavelle et al. 2013; Siméant 2014: 12, 25–6; Baudais 2016; Siméant and Bergamaschi 2017). ‘Crisis’ is a word that, somewhat misleadingly, invokes a sharp discontinuity with a previous stable political order based on a solid legitimacy basis. Moreover, these authors’ often underdetermined use of the term ‘legitimacy’ leads them to address discrepant dimensions and empirical phenomena, and to generate a polyphony of arguments and analytical interventions, some of which beg the questions of whether authors simply substitute ‘legitimation’ for ‘justification’, and whether they diagnose Mali’s political malaise as one of legitimacy deficiency or delegitimation (see below in subchapter ‘A quest of legitimacy’).1 The polyphony of arguments about the origins of the country’s current political instability calls for sustained reflection on the different dimensions of ‘legitimacy’. It also invites us scholars to read the developments leading up to the present political situation in Mali in terms of both apparent rupture and long-standing underlying continuities (see Feierman 1990, ch. 1). Focusing on political legitimacy and on the relationship between those who occupy formal positions of political power and those subject to this power might appear counter-intuitive, even outdated, on both conceptual and empirical grounds. At an empirical level, the emergence of transnational regimes of governance and the related loss in state sovereignty over the last decades raises the question as to whether state politics, in their complex national and transnational entanglements, can still be understood through a concept that was developed initially with regard to political dynamics in face-to-face interactions and to the nation-state as the centre

Wing (2008) offers a sophisticated discussion of the link between legitimacy and constitutionalism, and of the role of civic participation in generating legitimacy. Still, Wing’s preoccupation with the capacity of democratic procedures to generate and strengthen legitimacy might explain why she gives primary importance to the legitimacy of state institutions and to cognitive processes and rational decision making as constitutive elements of actors’ attitudes toward a political system. Also, her argument relies strongly on empirical data collected among population segments that are capable of democratic opinion making and participation. 1

Introduction  3

of military, regulatory, and ordering power (e.g. Bayart 2004). Conceptually, following a Foucault-inspired critique of conventional analyses of the state (e.g. Mitchell 1991; Trouillot 2001; Aretxaga 2003), one could argue that a focus on legitimacy does not do justice to the decentralized and ‘capillary’ nature of power, and should be replaced by analyses of ‘governmentality’ that conceive of governance as a more diffuse and multi-directional process that rests on multiple techniques, practices and strategies of regulation and, in its neoliberal form, is geared towards an indirect mode of governance that relies on techniques of self-regulation (Burchell et al. 1991; Ferguson and Gupta 2002; Rose et al. 2006; see Death 2011).2 One could also argue that analyses preoccupied with political legitimacy might run the risk of reducing politics to a neat divide between those in power and the ‘governed’ (Chatterjee 2004), and thereby overlook the diffuseness and multi-directionality of political regulation. And indeed, with regard to contemporary Africa, authors such as Chaveau (2005) and Blundo and Le Meur (2009) demonstrate the heuristic value of the concept of ‘governmentality’ in centring attention on the relations between different actors and institutions that exert authority and anchor state power in African societies (Chaveau 2005; Chaveau and Bobo 2003; Blundo and Le Meur 2009).What these analyses suggest, then, is that the concept’s strength resides precisely in its plasticity. Without dismissing the relevance and timeliness of these arguments for analyses of contemporary state politics, political dynamics, in Mali and elsewhere, continue to raise questions of legitimacy that would remain unanswered through an exclusive focus on ‘governmentality’.While ‘governmentality’ focuses attention on the ‘how’ of politics, it is of limited use to address ‘the “when”, the “where” or (most significantly) the “why” of power’ (Selby 2007: 327). That is precisely because authors who use governmentality as a heuristic concept declare their ‘agnosticism about “why” and “in whose interests” questions’ (Rose et al. 2006: 93), and sidestep attempts to understand what prompts people to agree – or partly disagree – with the forms and technologies of regulation under study.3 It is important to distinguish between, on one side, the generic sense in which Foucault introduced ‘governmentality’ to de-centre attention from state power and refer to various non-statist or anti-statist modes of governance; and, on the other side, what Foucault identified as neo-liberal form of ‘governmentality’, a ‘governance from a distance’, in contrast to earlier, disciplinary modes of state power based on direct intervention (Joseph 2010: 226–8). 3 Key questions prompted by analyses of authority and legitimacy – questions addressed by Marxist thinkers under the label of ‘hegemony’ or ‘ideology’ – thus remain unexplored. 2

4   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

Centring attention on ‘political legitimacy’ allows us to move analysis a step forward by discerning systematic patterns of inequality in spite and beyond the ‘capillary’ directionality and workings of power.4 In other words, one strength of a political legitimacy perspective is precisely that it highlights the existence of systematic political and economic power differentials in society that place some members in a position of governance and prompt others to assess, accept, or disagree with their own subordinate position. At the same time, to become useful as a conceptual tool, the term ‘legitimacy’ deserves more systematic, conceptual, and empirical scrutiny.

A quest of legitimacy The terms ‘political legitimacy’ and ‘legitimacy’ have been widely used in Africanist scholarship and in the anthropological and political science literature more widely. Yet there has been a curious lack of conceptual reflection on the term, and concise definitions of the concept have been largely absent. As a consequence of this conceptual vagueness, it often remains unclear what exactly authors seek to examine or explain. As I suggested above, much recent scholarship on Malian politics is a case in point. Starting in the mid-1990s, numerous studies have taken the country’s 1991 transition from single-party rule to a multiparty democratic system as a starting point to discuss democratization and decentralization politics and, more recently, the country’s political instability. Many studies manifest a strong interest in questions of legitimacy, while, curiously, treating the term as if it was self-explanatory and as if the actual genesis and the workings of legitimacy did not require further reflection (e.g.Villalon and Idrissa 2005: 51f; Whitehouse 2012). Relatedly, Bratton et al. (2002),Wing (2008), Gavelle et al. (2013) and Bleck (2015) take the actions and discursive practices of select groups of actors, as well as certain forms of civic engagement, such as critical opinion making and participation in elections and constitutional dialogue, as a yardstick to measure the legitimacy of the political system of multiparty democracy.5 Their analyses yield nuanced and important insights into the (limited) workings of constitutional democracy in Mali, without, however, specifying what exactly they study under the See Joseph (2009, 2010) for a different, yet related, critique of the applicability of the ‘governmentality’ concept to international relations analyses. 5 Siméant’s analysis of political protest in Bamako in the 1990s and 2000s elides a clear conceptualization of the genesis and workings of legitimacy (2014: 12, 25–6), yet offers a highly innovative perspective on political opinion making and mobilization in the urban south. 4

Introduction  5

rubric of ‘legitimacy’. As a result of this conceptual indeterminacy, it remains unclear whether they view the relation between legitimacy and the establishment of the norms and procedures of constitutionalism as a causal or as a co-constitutive relationship. Some accounts, in particular those analysing the dynamics behind the 2012 coup d’état, also raise questions on empirical grounds. They frame the period of Alpha Toumani Touré’s presidency as an era of weakening legitimacy (Villalon and Idrissa 2005; Baudais and Chauzal 2006: 170–1; Hagberg and Körling 2012;Whitehouse 2012; Gavelle et al. 2013; Wing 2013). By this, they imply that the transition from single-party rule to multiparty democracy generated widespread approval and a solid legitimacy basis that was subsequently lost.Yet they never convincingly demonstrate that a broad acceptance of the procedures and institutions of multiparty democracy, among urban and rural populations, ever existed.6 I fully side with the observation that satisfaction about regime change and positive expectations of multiparty democracy were articulated by certain, mostly educated segments of the population in the mid-1990s. Still, judging from my own research in the Kita hinterlands in that period, I assert that these views were – and are – no proof of a sound, widely shared basis for legitimacy. Chapter 1 enters a plea for studying legitimation as informed by longer-lasting political learning processes. Also, in assessing popular perceptions of and engagements with a political system or government, we scholars should conceive of ‘popular opinion’ as inherently fractured, in line with Rajagopal’s notion of a ‘fissured public’ (Rajagopal 2001). This book is a case study on one of these fragments of ‘popular opinion’ insofar as several chapters offer glimpses on regionally specific identities, political locations, views and claims.The book points to the persistent scepticism of (male) farmers from the Kita hinterlands about the procedures and programmatic claims of multiparty democracy and administrative decentralization, which contrasts with the initial euphoria and (shortterm) approval of large segments of the populations of Bamako and other towns of southern Mali. Still, while the book’s empirical account of legitimacy refers to particular communities, identities and viewpoints, its conceptual argument about the components and processes inherent to legitimacy and legitimation processes is of comparatively broader relevance. Other authors of anthropological and Africanist scholarship use the terms ‘authority’ and ‘legitimacy’ interchangeably, without specifying how the two terms differ from, and relate to, each other. Even scholars who initially offer an explicit definition of legitimacy (thereby mostly drawing on Weber’s

6

The authors’ empirical studies draw mainly on data from urban and semi-urban areas.

6   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

‘ideas/belief-centred’ definition: see below) then proceed with a discussion of instances of legitimacy and legitimation in which they use the two terms interchangeably (e.g. Oomen 2005: ch. 5). Alternatively, authors argue that ‘legitimacy’ is never fully achieved and therefore refers to ‘a process’ (Lentz 1998b) rather than a status quo; this argument tends to merge a conceptual account of the components of legitimacy with an empirical account of the process by which people actually attribute legitimacy to a political system or a person. Other studies are strongly indebted to the Weberian conception of legitimacy and his related typology of forms of domination (see below). Their analyses suffer from the shortcomings of Weber’s ‘beliefcentred’ understanding of legitimacy, basically because they likewise convert questions about the characteristics of a system of power into one concerning the beliefs people hold about it. But before delving further into a critique of existing scholarship on legitimacy, and into a clarification of my own position within this scholarship, let me distinguish between two ways of approaching legitimacy: a normative as opposed to an empirical approach. Normative accounts, as they are formulated in moral and political philosophy, propose moral justifications for the exercise of state power and related sanctions, and why one should accept and comply with certain rules or standards of behaviour. A normative conception of legitimacy offers criteria by which to determine whether an institutional arrangement enjoys legitimacy. In a normative sense, then, such an institutional arrangement is legitimate regardless of whether people who partake in the arrangement accept its legitimacy or not. But the institutional arrangement can only unfold its legitimacy, and hence work as a legitimate order, when people actually accept its legitimacy and submit to it. In contrast, empirical descriptive accounts of legitimacy, as they are usually formulated in the social sciences, take as a starting point the existence of a particular subjective attitude to collectively binding decisions and rules on the part of actors who partake in a social order. Studies drawing on an empirical conception of legitimacy reconstruct why the actors submit to the rules in question or refuse to comply with them. The studies thus reflect on the capacity of particular institutional arrangements to generate acceptance; they are empirical-normative in orientation insofar as they explore concrete, historically and culturally determinate understandings of legitimacy and the political organization and practices in which they are rooted and realized. Following in the footsteps of social science accounts of legitimacy, the aim of this book is two-fold. It combines an empirical and historical genetic account of political legitimacy in Mali with a conceptual reflection on the ‘structure’ of the components of political legitimacy.

Introduction  7

As I mentioned above, social science scholarship on legitimacy has been burdened by a strong legacy of Weber’s conception of legitimacy. This observation applies as much to authors who embrace his beliefcentred conception as it applies to authors who question (Lentz 1998b) or fully discount the usefulness of the concept (Wedeen 2015 [1999]). In line with his Verstehende Soziologie approach, Weber was interested in factors that shaped people’s beliefs in the legitimacy of a political order. Weber developed a typology of the different ways in which people consider a political order legitimate and justified. He distinguished between different types of (legitimate) domination (Herrschaft) according to the sources from which these types derived their legitimacy. In the Weberian conception, a norm, rule or person has legitimacy if those who partake in the respective institutional arrangement consider and accept the norm as justified and good, and follow it irrespective of their own interests, simply because the rule exists. ‘Acceptance’ means that the rule, norm or person in question has an obliging force for those who should abide by it, and that this obliging force is effective without the threat of sanction or coercion.7 According to Weber, then, a norm is legitimate if it is de facto accepted by those to whom it is applied. With this conception of legitimacy, Weber reframed the question of the features of a legitimate political system as a matter of ideas that people entertain about it. There are two shortcomings of Weber’s understanding of legitimacy and of studies that have taken up his conception. First, insofar as Weber makes the existence of a legitimate order dependent on individual actors’ beliefs and opinions, his conception of legitimacy is based on an inadequate understanding of the relationship between the subjective attitudes of actors and a (super-personal and hence ‘objective’) political and social order (Beetham 1991: 9f; see Hinsch 2008: 704). Second, in so doing, Weber disregards conditions for legitimacy that exist independently of people’s subjective attitudes and convictions. By reducing legitimacy to a matter of opinions and ideas, Weber ultimately offered an empty concept of legitimacy, ‘empty’ insofar as it is deprived of any references to generalized features or objective standards that would explain why people recognize the legitimacy of a specific political order, while questioning that of another order (Beetham 1991: 10). Moreover, what Weber classified as pertaining to different grounds for legitimacy refers in fact to three features or ‘dimensions’ of legitimacy The acceptance by actors of a social order as a valid, justified one contrasts with their application of a rule out of habit or in consideration of its opportune nature (Weber 1922: 12–16). 7

8   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

that always coexist, even if the actual weight of each dimension varies with historical, cultural, and social context (Beetham 1991: 24f). As David Beetham points out, scholars who embraced Weber’s conception of legitimacy as a matter of belief have collapsed a conceptual account (‘normative’ in Beetham’s words) of the ‘elements’ or ‘levels’ (Beetham 1991: 15) of legitimacy into empirical-normative investigations of real-time understandings of legitimate power. Moreover, in taking up Weber’s preoccupation with people’s beliefs about political legitimacy, scholars have been mainly concerned with understanding how ‘the dominant’ work on people’s convictions through ideological or hegemonic representation. In response to the Weberian, one-dimensional or, in Beetham’s words,‘flawed’ (1991: 9) perspective on legitimacy, Beetham proposes a heuristic framework for a systematic, conceptual and empirical account of ‘social constructions’ of legitimacy (1991, chs 1–4, see below). Other scholars, similarly uneasy with the legacy of the Weberian, belief-centred conception of legitimacy, come to more radical conclusions. A sophisticated and articulate proponent of this position is Lisa Wedeen who, in her Ambiguities of Domination (2015), proposes to amend the flaws of the Weberian concept of legitimacy by replacing it with ‘compliance’. Wedeen maintains that the regime of Syria’s President Hafiz al-Assad (1970–2000) relied on ‘as if politics’ of ‘public dissimulation’ that worked through ‘indirect mechanisms of social control’ and ‘disciplinarysymbolic practices’, which allowed the regime to ‘economize’ on forms of direct coercion and repression.Wedeen contends that Syrian citizens’ responses to public celebrations of Assad’s power ranged between ‘unbelief ’, ‘involuntary compliance’, ‘advertising’ of feigned acceptance to fellow citizens, and occasional transgression (2015: ix). This prompts her to conclude that state politics in Syria cannot be adequately captured in terms of political legitimacy because the regimes were never actually considered to be legitimate, but remained in power through a combination of repression, coercion, and public celebration of legitimate power. As Wedeen sees it, not only does ‘legitimacy’ fail to provide a useful analytical lens to understand the workings of state politics (or ‘power’, in Wedeen’s account) in Syria. It should be discarded as a concept because it ‘lacks clarity and often obscures the very processes of power, obedience, consent, and acquiescence that it intended to explain’ (2015: xii).8 Wedeen furthermore contends that empirically-methodologically, it is impossible to ascertain whether an actor’s practice reveals her ‘belief ’ in Wedeen cites political science literature in which the concept variably refers to a ‘moral right to rule’, the ‘belief in the general appropriateness of a regime, practice, or leader’ or is used as a ‘synonym for popularity’ (2015: xii). 8

Introduction  9

a system’s legitimacy, or simply her feigning of such a conviction. Because of Weber’s confusion of a normative with a sociological account of legitimacy,9 a confusion that has been taken up by scholars working in his tradition, the term lacks utility for elucidating the subjective perspective of actors, collapsing attitudes as diverse as acceptance, acquiescence, consent and obedience into one single dispositional category (2015: xiv). Wedeen’s last point of critique is that the concept of legitimacy ‘forecloses attention to the variety of ways in which language might be operating, including how it might be used to secure order independently of belief ’. Wedeen refrains from specifying whether the failure to study concrete processes of legitimation is related to the concept of legitimacy itself, or rather to the vague ways in which the term has been used in much of the literature. For her, the conclusion is clear: the term should be done away with altogether and replaced by a concept that refers to observable practices that attest to attitudes of compliance and contestation (2015: xv). Wedeen’s critique of existing scholarship on legitimacy is very pertinent but her argument leaves room for elaboration. Conceptual limitations of the term ‘legitimacy’ should be neatly distinguished from difficulties relating to its empirical study.10 Her argument that we cannot distinguish between people’s feigning of acceptance, their compliance, and their actual attribution of legitimacy to a political regime pertains to investigations with a similar empirical focus on mass-mediated spheres of political life, spheres in which outward behaviour may differ substantially from ‘real attitudes’. There may be less difficulty in distinguishing compliance from acceptance in other spheres of social life. Using ‘compliance’, rather than ‘legitimacy’ to make sense of Syrians’ attitudes to political power cannot account for the ‘tipping point’ that induced citizens to move from mere compliance to open revolt. Also, as much as her study is motivated by an interest in understanding the specific workings of power (e.g. 2015: 18), her own account of it as a matter of ‘dissimulation’ and of ‘disciplinary-symbolic’ processes (e.g. 2015: xv) at work in Syrian state politics remains elusive.

Here, Wedeen draws on Hanna Pitkin’s critique of Weber for mixing a normative with a conceptual account of legitimacy, by failing to distinguish between ‘what is lawful, exemplary and binding, and what is commonly considered lawful, exemplary and binding’ (Wedeen 2015: xii, italics mine). 10 Wedeen contends that because we cannot distinguish empirically-methodologically between acceptance and compliance, we should speak only of compliance. This verges on the behaviourist argument that we cannot assess social phenomena beyond what we observe. 9

10   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

My point is not that ‘compliance’ does not properly describe the attitudes held by many citizen-subjects of contemporary postcolonial states vis-à-vis those in power. I merely question the claim that the empirical absence of legitimacy, or for that matter, limited scholarly understandings of ‘legitimacy’, allows us scholars to discard the concept. This claim confuses a conceptual argument with an explanatory-empirical account of (the limited existence of) ‘legitimacy’. It would be a long stretch to conclude that because, empirically, numerous postcolonial regimes, in Syria and elsewhere, hinge on open repression and the imposition of compliance, it is no longer necessary or useful to think about the processes by which people come to consider and accept a political system as legitimate, beyond their immediate personal interest. How could we otherwise account for the fact (and this was Weber’s main concern) that everyday politics around the globe do not work exclusively through the brute force of coercion? Even in situations where political legitimacy is largely absent, people may heed certain rules and directives, not out of mere compliance but because they expect their actions to serve a purpose beyond their own interests and short-term considerations. Wedeen’s critique of the Weberian concept of legitimacy does not go to the heart of its shortcomings. Because Wedeen remains preoccupied with questions of conviction and belief, she misses the essential point (addressed by Beetham) that conditions for legitimacy extend beyond the subjective attitudes of actors.11 David Beetham’s critique, and the multi-dimensional model of legitimacy he proposes, offer a more radical departure from flawed understandings of ‘legitimacy’ while confirming its continued cogency. According to Beetham, there are three ‘levels’ (1991: 16) or ‘dimensions’ of political legitimacy.The first is the dimension of legality or ‘rule conformity’, by which Beetham refers to the condition that power needs to be acquired and exercised in accordance with established rules (that may exist in a more or less formalized fashion). The second ‘dimension’ or ‘level’ (1991: 17) of legitimacy is that these rules require justification on that basis of values and criteria that are shared, at least to a certain extent, by dominant and subordinate groups in society, and thus form common standards of justification. The third dimension of political legitimacy is what Beetham calls the ‘public expression of consent’. With ‘I want to suggest that “legitimacy” is a complex, usually contradictory bundle of beliefs and emotional commitments, but that nevertheless the cult [of Hafiz al-Assad] does not operate primarily to produce “legitimacy” nor is it likely that regime officials expect to “impose their views” by producing preposterous claims’ (Wedeen 2015: 165, footnote 20 of ch. 1, italics mine). 11

Introduction  11

this term, he refers to expressive performative acts by which subordinates actively confer legitimacy on a political system or individual powerholders, rather than simply accepting their claim to legitimacy (1991: 18). Beetham cites as instances of the ‘expression of consent’ not only contracts between those who set norms and those who submit to them, but also applause and other signs of positive encouragement during public, often ritualized performances of power. Beetham’s tripartite model of legitimacy offers a useful heuristic to examine the nature, elements, and actual empirical forms of legitimacy. Among other strengths, his model makes room for the justification of a social or political order beyond the subjective attitudes and judgements of actors, by stressing the existence of broadly shared values, convictions, and conventions in which a system’s legitimacy is grounded. In choosing Beetham’s heuristic framework for an empirical, historical investigation of political legitimacy in Mali, the book seeks to elucidate the validity and vital necessity of the concept of legitimacy. At the same time, the book critically engages Beetham’s ‘three-dimensional’ model of legitimacy, by arguing that it leaves open a number of questions. Beetham’s framework allows for detailed empirical accounts of the various forms that manifest a system’s loss in or lack of legitimacy: first, in the breach of rules, which results in illegitimacy; second, as a legitimacy gap or deficiency; and third, de-legitimation in the sense of people’s withdrawal of consent. The framework invites a consideration of the actors who assess the legitimacy of a political system and, notably, makes room for disagreement over the criteria according to which a political order is assessed.12 Beetham’s framing of people’s assessment of legitimacy on the basis of rule-validity, rather than on the basis of legality, counters the tendency in political science and legal theory to equate legitimacy with legality. His perspective points beyond studies that, implicitly or explicitly, take the legal nature and institutions of (an ideal-type) Westphalian nation-state as the yardstick to measure how far existing nation-states conform to objective standards of legitimacy (e.g. Dogan 2009). For all these reasons, Beetham’s framework constitutes a significant step forward in a comparative empirical study of legitimacy. However, Beetham’s indiscriminate use of the terms ‘elements’, ‘dimensions’, and ‘levels’ of legitimacy creates confusion about whether he lists the different components required for a political system (in Beetham’s words, ‘power’) to be recognized as legitimate; or whether he identifies the levels at which political legitimacy should be investigated. 12

12   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

Still, when Beetham applies his heuristic framework to empirical instances of legitimacy or of a ‘loss’ in legitimacy, he takes as his point of departure the actual legal character of a state (thereby equating ‘rule-validity’ with the legality of a state constitution) and the existence of a consensus about criteria of political legitimacy. What he does not discuss, but what actually constitutes the reality for many postcolonial states, is that in the eyes of the subordinate, the ‘legal’ character of a constitution does not form a significant element of the catalogue of rules whose application would ensure the legitimacy of a political system. Nor does Beetham consider the possibility that a broader consensus about the values and criteria of legitimate exercise of power may not exist. Rather, the cases he cites all exemplify a consensusbased validation (justification) of rules, a consensus that putatively existed at some point and was subsequently lost. That is, he discusses only instances of a loss in legitimacy or of an incipient legitimacy deficiency. However, in Mali, similar to other nation-states with a colonial past, this consensus does or did not exist, at least not in earlier decades of postindependence politics. An empirical account of the ‘social construction of legitimacy’ in a postcolonial nation-state must therefore start from a different situation than the one envisaged by Beetham. Another question relates to the process of evaluation, that is, to the actual process by which actors apply criteria to ascertain the legitimacy of a political order or of certain individuals. Although Beetham makes room for an ‘evaluating audience’, in other words, for those who assess the legitimacy of a political order, he does not further reflect on the exact role that these actors assume in the process of attributing and generating legitimacy. Whereas Beetham only explicates the role of actors with regard to the third dimension of legitimacy (‘expression of consent’), we should keep in mind that assessments by actors are also key to what Beetham identifies as first and second ‘dimension’ of legitimacy. This observation calls for a systematic consideration of the evaluating actors and of their practices, and of what factors into actors’ assessments, beyond the ‘formal criteria’ of rule conformity they apply. As I will argue in Chapters 1 and 5, crucial to these actors’ assessments is that they are grounded in people’s material living conditions, concerns, and past and present encounters with representatives of a political system. Finally, as spelled out in Chapter 2, Beetham’s argument about the ‘expression of consent’ as a third dimension of legitimacy calls for further reflection on the attitudes of those who assess a political order’s or person’s legitimacy. Basically, ‘expression of consent’ refers to two distinct aspects; first, to an attitude of consent (based on shared standards of normative

Introduction  13

assessment) that needs to exist, at least to a certain degree, prior to its (public) expression; second, the performative conferral of legitimacy through public declaration and display. If we shift the focus to actors’ ‘attitudes’ and their assessments of the legitimacy of a political order, we need to reflect on how we conceive of these attitudes, how they emerge, and what role they play in conferring legitimacy on persons and institutions, that is, in legitimation processes.This implies that we clarify the relation of legitimacy to authority, another term that reveals the legacy of Weber’s approach to power and authority (Herrschaft).

Legitimacy and authority13 This book treats political legitimacy as a particular form of normative authority that may be attributed to an institution, a rule or a person.14 It stresses that the subjective attitudes of actors are essential to the conferral of legitimacy on a person or a political order (as a set of institutions and procedures), and thus centres attention on the generation of legitimacy (‘legitimation’) as the process through which these subjective attitudes are generated. Conceiving of normative authority as the capacity to change the normative situation of others, by affecting their commitments, imposing obligations, or establishing binding rules, the book stresses two essential features of authority. First, actors who recognize a person’s or institution’s normative authority are convinced that they should act in conformity with what the person or institution expects, requests, or orders them to do. Second, to these actors, the mere fact that the authoritative person or institution issues these orders is a good reason to comply with these orders or requests. Authority thus conceived rests on social recognition and hence on the subjective attitudes or dispositions of actors who accept it.15 The attitudes or dispositions contain distinct cognitive, emotive,16 and motivational components that need to be

The following conception of legitimacy as a form of authority benefited from a collaborative project with Wilfried Hinsch, Philosophy, University of Cologne, in 2013–14. 14 The discussion thus leaves aside epistemic authority, which is an authority based on expertise. 15 This rule-oriented conception of authority contrasts with Hobbes’ sanction-based conception of authority (Hart 1961, quoted in Christiano 2004: 2). 16 The term ‘emotive’ refers to emotions that inform actors’ perceptions of good and right or wrong and bad action. In contrast, the motivational dimension relates to the desire or wish to act in conformity with what is right and good. 13

14   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

accounted for when we study the actual process through which these dispositions emerge.17 Legitimation and authorization refer to the process through which all three components of a disposition are addressed, affected, and potentially changed. The multi-dimensional nature of actors’ dispositions is highly significant; it explains why, in addition to argument, the force of aesthetics and choreography play such a role in the actual generation of authority and political legitimacy. Chapter 5 will illustrate how argumentative, choreographic and aesthetic dimensions intertwine in the actual generation and attribution of political legitimacy.

Probing political legitimacy in Mali Echoing Beetham, I contend that Weber’s reflections on legitimacy can be read in two ways and taken up for distinct inquiries. One is to understand his typology to be based on a distinction between contrasting grounds for justification (Rechtfertigungsgrundlage). The other one (adopted in this book) is to take up Weber’s interest in the influences and factors that prompt people to hold particular beliefs about a political order, and to offer a causal-empirical account of legitimation, by tracing actual social practices by which people attribute legitimacy to individuals or to a political system more broadly. This analytical perspective resonates with Baudais’s proposal to study Malian state formation as a ‘fragile’ and partly reversible historical ‘institutionalization’ process that needs to be understood by looking at the structures and procedures of party politics and state administration as well as at the ‘perceptions’ of actors (2016: 24–7). Baudais offers a painstaking, historically grounded account of regionally specific ‘modalities of state construction’, with an empirical focus on the institutionalization of state-related structures and procedures. What receives less sustained attention in her analysis is the specific role that people’s (changing) understandings of political legitimacy play in institutionalization processes. In contrast, this book attributes a special importance to the ways in which actors’ perceptions of legitimate rule inform their engagement with state structures and procedures, and thereby enable their gradual institutionalization and ‘routinization’ (Baudais 2016: 27).18 Throughout the book, I will use the terms ‘attitude’ and ‘disposition’ interchangeably to stress that actors’ recognition of authority is not a matter of mere belief and cognition but encompasses emotional and motivational dimensions that are engrained in sensory and somatic experience. 18 Drawing on Berger and Luckmann, Baudais argues that state institutionalization is based on the ‘routinization’ and ‘habituation’ of actions (2016: 27). She does not specify 17

Introduction  15

Rather than aiming at a comprehensive account of the perceptions, attitudes, and practices that go into processes of legitimation, the book centres on certain spheres of action in which these processes have taken place historically. Analysis zones in on select groups of actors whose attitudes are relevant to, yet do not exhaust, scholarly understandings of political legitimacy in Mali; and on the particular, expressive, and symbolic resources these actors mobilize in their engagements with the political system and its representatives.19 The book addresses important realms in which claims to legitimacy are made and expressed in contemporary nation-states, and in which citizens’ – at least partial – acceptance is needed for a political order or a government to gain stability. In the case of Mali, there have been three such realms of politically relevant action. The first one comprises the different arenas or ‘fields’ of encounters between ordinary citizens and representatives of the state and government. Specifically, Chapters 1 and 3 reconstruct practices and perceptions pertaining to assessments of the legitimacy of Mali’s subsequent governments and individual politicians, prior to and after the ‘democratization’ reforms of the early 1990s that, for all they were worth, constituted a watershed moment in Mali’s political history. The second realm, addressed in Chapters 2 and 4, refers to the sphere of cultural production, specifically, to the arena in which state-orchestrated productions of national culture and related invocations of nationalist sentiment encountered, and occasionally collided with, local conceptions of culture as a source of identity formation.The third realm, explored in Chapter 5, is made up of institutions and idioms of Islamic moral renewal that generate social and economic ties in the interstices of the state, and that currently present the most formidable challenge to the legitimacy of the present government.

Culture, state formation, legitimation There exists by now a vast historical, sociological, anthropological, and political science literature on the significance of culture to the emergence and shape of political systems, a process that is often discussed under the how attitudes resulting from habituation relate to actors’ perceptions of legitimacy and are relevant to institutionalization. 19 This – arguably eclectic – approach is inspired by the heuristic framework proposed by Hagmann and Péclard for a systematic study of ‘dynamics of empirical statehood’. The framework focuses on three areas of investigation: actors and resources, arenas, and the stakes and objects of (what the authors call, somewhat diffusely) ‘negotiation’ (2010: 3ff).

16   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

label of ‘state formation’. This literature is highly significant to this book insofar as it stresses the central relevance of ‘culture’ to political legitimation processes, and provides nuanced detail to support this argument.The literature makes frequent mention of legitimation and legitimacy, without, however, specifying these terms. The meanings of legitimacy and legitimation are taken for granted, as is the precise relationship between culture and legitimation. Notable illustrations of this indeterminacy are the by now classical works of Anderson (1991 [1983]) and Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983). Examining the origins of nationalism and nation-state formation, these authors point to the key importance of collective identification as the ground from which modern polities could emerge and draw their justification. As the authors observe, a precondition for a political system that operates beyond mere force is, for those who are subject to a political order, to share an understanding of its rightfulness and the justified nature of the restrictions it imposes on individual agency, beyond the advantages of order and security it promises to guarantee. Nationalism became the specifically modern form of envisioning this collective will and shared interest, as the basis for the nation-state (see also Calhoun 1997: 4, 79). As Anderson and Hobsbawm and Ranger famously argue, for this sense of collective interest to emerge, a retrospect invocation of shared values, practices and cultural traditions was indispensable (Hobsbawm 1983: 1–3), as were shared media engagements that fostered a sense of coevality and community (Anderson 1991 [1983]: chs 2, 3). Anderson and Hobsbawm and Ranger convincingly argue that the stabilization and legitimation of a political order revolve on the fashioning of particular attitudes and engagements of those who partake in it. Yet what remains underspecified in their work is first, the particular ways in which attitudes were fashioned and the specific engagements in which they materialized; and second, the notions of legitimacy and culture that evidently play a central role in understanding the dynamics (e.g. Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983: 265–7; Anderson 1991 [1983]: 19–22). A collection of essays on the cultural dimensions of state formation edited by George Steinmetz (1999a) shows a similar indeterminacy when it comes to spelling out the exact workings of legitimacy. The stated aim of the collection is to illustrate how the ‘cultural turn’ has enriched scholarly understandings of the multi-dimensional nature of state formation. The essays thereby move beyond the earlier stalemate between Marxist and neo-Weberian, ‘state-centric’ (Steinmetz 1999b: 25) approaches to the study of the state, by demonstrating that ‘culture’ cannot be treated as a dependent variable of the formation of political systems but instead shapes and interacts

Introduction  17

with political and material structures to bring about real-time state institutions, procedures, and related dispositions (1999b: 23). This argument is strongly indebted to Corrigan and Sayer’s study of English State Formation As Cultural Revolution (1985). This book examines areas as diverse as church and governmental institutions, the administrative and legislative regulation of property relations (1985: chs 2, 3), and courts as stages of symbolic display of state power (1985: 102–3), to substantiate their key argument that for a state or any other political system to maintain itself, more is needed than sheer force and coercion (see Abrams 1988 [1977]). However, while Corrigan and Sayer’s book highlights the key role of legal and administrative regulation in ‘organiz(ing) forms of cultural production’ (1985: 92), it stops short of demonstrating how ‘culture’ (and the very diverse domains that the authors subsume under this term) actually do the work of political legitimation. A similar critique applies to the earlier mentioned contributions to Steinmetz (1999a). As important as their focus on ‘culture’ is, it is precisely their preoccupation with the formative role of culture in the emergence and transformation of the political order that sets significant limits to their analyses. The contributors explicitly abstain from using a concise notion of ‘culture’ and instead address a broad array of practices and forms that played a formative role in state formation (Steinmetz 1999b: 27–8). This passe-partout approach to ‘culture’ precludes a substantial reflection on how exactly it works to produce the political and material effects mentioned in the different case studies. That is, while most contributions to the volume attribute a ‘legitimizing’ or ‘justificatory’ role to culture in the emergence of new forms of political order, they do not spell out how distinct cultural forms inform processes of legitimation. Also, because authors centre attention on relations between states and populations (even if some authors question whether, empirically, a clear line between state and society can be drawn), they do not ask how exactly people’s attitudes to the political system, be it one of acceptance, dissent or insubordination, are generated.20 I would argue, however, that closer scrutiny of the exact nature of people’s engagement with and attitudes to a political system is essential to scholarly understandings of how a political order effectively operates.21 For instance, it is one thing to posit, as Gorski (1999) does, the ‘disciplining effects’ of Calvinist thought and religious institutions; it is another to spell out in what practices and perceptions these disciplining effects materialized. 21 While in his introduction, Steinmetz offers a trenchant critique of the failure of ‘political culture’ literature to distinguish between emotive and sense-making aspects 20

18   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

An important inroad into such an understanding has been made by anthropological and ethno-musicological work on nation building and the making of collective identities through cultural production (e.g. Handler 1988; Bendix 1992; Turino 2000; Askew 2002; Apter 2005; Moorman 2008; White 2008, chs 2, 3). The studies highlight the aesthetic force of cultural productions, a force that accounts for their potential to generate an affective sense of shared belonging and community. The authors also show that whenever these cultural productions were put in the service of building a national or another kind of collective identity (see Danielson 1997), they affected the ways in which listeners and spectators felt about the political status quo by fostering feelings of approval or acceptance during stateorchestrated spectacles (Apter 2005), opening up space for disagreement and occasional contestation (Askew 2002), or by prompting more equivocal positionings vis-à-vis the state nationalist project (Turino 2000). The conclusion to be drawn from this scholarship is that aesthetics plays a significant role in presenting or in ‘naturalizing’ (see Bourdieu 1991 [1977]) a political order as a legitimate one, regardless of practices of disagreement or subversion in which attendants of these public events might otherwise engage. The work thus lends empirical substance to Rancière’s (2000) argument that because aesthetics at once organizes sensory perception and considerations of rational-argumentative validity (what Rancière refers to with the double-entendre of ‘organization of the sensible’), politics and aesthetics go hand in hand. Yet to take Rancière’s argument about the intertwining of politics and aesthetic one step further, we need to attempt a more comprehensive account of how aesthetics relates to other dimensions of legitimation processes, and also of what, exactly, is to be legitimated. A case in point is Askew’s sophisticated, conceptual, and ethnographic account of the historical role of taarab music in the Tanzanian nationbuilding project, an account that hinges on a subtle analysis of how representations of the Tanzanian nation emerge from the interaction of ordinary citizens, state agents and other government officials. Criticizing earlier top-down approaches to nationalism as ‘impositions’ of an elite-led version of national culture, Askew illuminates the diversity of settings in which the Tanzanian nation is staged. She also highlights the various, sometimes dissenting, even subversive interpretations of the performances of various actors and audiences. Her account, which ends in the mid-1990s, raises the of cultural forms (1999b: 19–20), contributions to the volume do not take up this distinction, for instance by considering whether these dimensions have discrete effects on different categories of social actors.

Introduction  19

interesting question of how since then, the claims and forms of nationalist construction have changed under conditions of neoliberal, highly privatized cultural production. Askew’s pioneering study leaves room for elaboration in two respects. First, by studying taarab musical performances as a site for the ‘performative’ (2002: 23) construction of power relations, she collapses two distinct dimensions of cultural performances, that is, the aesthetic-sensory and the procedural-choreographic dimensions. As I will detail in Chapter 4, these two dimensions need to be explored separately to understand how they play into processes of legitimation. Nor does Askew systematically relate her analysis of cultural performances to argument-based claims to, and assessments of, legitimacy that are prompted, for instance, during everyday encounters between farmers and state officials (see also Mbembe 1992a, b; Worby 1998). My second qualm relates to Askew’s focus on images of Tanzanian nationhood and national identity. Askew does not address how these ‘renderings’ (2002: 270) stabilize in the form of more systematic patterns of behaviour and attitudes, and hence how imaginary constructions of the nation fit other legitimacy-generating practices and institutions. Nor does she systematically explore how state-orchestrated invocations of the nation as a frame of reference relate to the bureaucratic and regulatory procedures through which the state unfolds its presence in citizens’ everyday life. In short, her book offers a reflection on the ‘nation’ part of the hyphenated term, rather than on its second part, the ‘state’. In laying out the conceptual framework of the book, Askew slips from a discussion of the nation-state and its ‘construction’ to that of the nation and of national community.22 The dangers of such a slippage become evident in her discussion of Bourdieu’s argument that the ‘performative discourse’ about the state ‘causes the state to come into being’ (Askew 2002: 11). Askew merely makes the criticism that Bourdieu overrates the success of such ‘constructions’ of the state, without probing what ‘com[ing] into being’ actually entails. Plainly, the state and its institutions and regulations do not ‘come into being’ as a result of discourse; rather, the expression refers to representations of the nation-state as a political entity whose members are bound together through common cultural, historical, and linguistic ties. When talking about performances of the nation, Askew, following Bourdieu, refers to imaginary ‘constructions’, not to the establishment of Askew is critical of this conflation (2002: 289). Still, her critique of the existing literature on nationalism and state formation verges on reiterating the slippage (2002: 11–12). 22

20   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

real-time institutions. Even if images of the nation are essential to the functioning, longevity, stability, and credibility of state institutions, it is important to keep in mind that representations of the nation-state operate on an entirely different plane from the historical consolidation of state institutions and regulations.23 In other words, what Askew analyses under the label of ‘performing the nation’ are practices of making, questioning, and unsettling certain images of the nation and of national community, not practices by which the bureaucratic apparatus of the state is made and remade. It remains an open question how the staging and contestation of images of national community relate to other spheres in which citizens and state officials, during their encounters, seek to foster or unsettle the legitimacy of the political apparatus of the nation-state. Askew’s use of the term ‘performance’ compounds the problem, rather than resolving it. She thereby indiscriminately refers to staged cultural events and to other kinds of encounters between ordinary citizens and state officials, without considering the highly diverging conditions and processes of justification or contestation at work in these different settings. This book aims at a more integrative perspective, one that encompasses different spheres in which visions and arguments about political legitimacy are formulated and fought about, during encounters between state institutions and agents and farmers from a particular area of southwestern Mali. Bridging the different periods of post-independence political life in Mali, analysis centres on two spheres of political relevant action. First, institutions and practices pertaining to the field of formal politics, as well as their assessment by farmers; and second, the realm of cultural production and consumption.

Ethnographic locations The book draws on empirical research conducted mainly in a particular rural zone, to which I – somewhat vaguely – refer as the ‘rural hinterlands of Kita’. Kita is a town of approximately 30,000 inhabitants, located 100 miles to the west of Mali’s capital Bamako. The zone in question encompasses the immediate surroundings of Kita and stretches further west for about forty-three miles, in the direction of Kayes.

A similar critique applies to Mitchell’s Foucauldian view of the state as the effect of discourse (see Steinmetz 1999b: 27). 23

Introduction  21

Map 1. Regions of Mali

The book is based on empirical research that spans more than two momentous decades of Malian postcolonial history. Capitalizing on research I conducted in 1994–5, 1997 and 1998, in 2007 in three villages located between fifteen and thirty-seven miles from Kita, I returned to the area for another four research stays that extended until 2015 and, together with

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Map 2. Region of Kita

a stay in early 2019, brought my research time spent in the area up to a total of twenty-seven months. My objective was to follow up on my earlier insights into the interplay between state-orchestrated constructions of national belonging, mass media technologies, and local assessments of state politics, and of the particular role of jeli singers in generating, yet also occasionally subtly subverting, official narratives of rightful rule (Schulz 2001a, chs 5, 6). Jeliw, men and women, belong to the nyamakalaw (singular, nyamakala), a social status category that comprises endogamous socio-professional specialists of occupations, such as blacksmithing, leatherwork and, in the case

Introduction  23

of the jeliw, mastery of the spoken and sung word. In the nineteenth-century societies of southern Mali, jeliw acted as clients and political mediators on behalf of powerful families, assuming the role of public speakers, praise singers, councillors, and family historians. Patrons generously remunerated jeliw for their services. With the radical social and political transformations prompted by the French colonial administration, many patron families lost their economic and political power to support their jeli clients. In spite of these profound disruptions, jeli praise on behalf of influential personalities remains a widespread phenomenon, in rural areas and in town. Many musicians whose songs are broadcast on Malian national media are of jeli origin. Although some of them enjoy widespread recognition, their praise performances, and the fact that jeli singers now perform them for monetary gain, are taken as a powerful sign of the erosion of cultural traditions and social relations under the effects of money (Schulz 2001a: chs 4, 6). My earlier research in the Kita region explored the involvement of jeli praise singers in state cultural policy and their ambivalent reception by local audiences. Starting in 2007, I expanded my earlier focus on jeli families and their patrons, to study how political and administrative reform since the mid-1990s transformed local political fields and their intersections with Bamako as the epicentre of national politics. Inhabited by Bamana- and Maninka-speaking populations, Kita and its surrounding rural areas were once part of the heartland of the medieval Mali empire. The majority of the rural population are sedentary agriculturalists, but there is also a significant number of (sedentary and semi-nomadic) cattle herders. The area occupies a central place in the Malian nation-state, both symbolically and in terms of its location in a national political economy. Located on the eastern slope of the Kita mountain (kita kuru in the local Maninkakan, a term that also forms the title of a famous jeli song from this region), the town formed a centre of power of the Keita, Touncara, and Camara clans in the second half of the nineteenth century. To understand the political location of the actors, particularistic identities, and legitimacy constructions presented in this book, it is important to keep in mind that Kita and its surroundings have been at the centre of the national imaginary promoted by the first two regimes of post-independence Mali.This imaginary evokes a seamless continuity between the medieval empire of Mali and the contemporary nation-state. Several nationally acclaimed historians and musicians of jeli birth, among them the late Kelemonzon Diabaté and the female pop star Kandia Kouyaté, trace their family origins back to this area. Speaking and singing in the Maninkakan dialect typical of Kita’s hinterlands thus earns a jeli performer considerable symbolic capital. Yet the area’s

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privileged position within the nation-state is not merely of a symbolic nature.24 After its occupation by the French colonial troops in 1881, Kita became a station along the Bamako–Dakar railway, and an entrepôt of colonial longdistance trade and peanut production. Because of Kita’s accessibility and nearness to the capital Bamako, the town and its hinterlands were easily incorporated into the colonial and postcolonial economy and state apparatus. The fact that numerous members of the first Western-schooled political elite came from this area only facilitated the area’s political and cultural integration. Today, Kita and its rural surroundings still form an economically and politically advantaged zone, both within the Malian nation at large and within the – relatively privileged – southern triangle of the country.

Research methods During my earlier research in the Kita area in the 1990s, my interest in media reception had prompted me to combine structured and semi-structured interviews with participant observation and other qualitative methods of data collection. I maintained the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods during my subsequent research between 2007 and 2015, yet extended my earlier focus on jeli families and their patron families to explore how political and administrative reform since the mid-1990s has transformed local political fields and their intersections with Bamako as the epicentre of national politics. In addition to the three locations of my ethnographic research in the mid- and late 1990s, in 2007, I initiated field research in two villages located in a more remote rural zone of the same region (Région de Kayes), in the cercle (administrative unit) of Bafoulabé, about 110 miles north-west of Kita.25 By combining this investigation with follow-up research in rural locations whose inhabitants and political dynamics I had been intimately acquainted with since 1994, I sought to come up with historically and socially thoroughly contextualized data on the diverging living conditions within the same rural The centrality of jeli historians and musicians from the Kita area to official national historiography and culture made them prime informants of anthropological, historical and folkloric research. Their narratives and families still hold an important position in scholarship on Malian history and culture. 25 Because of the sensitive information I gathered on village-level social dynamics, power struggles, and interactions with state institutions and agents, I do not disclose the names of the different villages or informants. Letters used as a short-hand for villages do not correspond to their real names. 24

Introduction  25

zone. Farmers from the villages in which I conducted research in the 1990s villages had enjoyed relatively easy access to Kita as the trading post and administrative centre. The comparatively remote and less accessible location of the Cercle de Bafoulabé, I surmised, promised insight into the variation in living conditions and farmers’ attitudes to politicians and the state throughout the area. In accounting for variation but also for striking similarities in how male farmers viewed state politics regardless of their material living conditions, I placed my investigation within a broader politico-economic framework. It was a period of intense political, institutional, and administrative change prompted by the introduction of multiparty democracy and decentralization since the mid-1990s.These dynamics and transformations needed to be studied intensely in different locations.26 As I mentioned earlier, political reform in Mali since the 1990s and political developments since 2010 have prompted a number of authors to frame questions of political stability and the effectiveness of reform as a matter of political legitimacy. By zoning in on specific institutional settings and procedures (e.g. Baudais and Chauzal 2006; Wing 2008; Bleck 2015; Baudais 2016), elite politics (Villalon and Idrissa 2005) or street politics (Siméant 2014), these studies illustrate how important and productive it is to address political legitimacy from different vantage points. At the same time, I contend that insights generated by research that spans a few years of Mali’s recent history and is based mainly on interviews and short-term interactions (mostly with informants in urban settings) will be of limited use for appreciating how social actors reconsider and recalibrate their attitudes to the political system through concrete engagements and experiences, and over time. An empirically dense, historically contextualized account of political legitimacy requires both in-depth qualitative methods and the collection of quantifiable information that helps contextualize the former kind of data. This account necessitates immersion in the daily lives of interview partners and follow-up conversations and interviews with them that provide insight into their changing (or volatile) judgements and dispositions. My initial research project did not centre exclusively on legitimacy per se but studied the changing role of jeli praise singers against the backdrop of changing institutions and conceptions of political rule and the emergence of a mass-mediated public arena. This kind of investigation required a quantitative assessment of household and listener profiles and media consumption

Chapter 5 draws on research in San, Segu, and Bamako between 1998 and 2006, and in 2010 (Schulz 2006, 2012). 26

26   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

patterns, in addition to qualitative data collection methods. An initial survey conducted in 1994 and 1995 in the rural zones around Kita provided the quantitative data basis that, during subsequent research in 1997 and 1998, and between 2007 and 2015, served as a reference for comparison and for the systematic generation of additional quantifiable data on household composition, economic, and educational background and media use patterns in the five villages under study.27 Gaining quantifiable information on different households and their respective socio-economic standing was foundational for my subsequent qualitative research; it allowed me to contextualize information gathered through qualitative research methods, to assess the extent to which the latter body of data were representative of broader socioeconomic patterns and political dynamics, and thus to transform the results of seemingly unstructured ‘casual observation’ into a substantive data set. The surveys also helped enormously in getting to know people, laying the foundations for mutual courtesy calls and informal socializing, and familiarizing people with my research interests. Starting from these early encounters during home visits and from a contextualized understanding of where individual interlocutors were located socially, politically, and economically, I was able to systematically identify and approach interview partners, many of whom would turn into long-term research informants over the years. In each of my research sites, I conducted three or more semi-structured interviews with more than fifteen informants that covered a period of twenty-one years or nine years respectively; I also conducted between five and eight focus group interviews in each location. In identifying interview partners and topics, and in analysing our interactions as part of the process of generating ethnographic data, I was guided by a symbolic interactionist grounded theory approach (e.g. Charmaz and Mitchell 2001). My analysis of semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews and informal conversations was informed by narrative analysis (e.g. Cortazzi 2001). In addition to the formal research interactions, I spent as much time as possible with hosts and acquaintances, some of whom, over the months and years, became close friends. These long-standing acquaintances and friendships afforded me invaluable insights into instances of resource allocation and land conflicts as well as other conflict-ridden decision-making processes discussed in Chapter 3.

In the villages in which I did additional research after 2007, an initial survey on household composition, size, and assets allowed me to roughly assess individual households’ socio-economic standing, media access, and consumption patterns. 27

Introduction  27

Whereas in neighbouring disciplines, such as political science or media studies, ‘doing ethnography’ refers mainly to conducting interviews under partly controlled research conditions, anthropological research integrates participant observation as a key tool of data triangulation and validation. Information gained through participant observation lends itself only to a limited extent to systematic comparison, yet it is essential for a nuanced account of social life insofar as it allows researchers to identify discrepancies between social actors’ discursive (often normatively inflected) representations of their activities and intentions on one side, and their actual practices on the other. Participant observation thus grants unparalleled insight into the complexity of actors’ experiences and daily routines, and more specifically, of their understanding of politics and legitimacy. At the risk of stating the obvious, I remain convinced that generalizing assessments about notions and practices of political legitimacy are warranted only through such a combination of qualitative and quantitative data. From my previous research in a village near Nara (in the Malian/ Mauritanian border region) in the late 1980s, I knew that being on good terms with local authorities was a necessity, yet had equivocal implications for my standing in the village. So the first thing I did upon my arrival in Kita in 1994 was to ask my local contact person, the journalist who worked as the correspondent for the national radio station ORTM in Kita, to take me to the district administration office (at that time, the office of the Commandant de Cercle) to introduce me and my research. In the months and years to come, I avoided spending too much time in the presence of administration officials and rural extension service agents – for the very reason that to villagers they were state representatives whom they trusted little. Still, I always made sure that during my occasional visits to Kita town, I performed the minimal requirements of sociability by paying them a courtesy visit at their offices.28 By purposefully limiting my social time with state officials, I sought to minimize the apprehensions and expectations held by my hosts and acquaintances in the village of me as a foreigner with potential ties to the state and international donor organizations in Bamako. Quite understandably, these perceptions and apprehensions were fuelled by the household surveys that I conducted initially in each of my research locations. During subsequent research stays, I continuously had to navigate proximity and distance vis-à-vis institutions and agents that, in the eyes of By then, I was thoroughly acquainted with local elders, notables and intellectuals, which allowed me to keep a cautious distance while investigating the effects of decentralization on local political dynamics. 28

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farmers, were related to the state. While being aware that I could never rid myself of these associations, I made a sustained effort to communicate my distance from these players. As naïve as this effort might appear, I am convinced that over the years, it paid off, insofar as my frequent returns to the village(s) allowed my hosts, friends, acquaintances, and other interview partners to gain an increasingly nuanced and thorough understanding of my motivations, opinions, and social background.

Outline of the book Chapter 1 starts from a critical assessment of Beetham’s model of legitimacy to offer a historically informed, empirical account of the ‘social construction of legitimacy’ in the rural hinterlands of Kita town, in Mali’s south-west.Yet rather than giving a linear historical account of changing understandings of legitimacy, the chapter starts from the retrospective assessments of older farmers in the mid-1990s and their disgruntled portrayal of multiparty democracy as a sign of social and moral upheaval. The chapter makes two conceptual points. To break with the scholarly preoccupation with actors’ beliefs about or perceptions of legitimacy, the chapter considers the actual living conditions, social context and micro-politics within which people’s assessments of legitimacy are embedded. Second, it pays sustained attention to the social dynamics between actors to shed light on the temporary, instable and reversible nature of legitimacy in contemporary Mali. Chapter 2 continues with a genetic account of political legitimacy in postcolonial Mali and focuses again on the earlier period under Presidents Modibo Keita and Moussa Traoré. Analysis shifts to state-orchestrated cultural performances as a domain in which political legitimacy is sought, claimed, attributed, and probed, and people’s attitudes to the political order are made and remade. In contrast to the argument- and cognition-centred analysis of the preceding chapter, discussion extends the analytical focus to the aesthetic-sensory and procedural-choreographic dimensions of processes that contribute to (or weaken) the legitimacy of a political system. On the basis of this empirical material, the chapter examines the structural components of legitimacy, asking whether and in what ways the ‘expression’ of consent forms an essential component of legitimacy. Chapter 3 moves the discussion to the era of multiparty democracy. It asks to what extent administrative decentralization since the mid-1990s has changed the legitimacy deficiency of the state political order, as well as the underlying, uneasy coexistence between incongruent conceptions of a

Introduction  29

beneficial political order.The chapter starts from the argument that people’s dispositions towards a political order need to be understood beyond and outside the realm of officially staged performances and media engagements, by examining their daily encounters with the state political system and its representatives. The chapter examines how farmers from the hinterlands of Kita town engaged with the newly created structures of political decentralization and office holders, and shows how these strategies overlap and interlock with conventional structures and rationales of decision making and justification. As a development that started prior to multiparty democracy, farmers in the rural hinterlands of Kita have grown accustomed to state regulation of domestic life and subsistence economies. Along the way, the formal bureaucratic procedures and legal-rational rules have gained wider recognition, even if their force is weakened by the ongoing validity and – seemingly paradoxical – occasional strengthening of the conventional criteria for legitimate power. Chapter 4 returns to the relationship between cultural production and political legitimacy, yet addresses it with respect to the era of political and economic liberalization (since the 1990s). The chapter discusses the paradoxical reception of governmental measures that aim to promote identification with the multicultural nation-state through the promotion and staging of local particularity and cultural diversity. These measures do foster broader acceptance of the multicultural nation-state, at least among those segments of the population whose ‘local cultures’ are officially staged. At the same time, in the absence of more substantial reforms that will improve rural livelihood conditions, for the majority of farmers from the Kita hinterlands, their de facto exclusion from local decision-making processes and from partaking in the spoils of the ‘valorization of culture’ remain key criteria for describing the current political order as one that lacks legitimacy. Finally, Chapter 5 asks how and why the ‘symbolic language of Islam’ has become the most formidable challenge to secular nation-state politics in Mali, among urban and rural populations, a development that since the mid-2000s, has allowed various militant Muslim groups to challenge national sovereignty in the country’s central and northern regions. With this inquiry, the chapter extends its lens beyond the rural region of Mali’s south-west on which the preceding analysis rested. Islamic renewal in contemporary Mali has gained such broad support that those who assume a leadership position in the name of Islam yield considerable strategic advantage over politicians, not the least because their criticism, framed in the idiom of moral and political reform, targets directly the legitimacy vacuum left by multiparty democracy and by politicians

30   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali

associated with it. Taking up the analytical scheme for the study of legitimation that was introduced in Chapter 2, the chapter shows that leaders who claim leadership in the name of religious-moral renewal and spiritual guidance lay claim to credentials that in part complement, in part directly compete with those of politicians. In both cases, attention to the argumentative and non-argumentative dimensions of legitimacy claims is of paramount importance. This insight clearly moves us beyond a Weberian account of the distinct sources on which authority and political legitimacy may be founded. Whereas Weber paid tribute to non-argumentative dimensions of legitimation only insofar as he identified personal ‘charisma’ as a source of authority, Chapters 2, 4 and 5 illustrate that sensory and aesthetic elements play into all assertions and attributions of legitimacy, even if the relative weight of these different dimensions may vary and change over time. Finally, a Postscript written in May 2020 shows the relevance of these arguments to the present situation. It discusses challenges to the legitimacy of the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (‘IBK’) against the backdrop of turbulence related to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, legislative elections, and the ever-growing political influence of Muslim leaders who present an Islamic moral and political order as a viable alternative to the present political system.

1 Demokrasi as the ‘rule of envy’ ‘Hand-raise power – who has seen such a thing? Nobody has ever gained power just because we lifted our hands [to vote].’ (Male farmer, ca. thirty years old, from a village forty miles west of Kita, June 1995)

Introduction The way in which the vast literature on the nature of politics and the state in Africa has treated ‘legitimacy’ strongly resembles what, in the Introduction, I stated with regard to the social science and historical literature more generally. Scholars of politics in Africa use the notion of legitimacy expansively, yet they have paid surprisingly little attention to the exact criteria and process of assessing a political system’s or individual power holders’ legitimacy. Also missing are conceptual reflections on the actors who assess and attribute authority, on their diversity, and on the dynamics that structure relations among them and that, in all likelihood, influence the very process of legitimation. This lack of attention is all the more surprising as most authors seem to agree that legitimacy ultimately refers to a social relationship or, as I would conceive of it, a web of social relations that include the person in power, and various, diversely connected actors who assess his exercise of power or/and the validity of a political system. A systematic account is needed of the grounds on which political legitimacy is based in concrete historical and cultural situations, and also of the actors who are involved in actual assessments of the legitimacy of a political order or individual powerholders. As I spelled out in the Introduction, David Beetham’s tripartite model of legitimacy offers a good starting point for a systematic empirical exploration of the ‘social construction of legitimacy’ (Beetham 1991: chs 2, 3). However, when using Beetham’s model for a historically informed, empirical account a word of caution is in place. Beetham criticizes Weber and all authors who adopted his approach to legitimacy for equating legitimacy

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with people’s subjective beliefs about whether or not a system or a person is legitimate. Still, when discussing the justifiability of rules as the second dimension of legitimacy, Beetham himself risks conceiving the problem as a matter of beliefs (that is, of subjective judgements about legitimacy). From an empirical and conceptual point of view, the question is whether assessments of rule conformity are based simply on beliefs, or whether they are also significantly informed by daily experiences and dispositions, which, in turn, are shaped by the material and economic conditions in which the evaluating actors (who attribute and confirm legitimacy) find themselves. Second, it follows from this observation that Beetham’s model does not sufficiently account for the role of actors who are key to actual legitimation processes. In his model (and very much in the Weberian line of thought), actors are relevant only in their role as subjects of convictions, and with regard to the question of whether those in power and the subordinate share values on the basis of which legitimacy is assessed. Left out from the model are not only the material conditions that shape actors’ assessments (see above), but also the social dynamics that inform people’s activities of conferring or disclaiming legitimacy. Not to consider the relations between actors (and the norms and expectations that guide them in their interaction) means to ignore important dynamics that affect the ways (and degree to which) legitimacy emerges and is transformed. Thus, a model such as Beetham’s, which seeks to identify the conceptual elements of legitimacy, needs to start from the actual social dynamics that affect the first two dimensions of his model. This chapter analyses how older farmers in one area of Mali’s south-west assessed the legitimacy of the postcolonial political order, and of the presidents who personified the new political system. The chapter argues, first, that paying sustained attention to the social dynamics between actors sheds light on the temporary, instable, and reversible nature of legitimacy in contemporary Mali. Rather than taking this instability as a particular feature of Malian or African politics, the chapter concludes that the stability or instability of legitimacy depends on the extent to which a political system is grounded in a coherent set of institutions, norms and procedures of a given political system. Second, systematic consideration of the material conditions and historical experiences with a political system helps move the scholarly focus beyond actors’ beliefs about or perceptions of legitimacy. That is, people assess the ‘rule conformity’ of a political system by drawing not on their beliefs but on their actual life situation, which in itself is the result of a political system, that is, of state interference with, and transformation of, possibilities

Demokrasi as the ‘rule of envy’   33

to make a living. Therefore, it is not beliefs about or criteria for legitimacy that should form the starting point of the analysis, but the actual living conditions, social context, and micro-politics within which people’s assessments of legitimacy are embedded. This necessitates a historical perspective on how assessments of legitimacy are the product of a longer history of the state regulation of rural living conditions. In this sense, the chapter can also be read as a political history of postcolonial Mali, as seen by – mostly older – farmers in Mali’s south-west. On 26 March 1991, a military coup d’état led by Colonel Alpha Toumani Touré put an end to the regime of Moussa Traoré who had ruled the country for more than twenty years. The coup initiated the political transition to multiparty democracy in 1992 with the election of President Alpha Konaré and his party, the Alliance pour la Démocratie au Mali (ADEMA). (Colonel Touré withdrew from politics until 2002, when he was elected president after Alpha Konaré had served two electoral periods.) As with the earlier coup that brought former President Traoré to power in 1968, Malians learned about the regime change through national radio. To farmers in the countryside around Kita in Mali’s south-west, this regime change had little to do with their own doings, wishes, or expectations, even if the event did not happen quite unexpectedly. My own field research in the area started only a few years later, in 1994, at a time when farmers were still busy making sense of the repercussions that the new political order, that is, multiparty democracy, had for them. This was also the time when the effects of structural readjustment and, notably, the devaluation of the Malian currency, the West African franc (FCFA), were felt keenly in the countryside. In January 1994, when I settled into my field site in Surakoroba, a village thirty miles away from Kita, I soon realized that my arrival coincided with the flaming up of an older conflict in my host family. One of the sons of the family head, a schoolteacher in his mid-forties whom I will call Sekou, had recently returned to the village after teaching for ten years in Kita. His intention was to benefit from the incentives offered by the government to promote cotton export production, which formed part of the new government’s recently adopted export production policy. For this, Sekou intended to employ paid labour to increase productivity. His father (Bakary) was a renowned jeli solicited by many people in the area for his mediation skills and his historical knowledge.

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Figure 1. Road leading from Kita market into the rural hinterlands west of Kita. In the background looms the Kita mountain Kita Kulu, famously evoked in jeli praise songs (source: DES)

Two months before my arrival, the long-standing resentment between Sekou (the oldest son of his father’s second wife) and his brothers (from Bakary’s first marriage) had come into the open.While all conflicting parties framed the conflict as an instance of brotherly competition (fadenkèlè), they had different accounts to offer on its causes. Sekou’s older half-brothers

Demokrasi as the ‘rule of envy’   35

bore grudges against him because of his refusal to put his education in the service of his family by lending them financial support during all these years he had spent in Kita. Sekou, in contrast, insisted in conversations with me that no human being was capable of satisfying the needs of greedy family members such as his half-brothers. Besides, Sekou added, he did not see why he should have sent remittances to a father who, because of his collaboration with researchers from Bamako and abroad, had made more money than he, Sekou, a simple primary school teacher, could ever have earned. His half-brothers, added Sekou in a conspiratorial whisper, were a jealous and lazy bunch of people who had no reason to blame him; after all, he had returned to the village to produce cotton. If his plans worked out, his entire family would literally reap the fruits of his personal labour. His brothers’ dismissal of his plans as too risky proved their lack of vision about how to rise beyond the general level of drudgery and engage in an agricultural activity that promised great returns. Even his father engaged in politiki, instead of supporting him. And, when asked to explain his understanding of politiki, Sekou curtly retorted ‘politiki devours its first child’. In the eyes of his father Bakary, on the other hand, Sekou’s plan to make money from cash-crop production on his individual plot and, Bakary was sure, to pocket most of the gains, just proved how far the loss of filial respect and fatherly authority had gone these days. And, referring to the turmoil created by oppositional parties and youth in Bamako in protest against President Konaré’s government, he said: life in our family is turned upside down, like things in Bamako. No respect of authority, no sense of obligation towards the elders. Modibo provided for us, he cared for us like a father. Moussa brought back the absolute power (fanga) of precolonial times. Now, in times of demokrasi, all we have is insubordination. Politiki people do not care for us.

This family conflict offers a window on the social dynamics and situation under which politics and political leaders were debated in one of Mali’s southern hinterlands. Those involved in the family conflict posit a direct parallel between the conduct of relatives and key representatives of the new political order.They denounce irresponsible behaviour to relatives as politiki, and assess the conduct of politicians through an idiom of kin obligations that highlights patriliny as the central axis of domestic reproduction. For Sekou, the logic of politiki is captured in the figure of the immoral father who eats his first child. Politiki stands for a disrupted social order in which the family head no longer ensures family continuity by nurturing his children in exchange for their labour. Bakary criticizes politicians in Bamako for their

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lack of ‘care’; he also holds ungrateful and irreverent sons, whether real or metaphoric ones, responsible for the chaos in Bamako and the disruption of domestic relations at home. Bakary’s and Sekou’s disparaging remarks about politicians who do not live up to their own promises, and instead resemble irresponsible and ego-minded relatives, articulate specific rules to which politicians, as representatives of a political system, should conform. The use of the same idiom to judge internal family dynamics and national politics is highly significant to this chapter’s empirical-normative account of the expectations on the basis of which legitimacy is assessed and attributed in Mali’s south-west. It sheds light on the rules according to which, if we follow Beetham, the political order or individual representatives of the political system should conform in order to be considered legitimate. Following the argument by Schatzberg (1993, 2001) and by scholars of Malian political culture in particular (e.g. Sears 2007: 167–72; Bleck 2015: 49–51; Gottlieb 2015), one might assume that these rules provide evidence for the existence of a coherent scheme of moral evaluation on the basis of which Africans assess the legitimacy of state politics and politicians.1 Yet, as this chapter will demonstrate, the rules to which farmers hold the political system or politicians accountable do not stem from a stable set of local normative conceptions untainted by the logic of, or farmers’ experiences with, the state bureaucratic apparatus. The rules formulated by Bakary and Sekou, and the expectations – of the new political order, the central state, and politicians – that they entail, are not necessarily coherent or fixed; they are revised and reformulated in response to concrete historical experiences with the state and their intervention in local economic and social life. Moreover, the rules are specific to a particular segment of the local population and to a specific historical situation; they were held by middle-aged and older male farmers in Kita’s hinterlands in the mid-1990s.

Schatzberg, in his comparative assessment of notions of political legitimacy in ‘middle Africa’, argues that the notion of ‘state fatherhood’ serves as a ‘moral matrix’ through which African subjects judge the performance of politicians, and of presidents in particular (Schatzberg 1993, 2001). A similar claim is implied in Bayart’s (1989) oft-quoted notion of ‘belly politics’, which, in his analysis, serves African subjects as an evaluative framework in which to ground their visions of a good or legitimate political order and their assessments of the (im)morality of politicians (1989; for a related view of the specificity of ‘African politics’ see also Mbembe 1992a, b). 1

Demokrasi as the ‘rule of envy’   37

Figure 2. Road in the main village of a commune in the region of Kayes. Its electrification shows that it is a rather prosperous and geographically advantageously placed village (source: DES)

Figure 3. Courtyards such as this are typical for the Kita rural hinterland in that they comprise several buildings, at least some of which are covered with corrugated iron roofs, which indicates a certain level of family prosperity (source: DES)

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Figure 4. Women pursuing their daily chores in a rural courtyard in the region of Kayes (source: DES)

‘Politiki eats its first child’:2 fanga and politiki as contrasting moral economies of power If we take up what Beetham identifies as the first dimension of legitimacy, that is, rule conformity, several questions emerge. First, what rules do farmers in Mali’s south-west apply to measure political legitimacy? What do we understand by ‘rule’ in this context?) Are ‘local’, ‘traditional’ rules (Erdmann and Engel 2006) to be conceived as separate from the rules (and expectations) according to which the efficiency and performance of the state (bureaucratic apparatus and political office) are assessed? If these rules are separate, where and when does each of them come into play? Second, what or whose legitimacy do farmers assess specifically? Do they neatly distinguish between a political system on one side, and individual representatives, that is powerholders, of this system on the 2

Politiki b’a den fòlò dun.

Demokrasi as the ‘rule of envy’   39

other? And finally, what follows from the fact that farmers’ assessments of legitimacy are embedded in, not disconnected from, their daily livelihood struggles and social relations? At first sight, Sekou’s grim observation that ‘politiki eats its first child’ resonates with the images of stately fatherhood and of ‘eating’ that Schatzberg (1993) and Bayart (1989) identify as pervasive notions in African political cultures. However, most notable about this remark is not its reference to kinship but its putting the blame on the father.The careless father, one who negates the form of reciprocity, is held responsible for, and representative of, politiki, the new order of social and political immorality. By refusing to provide for his sons, particularly in the form of bride wealth, a careless father prevents his juniors from marrying and hence from establishing full adult and seniority status in village life. The careless father personifies the weakening of social obligations that ensure the regeneration of age, status, and authority hierarchies both in national politics and in the domestic sphere.This depiction raises questions as to the exact nature of the rules and of the corresponding expectations that condense in farmers’ complaints about missed obligations. Who is the target of these expectations and whose legitimacy is therefore at stake in farmers’ assessments? In commenting on the new political order introduced after 1991, my hosts usually contrasted politiki with fanga. Although the literal meaning of fanga is (absolute) power and force,3 farmers used it to refer indiscriminately to a political order, a political office, and to the person who holds it.4 Farmers thus blurred the distinction between a political system and individual representatives of the system. When speaking of fanga, farmers referred to some unspecified ‘pre-colonial’ political order to which they attributed a greater stability and continuity than what was ever the historical case. They also contrasted fanga to politiki.5 The discussions I followed took place in the compounds of my (jeli) host families but they generally included farmers of free-born origin as well. I also followed debates in the homesteads of free-born farmers that showed the same tendency to compare politiki to the good old times of absolute power, fanga. Taken together, these discussions illustrate how farmers of different age and educational background, and regardless of their social origin, judge political changes and events in the capital. 4 This view is reiterated by Bagayogo (1987: 93–4; 1989) whose account of nineteenthcentury Bamana political cosmology seems to be strongly based on jeli visions of power. 5 Farmers thus reified fanga as the cornerstone of their ‘political tradition’. When talking about pre-colonial fanga, my hosts implied a political situation in which ‘kings’ acceded to office because of their royal descent, ruled over territories with fixed boundaries, and forced their subjects to make regular ‘tributary payments’. This reified 3

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Time and again, my hosts and other farmers with whom I spent evenings sitting at the fireplace and drinking tea came back to the post-1991 political turmoil and confrontations between students and security forces in Bamako and other towns of southern Mali. Their comments on politiki expressly or implicitly reflected the rules to which farmers wish to hold politicians accountable. Farmers felt that this upheaval, as well as the vocal criticism of the government by opposing politicians was just the latest instantiation of the dangers of politiki tuma, the ‘time of politiki’, characterized by political competition, instability, unpredictability, and social anomy. The main point about fanga, and the reason why they invoked it to criticize the new political order of multiparty democracy, was fanga’s capacity to ensure collective well-being by granting stability, order, and safety. As long as fanga maintained social and political order, this idealized portrayal of fanga implied, it was legitimate even in its use of physical coercion. As one patriarch of my host family angrily remarked to his neighbour as they half-heartedly followed President Konaré’s lengthy speech on national radio in 1993, in those times, when power was in the house of the whites, at least people knew what they were up to. No endless talk, no pretense to act on our behalf and to do something in our interest … It’s no longer how it used to be when the mansa ruled with force. … A good mansa, in times of difficulty (gèlèya), he would arrange things for you. What the mansa said and what he did was one.

Under conditions of multiparty democracy, politicians’ wheeling and dealings, and shifting alliances exposed them as quarrelsome, dithering, and caring first and foremost for themselves, not for those subject to their power. Clearly, by assessing the nature and legitimacy of the political system introduced after Moussa Traoré’s fall from power, the farmers whose comments I collected did not neatly distinguish between political system, political office, and individual office holders. What springs to immediate attention is the degree to which farmers personalize their disappointments about what they consider as failures and weaknesses of the political system, by presenting it as the misconduct of individual office holders. In the rendition of nineteenth-century politics is strongly shaped by the recitations of jeliw (cf. Bazin 1979). Because jeli traditionalists are important informants for research conducted on the political history, this static view has entered much of the existing scholarly literature on the area’s political history. As I mentioned in the Introduction, these interpretations provide the basis for scholarly accounts of eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury ‘states’ in southern Mali. For an incisive critique of this literature, see Saul (1998).

Demokrasi as the ‘rule of envy’   41

comment cited above, President Konaré is portrayed as someone ‘who merely speaks’, a portrayal that implicitly questions whether he has the credentials necessary for effective and beneficial political rule. Politiki not only signals politicians’ propensity for futile speech, but their readiness to delude, betray, and speak with a ‘split tongue’ (kan fila). To quote Maadu, Bakary’s eldest son, ‘(when we say) this is politiki, we mean, “this is a lie”. It means “this is a trap” … When we say, “a, that’s politiki”, it means “that’s not true”. Or else, it means “I will arrange things for you (in exchange for another favor)”.’ As a false-bottomed action, politiki is practised in various domains, not just in the sphere of formal power: the micro-politics of family affairs, village politics, and regional and national arenas. Politiki rubs off on any office holder who practises it and thereby becomes a ‘politiki person’ (singular, politiki mògò). As a neighbour in Surakoroba put it, if someone tells you ‘such-and-such is a politiki person’, it’s a smart way of warning you not to trust this person … that this [politiki] person takes us for a ride and is very smart with his lies, his endless promises which he will never keep. To say, ‘this is a politiki person’ means that one is aware that this person makes you bend over to take advantage of you.

‘Acting politiki’ means not honouring one’s responsibilities vis-à-vis dependents, be they children or (political) clients. The opposite of politiki is to ‘keep promises’ by distributing goods and favours that will confirm existing social and political hierarchies. The promise may be one made by an aspiring deputy during an electoral campaign, such as one providing funds for community infrastructure. Sekou succinctly made this point: to say, ‘this is politiki’ means that everyone can do it, politiki. But ultimately, it’s the politiki people in Bamako (who do it). They don’t like us (who live) out here in the bush. They forget us, they forget their promises. Talking politiki means to no longer think of those who are entrusted to you. … Will you take advantage of a father who is ailing and feeble? No, you will not. But a politiki person will do so because he no longer respects what is expected from him.

The frequent complaint by farmers about politicians as people who do not ‘care’ about farmers because they do not ‘provide’ for them, seems to confirm the argument made by Médard and other authors that African state politics operates according to a ‘patrimonial’ logic (e.g. Médard 1982, 1991; Bach and Gazibo 2012; but see Olivier de Sardan 2015). However, farmers’

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resentment of the ‘split tongue’ of politiki people who only act in their own interest suggests that more is at stake here. Farmers make the criticism that they cannot anticipate how a politician will act, that is, whether he will act in compliance with the formal legal-bureaucratic rules or instead act according to a patrimonial logic.They do not criticize the patrimonial logic per se, but they take issue with state and party officials who claim to act in accordance with legal rules, yet often operate according to a patrimonial logic, simultaneously excluding farmers from their redistributive networks. Farmers are thus well aware of the coexistence of different rules according to which members of the politico-administrative elite act. This echoes Erdmann and Engel’s argument that political systems in Africa are ‘hybrid systems’ composed of two ‘interwoven’ types of domination and ‘logics’ of political practice, in which the ‘patrimonial system penetrates the legal-rational system and affects its logic and output, but does not take exclusive control over the legal-rational logic’ (2006: 18). Farmers question the legitimacy of a political system in which ‘informal politics invade formal institutions’ and politicians comply with neither the formal-legal rules of politics nor the informal-patrimonial ones.

‘The time when politiki arrived’: party politics and the struggle for independence As we have seen, in the period immediately following the introduction of multiparty democracy, farmers referred to politiki to take issue with the behaviour of individual politicians, notably, the split between politicians’ claim to act according to formal procedures (legality) and their simultaneous practices of offering favours and services to clients and relatives. To farmers in the Kita region, the problem was that they themselves remained widely excluded from politicians’ clientelist networks. In other remarks, farmers expressly questioned the legitimacy of politiki as a political system and of its founding principles of representational politics and party competition. Here, they often located the origins of politiki, that is, ‘the time when politiki arrived’, earlier in Mali’s political history, that is, in the late colonial period.6 Quarrelsome politiki, so the narrative went, Hodgkin (1961) offers a fascinating account of how strongly the language and ideas of the French West African independence movement were rooted in Western democratic traditions. Pan-Africanism was sometimes promoted as an alternative to Marxist ideology and to other concepts of Western political theory (Hodgkin 1961: 28, 35). Based on interviews with descendants of former chiefly families in several chiefdoms in the region 6

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started with the independence struggle of the 1940s and 1950s, when the two parties, the Parti Progressiste Soudanais (PSP) and the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA), were formed exacerbating earlier strife and social disruption locally.7 Thus, whereas party leadership hailed Mali’s independence as marking the onset of a new era of proud self-determination,8 in the eyes of older farmers to whom I talked in 1994 and 1995, this was a time when earlier hierarchies of rank and distinction lost strength and ‘new cantankerous leaders’ helped to ground the system of politiki more thoroughly in local politics. Party structures, by providing linkages to the party apparatus in the capital, fuelled ongoing local factionalism. As the eminent jeli singer Bako Dagno tersely remarked, ‘politiki rendered conflicts among people worse than it had ever been under colonial rule’.9 What prompted this perception of politiki as an aggravation of the colonial political order? Scholars have explained the initial success of the PSP and the ultimate victory of the Union Soudanaise-Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (US-RDA) by the parties’ different social bases and forms of mobilization.10 The PSP’s strong support among the new urban educated middle classes, as well as among representatives of formerly dominant lineages whom the colonial powers had appointed chefs de canton, showed in the party’s conciliatory stance towards the French colonial administration. Many members of an older merchant elite and lineages of Muslim religious specialists, some of them associated with Sufi Islam, also supported the PSP (Schachter-Morgenthau 1964: 342). But in areas where the position of the chef de canton was contested

of Kita, I disagree with Schachter-Morgenthau’s assertion that the first generation of Malian elites shared a common social background, that is, the status of free-born people (Schachter-Morgenthau 1964: 257). It is likely that Schachter-Morgenthau bases her assumptions on archival material that represents the views of colonial administrators who did not question the free-born background of the recruited children. 7 The RDA existed in different territories of French West Africa and was later divided into the different national sections. For the conflicting political and ideological orientations of the different sections of the RDA, see Newbury (1961) and Gérard (1975). 8 Party leaders referred to independence as horonya, a term that designates free-born social rank. 9 Conversation, May 1994, Bamako. 10 According to Schachter-Morgenthau, the competition between the PSP as a ‘patron’ party and the US-RDA as the ‘mass’ party reflected a general trend of political competition between the two types of parties in French West Africa (Schachter-Morgenthau 1964: 332). See also Foltz (1973), who traces the competition of these two types of parties to the time of single-party rule after independence.

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by other families, opponents often sided with the US-RDA.11 The US-RDA’s anti-colonial, anti-establishment rhetoric and its efficient structures of local mobilization and representation (such as regular meetings and rural party committees) attracted followers among the segments excluded from power in the previous socio-political hierarchies, such as inferior status groups.12 Merchants of inferior social origin sided with the US-RDA because of the party’s opposition to the traditional authorities, who still held great power over land rights and use.13 Other merchants, whose influence was based on clientage ties to rural producers, supported the US-RDA’s nationalist cause because they were interested in replacing foreign, mostly French, Lebanese, and Syrian trading companies (Amselle 1985a: 250).Their backing helped the US-RDA gain a foothold in small market towns (SchachterMorgenthau 1964: 287).14 The ultimate victory of the US-RDA over the PSP thus reflected a broader social transformation; an older political elite, whose position had been strengthened and reified under colonial rule as of ‘chiefly’ descent and ‘traditional legitimacy’ were displaced from power. The winners were from the new bureaucratic and economic elites and profiteers of colonial rule. They were often of inferior social origin and had acceded to political and administrative office through schooling (Amselle 1985a: 249–50). As suggested by the derisive nickname ‘biro holders’ (singular bikitigi, from French bic, biro), farmers in the area of Kita questioned the power credentials The colonial administration often recruited the chief of the canton colonial from the formerly dominant family (branch). But in areas where colonial occupation had encountered resistance, the administrators established a different clan or family branch as canton chiefs, a decision that was often vehemently opposed by those eclipsed from power. 12 The US-RDA also recruited numerous followers among workers, synchronizing their political actions with the emerging trade unions that constituted an important political force before independence. 13 The PSP and US-RDA did not represent a specific territorial unit or ethnic group, but regional and ethnic ties were certainly important in voting decisions. However, especially in the last years before independence, the US-RDA sought to cut across ethnic boundaries to create a feeling of national belonging by sending deputies to as many regions as possible. To a larger extent than the PSP, the US-RDA fashioned new symbols of nationalism, such as insignia and colours, and put an emphasis on slogans. 14 Of the party’s ninety-nine deputies, thirty-three lived in Bamako, twenty-three were from Bamako, and nineteen came from Kayes, Segou and Sikasso (Diarrah 1986: 18). These numbers support Schachter-Morgenthau’s assertion that one has to distinguish between different generations of party officials with respect to their distance from their rural origins (Schachter-Morgenthau 1964: 336). 11

Demokrasi as the ‘rule of envy’   45

of the new bureaucratic and political elite. In the light of Beetham’s first dimension of legitimacy (‘rule conformity’), we can take the nickname, as well as farmers’ portrayal of politiki as the self-interested dealings of cantankerous individuals, to indicate that farmers denied the new political elite any legitimacy, on two grounds. They challenged the validity of the criteria for access to power provided by the new political system. They also argued that individual power holders did not comply with the rule that an exercise of power should be beneficial for those subject to it, by guaranteeing order and stability, and by providing favours to dependents. Two insights follow from farmers’ appraisal of the legitimacy of the newly introduced political system. First, the expression ‘exacerbation of politiki’ captures farmers’ historical experience that local struggles, fuelled by the alteration of social hierarchies, gained new momentum with party politics. Party politics lacked legitimacy because it failed to bring stability and peace. Second, because the new political system introduced in late colonial rule was not based on shared local perceptions of legitimacy, Beetham’s second dimension of legitimacy, that is, the justifiability by reference to shared criteria and values, was missing. This legitimacy ‘gap’ (Beetham 1991: 74) showed in the diverging and incongruent rules for gaining power (as illustrated by the nickname bikitigi) and for exercising power (notably illustrated by the portrayal of politicians as speaking and acting with a split tongue, by claiming to act in legal conformity while practising a logic of kinship obligations that largely excluded farmers from the clientelist networks of political elites). Certainly, as suggested by the portrayal of politiki as an exacerbation of local struggles suggests, the subjects of colonial rule might purposefully have used this indeterminacy emerging from a lack of consensus on rules. In all likelihood, they did so whenever challenging or supporting it helped bolster their own position in local power struggles. In his discussion of the second dimension of legitimacy, that is, the justifiability of rules on the basis of shared values, Beetham seems to imply that disagreements over values or rules map on a clear division between those in power on one side, and the subordinate on the other. Yet, the material presented so far renders questionable Beetham’s tendency to reduce possible disagreements about ‘values’ to a simple opposition between the powerful and the subordinate. Beetham’s model ignores, or significantly underplays, the importance of divisions among subordinates and how they play into struggles over legitimacy. As we will see, these internal divisions are relevant to conceptual reflections on legitimacy.

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Establishing a state presence in the countryside, 1960–8 Mali was granted the right to limited self-government, as a first step towards independence, in 1956, the year that Modibo Keita succeeded Mamadou Konaté as the party leader.15 The administrative reform of 1956 strengthened the party in the 1957 legislative elections.16 After the US-RDA victory in the last legislative elections before independence in 1959 (Konaté 1990: 30), the PSP party leaders decided to fuse with the US-RDA (SchachterMorgenthau 1964: 298). Mali was proclaimed an independent republic under Modibo Keita on 22 September 1960, after the three-month-long intermezzo of the Malian federation.17 Whenever I asked older farmers how they had felt about the political changes introduced with Modibo Keita’s government, their responses centred on two themes; first, the new political elite, and second, the ‘biro’ power, that is, the capacity to read and write and the backing of the colonial state, as the new elite’s basis for political office.18 The term ‘biro holder’ implies a contrast with a different (intellectual) elite, the Muslim religious specialists and scribes, or ‘quill holders’ (kalimutigiw, plumitigiw),19 and challenges Western school education as a criterion for legitimate political power. Farmers’ judgements about the legitimacy of the biro holders’ power position varied greatly, sometimes in correlation with their own family background. But all of them expressed a keen sense that colonial education, and the new possibilities for social advancement it offered, prompted new political elites to work only in their own interest and that of their immediate followers. The following remark by Nouhoun, the oldest son of my host in Surakoroba, captures the widespread perception that politiki brought

In 1998, the autonomy of this part of the colonial territory was expanded when it became a member of the Communauté Française. 16 The dissolution of the colonial cantons increased the power of the central administration and undermined the most important stronghold of the PSP in rural areas. 17 Senegal and Mali sought independence in the Fédération du Mali, created in January 1959 under the leadership of Modibo Keita, then head of the US-RDA, and Leopold Senghor. The Fédération du Mali was granted independence by France on 20 June 1960. For analyses of the failure of the Malian Federation, see Foltz (1965) and Kurtz (1970). 18 Farmers referred to intellectuals, be they teachers or administrators, as bikitigi, either in an appreciative way or to ridicule them. The term certainly served members of former ruling families to make fun of intellectuals who were of slave or of nyamakala descent. 19 From kalimu (Bamana), feather, plume (French), feather, and tigi (Bamanakau), carrier, holder, owner. 15

Demokrasi as the ‘rule of envy’   47

advantages only to the biro holders, that is, to a younger generation of Western-school-trained men.20 Initially, people liked Modibo because he returned to Africans the power to rule … This really pleased the sons of the ancient warriors. … Then, however, … they realized that their own sons became biro holders, and that they forgot their fathers back in the village. They started to act politiki. With politiki, all the trouble began.

Nouhoun likens the behaviour of biro holders with the contemptible conduct of ‘sons’ who engage in the ‘two-tongued’ political language of deceit and feel no longer bound by kinship obligations, particularly to their fathers. The kinship idiom that informs his complaint about ‘forgetful sons’ is noteworthy because it shows, in an extension of Schatzberg’s (2001) argument, that metaphors of filial obligation not only address the responsibilities of fathers or ‘state fatherhood’, but may also serve to invert the portrayal of filial obligation. Nouhoun portrays farmers as destitute fathers incapable of controlling and obliging their ‘sons’, the politicians. A similar sense of inability to hold those in power accountable came out in farmers’ recollections of the implementation of party structures at the village level and in Kita, the area’s administrative centre.21 Citing the example of the village party committee, farmers unanimously stressed that party structures introduced a whole new dynamic into local politics, even if they remained relatively ineffective as a means of political mobilization (Hopkins 1969: 462–3).22 The sheer prospect of receiving political Since the early years of US-RDA rule, a major share of public resources was invested in prestige buildings and in the infrastructure and salaries of the state bureaucracy (Amin 1965: 111, 125, 128). Through the return generated from state commercialization of cash crops, farmers contributed heavily to the financing of post–independent administration (Kébé 1981; Dembele 1981; Amselle 1985a: 250–4). 21 The village council as the party structure at the village level was formally created in 1959 and was designed to resolve conflicts arising in the village. After 1965, the village council was entrusted to collect the head tax. The comité, the village party committee, on the other hand, was supposed to ensure the presence of the US-RDA at the village level, with an executive board and separate committees for women and young people. After the ‘cultural revolution’ in 1967, the party committee and the village council were fused into a single body. It is likely that in the north, the implementation of village party organizations and the ‘revival’ of supposedly ‘traditional’ forms of labour organization were even less successful, in particular among the nomadic populations. 22 Several farmers recalled that soon after the creation of the village party committee, they lost interest because the meetings were a ‘waste of time’. Some farmers asserted that they had assigned the position of the committee president to ‘somebody who was lazy and of no use for his family anyway’, or ‘somebody who prefers to run around 20

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backing from party officials fostered a volatile and instable political situation, driven by confrontations between competing influential families (or family branches), and also between them and members of inferior social status groups. Disagreements within the village committee often opposed family elders to younger men who owed their positions of influence to their privileged ties with members of the politico-administrative elite in Kita. Even if the implementation of party directives were often slowed down by conflicts between among party officials, members of the administration, state service agents, and even party activists (Diarrah 1986: 154),23 party structures gave men of inferior social birth a new handle on political power. Offices such as that of general secretary or treasurer gave younger, wellconnected men unprecedented opportunities to manipulate the outcome of local disputes and thus to challenge established age and rank hierarchies. This brings me to another preoccupation of my older interlocutors: the party youth patrols or brigades de vigilance. This party structure was composed of unmarried men, many of them from less powerful families of commoners, nyamakalaw, and former captives.24 The brigades thus epitomized the unsettling of conventional hierarchies of age, authority, and respect between senior and junior men. Charged with ensuring ‘order’ and ‘security’, the brigades were strongly resented by members of the political and religious establishment, as well as by merchants (and their clients) whose clandestine trading activities they contravened.25 As older farmers recalled in 1994, and to talk a lot’. Their reminiscences confirm Hopkins’s observation that in the early years of US-RDA, state presence in the form of party structures remained limited in the area around Kita (Hopkins 1969: 463–7). 23 One reason for frequent clashes between representatives of the party and the administration was that the Marxist–Leninist-inspired socialist agenda of the US-RDA attributed supremacy to the party in legislation and governing (Snyder 1967: 97). A considerable difference existed between the ‘militant’ attitudes of the older generation of party members and the often self-centred attitudes of administrative personnel. In addition, the competition between the right and left wing of the Bureau Politique National (the central institution of the party) was played out in the interaction with the administration, which often represented the interests of the party’s right wing (Diarrah 1986: 154). 24 Adolescents were also organized in the ton, a revived youth group for mutual aid and support. In these groups, young men and women worked in turn on each member’s individual plot. See Haidara (1992) for a detailed analysis of these reinvented, pseudotraditional forms of labour organization and the reasons for their failures. 25 Merchants who resided in villages in the area around Kita were often of Soninke ethnic origin. In spite of their outsider status, they were often tògòtigiw (singular, tògòtigi) personalities with a strong influence in the village community. Their clients often opposed the brigades.

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the meddling of these ‘irreverent youngsters’ with village affairs, and the influence they held because of ties to party officials in Bamako, worsened after the révolution active in 1967. This was when the brigades de vigilance were complemented by the milice populaire, a paramilitary organization with virtually unlimited powers to arrest and sanction people in the streets of Bamako and in rural towns; it also had repercussions on rural livelihoods. Not only did politiki, as farmers recalled it, become more vicious ‘under Modibo’ – his rule also lacked legitimacy for its failure to maintain social order and existing hierarchies, giving youngsters a free hand to treat their ‘fathers’ as they saw fit, and thereby fuelling ongoing local conflicts.26 These comments illustrate, first, that although predictability and the capacity to establish order and security constitute important criteria, there is a certain contingency to the ways in which farmers in Mali’s south-west refer to these and other criteria to assess the legitimacy of a political order and its representatives. Rather than considering this flexibility and malleability of criteria a unique or culturally specific feature of local normative conceptions, it should be seen as a characteristic feature (and the result) of political situations in which a particular political system was imposed recently and from the outside. In such situations, subordinate groups and those in power refuse to comply with the rules associated with key institutions and procedures of the political system. Beetham would characterize this situation as a ‘legitimacy gap’, yet it would be more adequately viewed as an incongruence of rules. Such a situation gives more room to the flexible, and at times inconsistent application of criteria of assessment. Farmers’ recollections suggest, second, that the process of attributing legitimacy is a genuinely social process that involves more than an evaluating actor and his object of evaluation. The attribution of legitimacy occurs not on the basis of individualized opinions and perceptions, as most authors (including Beetham) seem to imply. Drawing on each other’s (in this case, male peers’) opinions, and also reflecting on each other’s disappointments, The emphasis placed by my interlocutors on maintaining social hierarchies and order raises the question as to whether, in their recollections of earlier judgements and perceptions, they articulated the views of only superior status groups and elders. On the basis of the literature covering this time period in the Kita area (e.g. Hopkins 1972), I expected to find testimonies of informants who, in the 1960s, had been social juniors and/or of lower social birth and who offered more enthusiastic appraisals of US-RDA rule. Alas, I did not find substantial material on systematic differences between recollections of lower-status actors and those of politically dominant families. I am therefore not in a position to make an empirically grounded argument about dissenting, ‘subaltern’ assessments of US-RDA party politics. 26

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was a precondition for, and also part of, the process by which farmers judged the legitimacy of the political system established after independence. We therefore need to conceptualize the genesis and attribution of legitimacy as a genuinely social process. Those who confer (or withhold) legitimacy are immersed in a web of social relations, the dynamics of which can – and should – be assessed systematically, by identifying certain axes of social difference and confrontation, such as, in the example presented so far, divisions created through differences in age and rank. Social ‘dynamic’ also refers here to the contingent validity of rules according to which legitimacy is assessed. There is no static or necessarily coherent framework of rules according to which people assess a political order or individuals; nor do they, pace Schatzberg (1993), always or necessarily refer to shared cultural values. As a result, a certain degree of indeterminacy and ambivalence always adheres to people’s evaluations of legitimacy. For all these reasons, it would be impossible to pin down social actors’ assessments of political legitimacy to an all-or-nothing judgement according to which they either attribute legitimacy or disclaim and withhold it. Rather, it is more adequate to think of actors’ evaluations as conferring gradients of legitimacy. I now turn to a second aspect that plays a central role in farmers’ assessments of the political order. By reminiscing about how the state intervened in village social and economic life and thereby transformed social relations and conditions of livelihoods, older farmers in particular assessed the state according to its performance. I mentioned earlier that in the mid-1990s, a time period that adult farmers of the Kita region experienced as a situation of political turmoil, they often expressed a strong expectation that those in power in Bamako should ensure the well-being of its subjects by maintaining stability and political order, and by providing for its dependents. Farmers, although well aware that politiki encompassed an entirely a new political system, still assessed its structural elements and procedures, as well as its representatives, in terms of their capacity to offer protection and material support. If we take these expectations to constitute ‘rules’ in the sense of Beetham’s first dimension of legitimacy, for farmers to assess whether the new political order conformed with commonly agreed ‘rules’ meant evaluating its performance with regard to the order stability and material well-being it granted its subordinates. Farmers judged the legitimacy of the new state in terms of whether its restructuring of local livelihoods had been beneficial to them or not.

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MacLean (2010) distinguishes between three domains of state regulation of rural populations. First, the realm of political administration that includes the implementation of an administrative structure but also of particular family forms, for instance through taxation (2010: ch. 4); second, the provision of social services, such as health and educational infrastructure and social security provision; and finally, the shaping of rural political economies through state agricultural policy. The following analysis of how farmers in Mali’s south-west judged the legitimacy of the postcolonial state in the first years of its existence focuses on the third aspect of state intervention, that is, the transformation of local political economies. Under Modibo Keita, the party’s radical left wing, which favoured an ‘African socialist path to development’, gained power. To achieve the country’s economic development and political independence from France,27 the party opted for the implementation of state-controlled production, commercialization schemes, and state enterprises.28 Older farmers to whom I talked in 1994 had strong memories of the party’s attempts to reorganize agricultural production through centralized planning and control of village production and consumption structures. They particularly resented the mandatory cash-crop production on collective fields29 and other measures aiming to replace the household as the unit of production with the village cooperative. Family elders cared little for the ‘traditional spirit of equality’ celebrated by party ideologues, and prevented the party from realizing this allegedly African tradition because, in their eyes, it undermined established structures of family authority. In the area of Kita as elsewhere in Mali’s south-west, patriarchal family authority was based on the age- and gender-specific regulation of access

Amin, a member of the advisory board responsible for the elaboration of the five-year plan, offers a fascinating account of the different stages of the process of economy planning. He critically assesses how decisions about how to spend public funds clearly privileged an urban class of bureaucrats and students. In his interpretation, the low degree of agricultural development and the failure of rural extension workers rapidly to increase productivity were among the most important reasons for the failure of socialist economic policy (Amin 1965: 77–129). 28 For this reason, Amselle (1985a: 250) likens the new bureaucratic/political elite to the ‘nomenklatura’ of countries of the ex-Soviet Union. 29 The names by which the collective fields are remembered today – ‘forced labour fields’ (singular, forse baara fòrò) or ‘collective field’ (bee jè fòrò), the term for fields worked by former slaves of the villages de liberté under colonial rule (also see Amselle 1978: 632) – illustrates that the fields were equated with unfree labour and colonial surplus extraction. 27

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to land and control over labour, its products, and domestic reproduction. All men within the household, whether married or unmarried, contributed to family wealth through their labour on family fields. Aside from the generation of family wealth, individual members of the family, married men, women, and unmarried sons also profited from their access to land to cultivate individual plots, the product of which was, at least nominally, their personal one.30 Individual and family income could be complemented by non-agricultural activities such as market gardening and, depending on one’s social origins, artisanal and service activities. Women contributed to family wealth, too, yet their contribution to agricultural labour was considered to be of limited import. The product of collective labour, symbolized by and stored in the granary and cattle, was redistributed by the family head, in the form of food, bride wealth, and cash. Also important to family income were remittances from migrant-labourer sons – and increasingly so over the 1960s and 1970s. Elderly family members exerted control over juniors through redistribution, such as the allocation of bride wealth. Inherent in the organization of domestic reproduction was a tension between individual rights and collective responsibilities, a tension that coalesced into the conflicting interests of household members of different age, genders, and statuses (Koenig 2005b: 33). Attempts by the party to collectivize agricultural production were seen by family elders as a challenge to their powers of allocation and redistribution, and hence to their control over juniors’ labour, bride wealth, and family reproduction. For juniors, too, the obligation to spend lengthier periods of time on the collective fields deprived them of opportunities to cultivate individual plots for the generation of personal income. No wonder, then, that farmers of different ages slowed down their implementation of US-RDA agricultural policy as much as they could. Daily encounters with the state, in the person of rural extension agents, were shaped by farmers’ attempts of evasion and non-compliance (see Hopkins 1969: 464).31 Until In practice, the division between individual income (to be spent on personal needs) and collective wealth (to be spent on family consumption) was, and is difficult to maintain, especially for women in less well-to-do families (see Koenig 2005a, b: 31–3). 31 Some farmers remembered incidences of conflicts among farmers and the government officials. The former usually preferred to divide the income among them, but the government officials opposed it as an ‘antisocialist’ attitude working against the principle of the cooperative. They suggested instead the construction of buildings of interest to the community such as nurseries or schools. Since they were backed by the administration, the government representatives usually won the argument.The buildings were often constructed, but rarely finished or used. 30

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their abolishment in 1968, after Modibo Keita’s fall from power, collective fields had low yields.32 Partly because of the failed attempts at state-regulated production, Mali’s initial balance of payment problems led to a growing economic deficit after 1962. Still, the state effectively transformed production structures through credit and commercialization schemes. These transformations were viewed locally in very ambivalent terms, at least in retrospect. In 1994, older farmers often approvingly mentioned the ‘support’ they had received from the state in ‘Modibo’s times’, thereby alluding to development operations (ODR)33 that disseminated technical knowledge centred on one major crop, usually a cash-crop, either cotton or peanuts, and allocated technical equipment and input, such as fertilizers and pesticides in this relatively accessible area of Mali’s south-west.34 Farmers also occasionally, and approvingly, mentioned the provision of health care and functional literacy services (Koenig et al. 1998: 79–82), while complaining bitterly about rural extension agents and other state employees and their ‘useless’ interference in their daily production activities. Partly because of farmers’ attempts to avoid state-orchestrated control of their production, and also because of their weak purchasing power, rural extension programmes had a limited effect on maximizing cash-crop productivity (Hopkins 1969: 466).35 Still, the region around Kita, along with other relatively accessible areas of the south, was privileged vis-à-vis other rural areas of the country. The region was among the first affected by development schemes implemented under Keita, schemes that reinforced socio-economic stratification processes dating back to colonial administration.

Hopkins, who lived in Kita in the early 1960s, mentions that to farmers, the collective income was not a strong incentive, and the choice of buyable goods was limited due to import restrictions (1969: 465–6). 33 Opérations de Développement Rural. 34 ODR control of credits and input affected first and foremost farmers interested in new farming technologies, whereas ODR control of marketing of cash-crop products was relevant to a broader segment of the farming population. 35 Diarrah identifies the miscommunication between farmers and state extension service agents as one of the most important reasons why agricultural productivity did not increase to an extent that met the expectations of the first five-years plan. The extension agents attributed primary importance to political and organizational solutions instead of giving farmers technical advice (Diarrah 1986: 109). 32

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Farmers’ reminiscences about state-controlled commercialization schemes ‘under Modibo’ were similarly equivocal.36 They begrudged the statedirected marketing structures, such as the OPAM,37 holding a monopoly over the marketing of cereals and other products, fixing consumer and producer prices and thus preventing farmers from capitalizing on their clientelist relations with merchants to try and sell their products at a higher profit.38 But farmers also ridiculed the government’s attempt to restrict the influence of trader middlemen and the role of foreign companies by implementing state-run cooperatives. After all, farmers frequently noted, tongue-in-cheek, that the failure of these cooperatives was partly their own doing, and partly the doing of hypocritical members of the administration who sought personal advantage by helping merchants to circumvent state commercialization structures (see Koenig et al. 1998: 82).39 This suggests that if farmers today begrudge the state-orchestrated marketing schemes ‘under Modibo’, they express their preference for entering into clientelist relations with merchants rather than with employees of the state administration whose dealings were not profitable for most farmers.40 Cooperatives (Groupements Ruraux de Production and de Secours Mutuel) were created in each village, organized locally into associations of village cooperatives, tied together on the level of arrondissements, cercles, and regions, and run by a state office. The cooperatives would buy the surplus product from farmers at a fixed price. The surplus would then be commercialized by the state enterprises (ODRs), which otherwise sold farmers ‘products of primary necessity’ (Jouve 1977: 44). The cooperatives were run by elected farmers, and they were allowed to retain an income from the sale of the product. They came into play only in 1965, when the government switched its emphasis to individual villages in its attempt to organize the sale of cash crops and the purchase of staple goods (Hopkins 1969: 464). 37 Office de Produits Agricoles du Mali. 38 Farmers considered the OPAM an alternative to private traders only when the prices it offered exceeded those of the latter. Yet according to Koenig et al. (who quote Steedman et al. 1976), farmers would sometimes sell their produce to private businessmen even if they offered lower prices because they visited villages to purchase cereals at a time when farmers needed cash. The fact that traders sold small quantities and different qualities of grain at different prices increased their popularity among consumers (Koenig et al. 1998: 83). 39 Koenig et al. ascribe the OPAM’s relative ineffectiveness to its incapacity to offer farmers the incentives (credit, input, large-scale buyers) through which the ODRs exerted control; quoting Dione and Staatz (1987: 2), they assert that only between 20 and 40 per cent of locally produced grain was marketed through OPAM (1998: 82). 40 The clientelist networks between merchants and farmers, and the influence they gave to the former throughout Mali, were important in destabilizing Modibo Keita’s regime after 1965. Many farmers around Kita switched to the black market after the 36

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Although the state ‘under Modibo’ clearly did not deliver in ways and to the degree that farmers had been hoping for, older farmers whose conversations I followed in the mid-1990s nevertheless portrayed the situation as a golden age in which they did not carry the burden of commercialization because the sale of their grain was guaranteed.41 As one of my neighbours in Nakofinan reminisced, ‘life was lighter under Modibo: peanuts were bought by the state, and even if the prices were low, we could be sure that our peanuts were going to be sold’. This rosy portrayal of state-controlled marketing cannot be taken as proof of farmers’ acceptance of the political order under President Keita as legitimate. Rather, the statement, made in 1994, at a time when the effects of political measures in support of privatized marketing were being felt,42 reflects farmers’ misgivings about economic liberalization measures implemented since the late 1980s. The insecurities that these reforms generated in 1994 prompted older farmers to look back with mixed feelings to a time where tighter state regulation restricted their room for manoeuvre, yet ‘provided’ for farmers by offering them a more secure income. Because farmers judged the legitimacy of the state under Modibo by its effects on their livelihoods, they recognized it to a certain degree because of its capacity to provide, and in spite of their withholding consent to party politics as a valid set of institutions and procedures granting political legitimacy. The system that enabled it, one that rested on party competition and representational institutions and procedures, was not considered legitimate according to conventional and commonly agreed criteria. Rather, farmers viewed it as imposed from the outside and as inimical to their traditions. What we have here, then, is a situation in which legality and the rule of law are largely absent and farmers neither expect politicians to act according to its rules nor consider these rules to be relevant to their own lives. I would argue that for a political system to achieve legitimacy under stipulation of the loi sur le commerce in 1965, which rendered petty trade illegal and even prohibited farmers from selling their product on the open market. They sold their peanuts to local merchants to whom they had been affiliated since the late colonial period (Hopkins 1969: 458). 41 Some tensions in the accounts of the beneficial aspects of ‘politics under Modibo’ are due to the shifting position and economic success of individual members of a cooperative. 42 According to Koenig et al. (1998: 83), the departure of the ODRs in the mid-1980s means that many farmers, in particular in more remote areas of Mali, have only extremely limited access to inputs. The private distribution networks that have developed in some areas charge high prices and are often incapable of timely delivery.

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such circumstances, it counts even more that it ‘provides’ for the subordinate in material terms. This is not just an empirical but a conceptual point: ‘providing’ forms a basic rule and criteria of assessment, the central significance of which stands out, independently of specific local ‘normative conceptions’ of legitimate rule. The capacity to provide is a basic criterion for judging the performance or ‘output legitimacy’ (see Scharpf 1970, 1997) of a political order or government.

‘The return of fanga’: Moussa Traoré’s military regime, 1968–79 Starting in 1965, reforms of the party structure in the form of a centralized national party committee, the Bureau Politique National43 effectively rendered decision-making processes more hierarchical and inflexible, which impeded the search for remedies to the deepening political and economic crisis.44 In 1967, the party leadership proclaimed an ‘active revolution’ and replaced the Bureau Politique National with the Comité National de la Défense de la Révolution (CNDR), a measure that did not, however, halt political destabilization.45 In November 1968, President Keita was overthrown by a group of army officers. During debates on politics in the mid-1990s, older farmers nostalgically recalled Moussa Traoré’s military rule of the CMLN (Comité Militaire de Libération Nationale, until 1979) as a time when ‘(party) politics left the village’ and social order and political stability was restored. The Bureau Politique National suppressed any open discussion of problems. From 1962 the party leaders had been unable to transform the party from a mobilizing mass party to the ruling party of an independent country. In addition, any serious analysis of the political, social, and economic situation, especially in the countryside, was absent. The Comité National de la Défense de la Révolution (CNDR), which replaced the Bureau Politique National in 1966, was unable to fight the economic problems because, similar to its predecessor, it searched for political instead of technical solutions and thus reproduced the political problems instead of resolving them (Diarrah 1991: 66; see Sanankoua 1990: 163; see, also, Schatzberg 1972; Golan 1974; Plave-Bennett 1975). 44 A deficit payment balance since 1965 was exacerbated by continued inflation (Diarrah 1986: 95).The deficit resulted from an insufficient growth in agricultural production and exorbitant public expenses. The failed economic policy was in part a result of a wrong estimation of the productivity of rural areas, and of the limited potential to change the social and political structures in the countryside to increase productivity (Diarrah 1991: 65–9, 99; Revue Française 1969: 42–6). 45 The conflict between the left and the right wings of the party disrupted its executive organ, the Bureau Politique National.This conflict, which had never been openly addressed, gained new salience after 1965 with the exacerbation of the economic and social situation. 43

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Farmers talked about Traoré’s gradual elimination of earlier comrades-in-arms with a mix of fear and awe, and likened it to the ruthlessness and also beneficial effects of pre-colonial fanga.46 Farmers’ stress on the capacity of fanga to secure order and well-being should be read as an expression of their sense of insecurity and uncertainty, and of their disappointment about the frequent confrontations between youth and police forces that shaped political life in the capital Bamako and some regional towns. Against this backdrop of political unrest and what farmers considered the insubordination of younger men against their parents, Moussa’s repressive regime appeared as a more desirable option. To them, the suppression by the military regime of village and national party politics made up for the negative aspects of Moussa’s rule which, my conversation partners argued, was neither better nor worse than the previous one when it came to its treatment of rural populations. Clearly absent from this argument were considerations of legality and of whether Moussa Traoré’s government had guaranteed, and abided by, the rule of law. Structurally, the CMLN regime did not substantially break with the previous government’s policy vis-à-vis its rural populations. In keeping with a socialist orientation, it maintained a nationalized industry.47 State funds and administrative posts still served as prime sources of private appropriation (Plave-Bennett 1975: 256–57, Wolpin 1975: 596; Amselle 1985a: 252–9). Farmers in the Kita region, however, associated the CMLN regime with two significant changes. First, it ‘made politiki quit the village’ by dissolving US-RDA party structures. Second, cooperatives and state-controlled structures of commercialization were disbanded and some of the trading restrictions lifted (Konaté 1990: 38), with the result that farmers ‘could sell their crops without meddling (by the milice populaire)’.

The CMLN, presided over by Moussa Traoré as president and Yoro Diakité as head of government, was in power until 1979, although a new constitution had been approved in 1974. It was replaced by a civil structure, the party UDPM (Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien, created in 1974) under the presidency of Moussa Traoré who, in February 1978, had eliminated his main two adversaries, Tiokoro Bagayoko, the director of the secret police (Services de Sécurité), and Kissima Doukouré, the minister of defence, internal affairs, and security (Diarrah 1991: 69). 47 Apparent continuities in state regulation of rural economies notwithstanding, starting in the 1970s, significant reconfigurations of modes of state governance occurred throughout sub-Saharan Africa. As Mann (2015, ch.5, 6) argues, in Mali, international relief effort related to the 1973 famine marked the onset of a long-term transformation of what national ‘government was and could be’ (2015: 169). In this process, international humanitarian and development aid, very often in the form of transnational NGO interventionism, gradually overruled and replaced what constituted the key managerial functions, ‘development’ goals, and social services of the central state. 46

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Farmers thus assessed the CMLN military regime primarily in terms of its refraining from ‘meddling’ with rural economies, and hence the new regime’s lack of involvement with local affairs and production schemes.48 Still, during the years of CMLN rule and, after 1979, of President Traoré’s single-party rule, rural economies were further restructured by state regulation and administration. The liberalization of commerce under the CMLN aimed to facilitate the repatriation of traders’ capital and its investment in local enterprises.49 Also significant was the expansion of rural development organizations financed by international aid capital, such as the ODRs and the Opération Riz. These structures allowed the bureaucratic and political elites to generate income, to tie wealthy merchants into these development schemes, and to facilitate farmers’ access to agricultural equipment and innovative know-how. One result of these reforms was a process of socio-economic differentiation within farming communities that made its effects felt in the late 1980s by accentuating inequalities within the extended family – inequalities that were based on differential access (mostly of men versus women) to land, labour, and agricultural equipment (Koenig 2005a, b; see Wooten 2009). Nationally, as a side effect of rural development policy, the politico-administrative elite established under Keita’s presidency expanded to include successful entrepreneurs, so that by the early 1980s, the political elite comprised a politico-administrative and a commercial pole.50 While bureaucrats capitalized on their key positions by accumulating wealth in trade and production, merchants made profit from personal ties to, and favours from, state and party officials.51 Farmers’ appreciation of a government that kept out of local affairs stands in tension with their earlier-mentioned approving remarks about Modibo’s presidency as a time when the sale of grain was guaranteed, a remark that points to a strong, interventionist role of the state. 49 Until 1982, these measures worked mainly in favour of foreign capital investment because many merchants redirected their trade toward international markets. 50 The traders did not constitute a homogeneous group. Among them was a segment of younger merchants who benefited from their international trade connections, in particular to the Arabic-speaking world.Their cosmopolitan outlook distinguished them from a group of ‘traditional’ traders, who were closely affiliated with established families of Muslim scholars and religious specialists (Brenner 2001: 131–68). 51 See Amselle (1985a: 256, 1987: 44–6), Amselle and Grégoire (1987), Konaté (1990: 40). This practice continued under the governments of Presidents Konaré and Touré. For instance, many of the irrigated perimeters of the Operation Riz in Segu were given to bureaucrats and merchants to produce rice (interviews with Nohoun Dagno, Segu, October 1994,Yero Haidara, Bamako, January 1995; Al Bekayye Kunta, Bamako/Niono, September 1999). 48

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In the 1970s, Moussa Traoré’s military regime gradually abandoned the former socialist agenda and sought the financial support of Western donor organizations. A significant share of this aid money was redirected into the private bank accounts of development agents and government officials,52 a practice that was ridiculed by intellectuals using derogatory nicknames.53 The structural adjustment measures imposed by the IMF and World Bank after 1982 had drastic effects on lower-income urban groups.54 The restructuring of the national economy, particularly the liberalization of the grain and peanut markets (in 1981 and 1982 respectively), expanded the hold of private traders over the surplus generated in agricultural production and boosted their influence in national politics.55 After an initial period of euphoria about the liberalization of commerce, farmers in the Kita region soon felt their strong dependency on merchant middlemen, in a situation where sales and sale prices were no longer guaranteed, good harvests resulted in minimal sales results, and cash-crop prices plummeted unexpectedly in response to global market fluctuations. Because these traders personified the intermingling of political and economic power ‘under Moussa’, and also because they personified how the state administration regulated and transformed their local livelihoods and chances for subsistence, the merchants became the target of farmers’ assessment of the legitimacy of Moussa Traoré’s rule. In the mid-1990s, farmers referred to the merchants as ‘these (new) faamaw’ and, through various anecdotes, expressed their disappointment The income extracted from the ‘foreign expert infrastructure’ largely exceeded a bureaucrat’s formal salary (Amselle 1985a: 257). 53 Criticism of the embezzlement of public funds remained limited to urban intellectuals who expressed their disapproval using derogatory nicknames such as ‘drought palaces’ (palais de la sècheresse) for the luxurious villas built with international aid money during the drought of the 1970s. Another popular joke characterized membership of the political elite as the ‘four Vs’: ‘Villa, voiture, verger et virement à la banque’, that is, a villa, a car, an orchard, and bank credit. 54 The shrinking of the bureaucratic apparatus, the reduction of salaries, and the devaluation of the FCFA by 50 per cent exacerbated tensions within the politico-administrative elite over control of diminishing state resources.These tensions materialized, for instance, in the student revolt of 1979–80, which expressed the corporatist interests of those who feared losing its privileged access to state resources. The same clientelist logic informed the student protest movement that ultimately led to the overthrow of Moussa Traoré’s regime (Fay 1995). 55 These measures consisted mainly in the restriction of the role played by the state enterprises OPAM and OACV in the commercialization of peanuts and other crops (Amselle 1985a: 261). 52

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about their ‘irresponsibility’. The choice of name (from fanga man, literally ‘someone invested with power’) for the merchants is significant.Taken from nineteenth-century politics where it indicated that a person’s power position was grounded in wealth acquired through looting, warfare, and political alliances (Saul 1998), the term connotes a hierarchical relationship between the speaker and a protective and generous patron. A faama, more often a man than a woman,56 spends his wealth on conspicuous consumption and on the creation of a social entourage through redistribution, rather than on productive reinvestment in a capitalist sense (Diarrah 1991; Amselle 1985a: 258). Farmers’ description of beneficiaries of the military regime as faamaw reveals that they view wealth and military strength as important elements of political rule, and also that farmers view politics, much as they see everyday life, as a world divided into the haves and have-nots, into those who ‘give a gift’ (son) and those who ‘ask for’ (deli) and ‘receive’ (sòrò) it. By referring to a patron as faama, they position themselves as ‘someone without power’ (fantan, from fanga tan), a term that expresses a sense of destitution but also a moral expectancy that the rich and powerful will come to their (material and political) support. Rather than criticizing a patron for acquiring his wealth by questionable means, as Schatzberg suggests (2001: 26), faama expresses a speaker’s awe of a person’s material means, which allow him to attract followers through redistribution and his conspicuous display of this capacity. To put it in Beetham’s terms, a faama’s power is considered legitimate as long as he makes clients benefit from his position by distributing some of his wealth. At the same time, farmers’ use of the term faama for beneficiaries of Moussa Traoré’s regime indicates their own sense that his regime does not work in their interests. The term now signals a patron’s ‘refusal to give’, that is, to fail to use his power and wealth in ways beneficial to his dependents. Farmers thus differentiate between ‘beneficial’ and ‘ego-centred’ power according to its use of funds, not to its form of appropriation.57 The misappropriation of money per se is not considered an immoral ‘eating’ of money, only attempts to withhold money from redistributive networks and to consume it for one’s

Moussa Traoré’s wife Mariam was widely considered the most infamous exception to this pattern. 57 This distinction, so central to farmers’ assessments of legitimate power, is not fully rendered in the notion of ‘belly politics’ (Bayart 1989), which conflates the mode of appropriation of wealth with its actual use and assumes that the same rationale for exercising power reigns in local and national arenas. 56

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individual gain (see Fay 1995: 23).58 A faama who deprives dependents of his support fails to respect the rule of ‘responsibility’, which puts him in a situation of legitimacy deficit, that is, in a situation in which rule conformity, as the first dimension of legitimacy, is no longer a given. Farmers’ criticism of bureaucrats, politicians, and faamaw for their ‘irresponsibility’, that is, their refusal to redistribute part of the riches they have appropriated, makes us reassess Achille Mbembe’s portrayal of the African postcolony as a system caught in a ‘convivial tension’ between rulers and subjects (Mbembe 1992a, b). Blurring the differences between heterogeneous urban and rural populations, Mbembe portrays the subjects of African state power as a homogeneous category of subalterns who share the elites’ proclivity for extravagant consumption and contribute to their leaders’ ‘banal’ spectacle of power through a vulgar aesthetic of occasionally subversive popular humour. Farmers’ ambivalent and changing judgements about political legitimacy render questionable Mbembe’s argument that rulers and ruled live in a relationship of joyous complicity that allows for mutual accommodation but precludes critical distance. The farmers whose discussions I overheard in the mid-1990s clearly share with those in power the view that the legitimacy of faamaw depends on their willingness to redistribute. Still, they complained that this patrimonial logic was less and less respected. Irrespective of my hosts’ expectations of individual faamaw, and of their occasional benefiting from these connections, they commented dismissively on faamaw who refused to share their wealth and who thus negated the logic of beneficial power. Their remarks contradict scholarly depictions of ‘the subordinate’ as caught up in a timeless and static ‘convivial’ acceptance of the privileged position of political elites. Clearly, my hosts and other conversation partners have readjusted the rules and criteria by which they hold the powerful accountable, thereby learning from past experiences and disappointments.

‘The time when politiki returned’: UDPM single-party rule, 1979–91 In discussions about politics in 1994 and 1995, farmers rarely mentioned the transition to a civil government under UDPM single-party rule in 1979. While the transition involved a new constitution that stipulated almost Farmers’ critique of politicians’ ‘selfish’ refusal to share the spoils is also illustrated by the nickname karapili, scoundrel or swindler (from French, crapuleux, sordid). 58

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unlimited presidential powers59 and affirmed the party’s priority over the administration (Diarrah 1991: 68–72), all that mattered to farmers in the Kita region was the reintroduction of party structures in the villages and their possibly disruptive effects. Family elders, in particular, feared the establishment of party committees and of youth and women’s party organizations. But even younger men, among them many farmers to whom I talked in 1994, did not expect party politics to make a difference with regard to their own incapability to benefit from these structures: Under Moussa, farmers were left alone, they could sell their crops to whomever they wanted. Farmers were happy about that. But they started to have doubts about the rule of Moussa when they were told that from now on, it was UDPM time and everyone should buy (party membership) cards. … they said ‘hey! Now it starts all over again … Modibo exhausted us with the brigades and the power this gave youngsters over their fathers, with his collective fields, and with this and that. And now he [Moussa] comes along and starts with it all over again.’ … The first time, under Modibo, farmers did not benefit from politiki and the second time, too, they did not benefit from it.

The comment questions the legitimacy of the single-party rule introduced under Moussa Traoré in 1979 on three grounds. First it depicts party structures as a mechanism that lends institutional backing to long-standing animosities between families and to intergenerational conflict,60 rather than suppressing local discord. The expectation of a strong political order able to enforce stability and security is not met. Second, the comment targets the political process nationally, making the criticism that the ‘return of party politics’ perpetuates the exclusion of farmers from the redistributive networks operated by politicians. Under President Traoré’s single-party rule, those in power fail to ‘provide’ for their rural subjects. Third, in the eyes of my conversation partner, party politics did not improve the effects of state intervention into rural livelihoods. Here again, farmers assess the legitimacy of a political system by considering the immediate advantages it brings them for their daily living conditions. Whereas ‘under Modibo’, farmers resented the strong interference of state agencies and party structures with local livelihoods, in the form of rural extension and other development schemes, they experienced ‘the times of Moussa’ as a situation in which they were ‘left Members of the national assembly and the deputies were nominated by the president. For example, in the Birigo, near Kita, the Sidibe and Diallo contested whoever was suggested by the other family as president of the party organization of the UDPM. 59

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alone’ – with all advantages and disadvantages this situation entailed for them. This perception does not consider that, compared to more remote rural populations of the region, farmers in the countryside around Kita belong to a relatively privileged category of farmers. They were among those who benefited from the expansion of patronage ties that, over the years of Moussa Traoré’s rule, began to form a network of dependents on a national scale (Amselle 1992: 638; Fay 1995: 22). Farmers’ recollections in 1994 of their experiences with the postcolonial state show that they evoke fanga as an alleged pre-colonial, absolute, and beneficial power to question the legitimacy of the political order introduced after independence and also of its key representatives. For this, farmers do not draw on a coherent and firmly set of normative expectations or ‘moral matrix’ (Schatzberg 2001). Rather farmers’ assessments of the different aspects and periods of Modibo Keita’s and Moussa Traoré’s presidencies reveal that the criteria they applied changed over time, along with their ongoing experiences with representatives, policies, and institutions of the state. In other words, the ‘long-term continuities in political language’ on which farmers’ judgements of politiki are based conceal actual rifts in the reproduction of the moral and socio-political order (Feierman 1990: iii).The continuity in expressive forms, but also the inherent malleability of farmers’ conceptual and symbolic repertoire, were also characteristic features of farmers’ engagements with demokrasi after President Traoré’s fall from power.

Demokrasi as the ‘rule of envy’: multiparty democracy after 1991 In March 1991, a military coup under Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré put an end to UDPM rule and established a transitional military regime (the Comité de Transition pour le Salut du Peuple, or CTSP), which brought into effect a democratic constitution and organized free municipal, legislative, and presidential elections in 1992. The coup followed months of bloody confrontations between security forces on one side, and mostly young people mobilized by a ‘Movement for Democracy’, created in 1989, that represented segments of the educated urban middle class whose direct access to state resources had been blocked after the imposition of structural adjustment measures by the international monetary institutions (Fay 1995: 23–4).61 The The movement was spearheaded by two associations, CNID and ADEMA, under the leadership of Mountaga Tall and Alpha Oumar Konaré. In 1992, they were transformed 61

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democracy movement also drew on the student organization Association des Étudiants et Elèves du Mali (AEEM), which represented a younger generation of unemployed graduates (jeunes diplômés sans emploi) and an urban youth with limited formal education and few prospects for job security (Fay 1995: 26). A leading representative of the oppositional movement, Alpha Oumar Konaré, won the first democratic elections in 1992, together with his party Alliance pour la Démocratie au Mali (ADEMA); he was confirmed in office in the subsequent 1997 elections. As I mentioned earlier, in the mid-1990s, adults in my host families in Kita’s rural hinterlands viewed multiparty democracy as a political order whose introduction they neither desired nor approved of. Many challenged the legitimacy of this political system by questioning its procedures granting access to political office. Farmers’ questioning of the procedures and representational claims of multiparty democracy was evident first, in their derogatory depiction of President Konaré’s political office as being legitimated only by ‘handraise power’ (bòlòwuli fanga), a term that alluded to the gesture of voting; and second, in their frequent remark that the new political system was not one of demokrasi, the rule of the people, as official rhetoric would have it, but of jankokrasi, the rule of envy (among politicians). Other jokes poked fun at the humanistic pretence of the new generation of selfish politicians,62 and at the incapacity of the political system to suppress strife instigated by juniors. Moreover, as indicated by one of my neighbours in Bakofinan, a farmer of around forty-five years, multiparty democracy not only invalidates the earlier rules for accessing political power; it also reduces actual chances for farmers to benefit from it: Handraise power and the old time of politiki, where is the difference? Demokrasi is the worst of all. It’s the time of useless speech (kuma gansan). I tell you what I will do when we have to vote next time. I will not go and vote. I will cultivate my field and wait to see who will win. And then I will go and join the winning party … This is safe and spares me trouble.

Multiparty competition renders networks of political affiliation more complex, confusing, and difficult to penetrate. Thus, ironically, whereas politicians claim (and international donor organizations assume) that into political parties. 62 One joke ridiculed the emblem of the ruling party ADEMA, the bee. Originally meant to represent industriousness and the party’s spirit of collaboration, the joke identified the bee with the deceitful character of politicians whose only aim is to ‘sting’ and exterminate political enemies.

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multiparty democracy introduces greater transparency and representation through competition, farmers in the area of Kita resent it because it complicates clientelist networks and thereby reduces chances for farmers to oblige politicians to redistribute their spoils. By deriding multiparty democracy as the ‘rule of envy’, farmers also responded to what they considered signs of weaknesses in Konaré’s government. In the years of Konaré’s presidency, earlier tensions in the ‘movement for democracy’ dovetailed into a struggle between the beneficiaries of ADEMA rule and those segments of the educated elite that remained excluded from immediate access to state resources (Fay 1995: 29).63 Competition between segments of the politico-administrative elite was exacerbated by the neoliberal economic and political reform measures imposed by international donor organizations, among them the shrinking of the bureaucratic apparatus, the privatization or substantial reorganization of state enterprises, and their opening to international capital investment (Fay 1995: 29; see Keita 2000).64 The political process in Bamako was regularly disrupted by confrontations between the ruling party and leading oppositional party representatives. The demolition of public buildings and homes of leading ADEMA party members by students and unemployed youth, who denied any of the benefits of President Konaré’s presidency, contributed to an atmosphere of social unrest.To farmers in the Kita region, these confrontations were proof that ‘Moussa’s’ overthrow had left a power vacuum at the heart of the political system, a system personified in a president who ‘just talks and talks but does not act [with force] as Moussa did’, and was incapable of suppressing quarrelling factions. Farmers’ scepticism about Konaré’s ‘weak’ government was reinforced under the effects of a major administrative decentralization reform, the so-called politique de la décentralisation, which, initiated with international donor support in the early 1990s, aimed to delegate administrative and budgetary decision-making powers to lower administrative units, especially the (newly created) local communes. The reshuffling of administrative and budgetary powers, officially described as a measure that allowed ‘fanga to return home’ (fanga ka sègin so), led farmers to hope for a greater degree of self-administration than Another source of conflict was the struggles between new power groups and members of the former political elite (Fay 1995: 28–9). 64 The claims of opposition groups reflected their ambivalence. While voicing the ‘disapproval of a clientèle sacrificed by democracy’ and attacking corruption, they hoped to benefit from the clientelist connections to the state (Fay 1995: 30–1, my translation). 63

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was intended by the reform. In 1995, entire villages unstintingly refused to pay taxes, telling tax collectors that ‘from now on, power is in our hands again’. Even farmers who did not interpret official broadcasts in this way took decentralization policy as proof that the central state had lost its teeth. Most farmers to whom I talked in 1994 and 1995 in the Kita region also had premonitions about decentralization as opening the door to the re-emergence of long-standing village conflicts.65 Politiki, they felt, had returned once again, yet in a more threatening form. Decentralization provided opportunities for outsiders, officials, and party politicians to unsettle precarious local balances of power in the name of popular participation.66 What is more, administrative decentralization created employment opportunities for younger family members with school education. Posts in the newly created communes granted juniors decision-making powers with regard to local development schemes and public spending, and connections with influential people nationally. This also posed a challenge to age and authority hierarchies that affected village politics. Farmers did not just liken the political upheaval in Bamako to what they experienced as social unrest in their daily lives. Rather, they viewed their own weakening control over juniors as a direct outcome of governmental policy and of a state administration that lacked authority. In other words, farmers assessed the legitimacy of the state and its key representative, the president, by considering how it affected their immediate social worlds. Thus (similar to their recollections of Modibo Keita’s rule), farmers’ comments reveal their perception that the state, distant and disengaged as it may appear to them in everyday life, actually affects domestic relations, particularly between the generations, through the regulation of their livelihoods. What, then, are the state policies that affected the livelihoods of my interlocutors most immediately and on whose domestic repercussions they reflect in their complaints about ‘irreverent sons’? While older farmers relate these transformations and their effects on domestic economies to the surrounding political liberalization of the early 1990s, the transformations were actually the outcome of decades-long rural development schemes that acquainted farmers with various forms of Farmers feared especially that the division of the former administrative units, the arrondissements, into rural communes would refuel border conflicts that dated back to Modibo Keita’s presidency. 66 Farmers in the Macina (central Mali), also viewed the official slogan to ‘resolve conflicts among themselves’ as an invitation ‘to kill each other’ (Fay 1995: 47–8). 65

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agricultural innovation and new technical equipment. Some transformations were reinforced by economic liberalization since the 1980s, and by a more pervasive monetization of modes of securing rural livelihoods. Since the 1980s, state policy vis-à-vis Mali’s rural populations has been characterized by a move away from state control of production and commercialization and towards the liberalization of some sectors of the national economy. The effects of these measures on producers in Kita’s hinterlands were exacerbated by the general decline of Mali’s terms of trade throughout the 1980s, as well as by the high volatility of world market prices for peanuts over the same period.67 Under heavy pressure of international donor organizations, President Konaré’s government continued in this line of economic liberalization. Starting in 1993, measures aiming at attracting international investment in gold mining and cotton production were implemented.68 Cotton export production was made a top economic policy priority, in spite of the heavy fluctuation of world market prices, and a range of incentives was offered to farmers to increase cotton cash-crop production in various areas of Mali’s rural south-west. In the Kita region, the repercussions of economic and political reform under President Konaré, and also of migrant labour, were felt keenly in the domain of domestic reproduction. While household sizes have remained largely the same since the late 1970s (Koenig 2005b: 32), a noticeable process of social stratification since the 1980s widened the income gap between different families. The importance of migrant labour remittances in family economies has increased significantly.The remittances are first and foremost invested in paid labour, which helps to extend the size of cultivated land.69 New forms of (paid) labour and capital, not just access to land, are now the most important factors in family prosperity. The growing importance of migrant labour remittances had serious implications for the kind and extent of control family elders yield over the younger generation. As in other regions of Africa where people live on the shoestring budget of migrant labour, relations between migrants and In contrast with the global success of cotton production, which became the major cash crop in the area around Kita after 1996, peanut world market prices peaked only for a short period of time in the mid-1970s, but dropped subsequently (Koenig et al. 1998: 68–9). 68 The governments of Presidents Konaré and Touré never fully privatized the CMDT, in spite of the pressure exerted by the World Bank (Bergamaschi 2014: 366–7). 69 Remittances contribute to a family’s fortune; they are invested in bride wealth, agricultural equipment, and new outlets for income generating activities in town (Koenig 2005b: 35). 67

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family are strained by tensions between family members’ expectations on one side that migrating sons will support their parents and the desire of labour migrants, on the other, to establish their economic independence and to forgo attempts by their fathers to control their income as part of collective family prosperity. The number of female juniors who migrate to town has also increased since the mid-1980s. Although many daughters are supposed to leave only seasonally and to reinvest parts of their wages in the family economy, their movement generates new potential for conflict and ‘insubordination’. Government promotion of export crop production has affected domestic relations in a more immediate way. With the new incentives offered for cotton cash-crop production in the areas around Kita, there is a tendency among married and unmarried sons and younger brothers of family heads to reserve part of their labour for cash-crop production on individual plots. The controversy spurred by Sekou’s activities shows that farmerentrepreneurs reinvest the cash earned from this production in expanding their individual production with the help of paid labour. These initiatives clearly threaten the size and importance of family production, and hence the control of family heads over juniors via the provision of bride wealth and other forms of redistribution. Individual production on personal plots and reliance on wage labour become new sources of independence for married and unmarried men, and a basis for adult masculinity. The extension of paid labour cultivation, the invigoration of practices of cultivating personal plots with the support of rural extension agencies, and a greater individual spending power reinforce centrifugal tendencies within the family that elders are less capable of repressing than before (see Perry 2005). Indicative of these domestic disturbances is the palpable competition over migrant labour remittances within the family. Although the moral obligation to support one’s parents and to send one’s remittances to the father is still dominant, juniors surreptitiously ask their migrantlabourer brothers to ‘send them a gift’, that is, a starting capital to expand their individual production with hired labour. These sons compete with family elders over the favours of (mostly male) migrating family members. In view of these disruptions of established forms of domestic reproduction, the frequent complaints of many adult farmers about the deplorable state of political affairs in Bamako appear in a new light. Demokrasi epitomizes the disruption of political and social hierarchies in the absence of a strong ordering power.Those who are sons in a metaphorical or literal sense refuse their fathers their due respect, obedience, and support. Fathers, on the other hand, fail to live up to the expectations once associated with their authority.

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Fathers no longer serve as moral exemplars to their sons, either because they lack the political and economic means to do so and are therefore fantanw (destitute); or because (as in the case of the state) because they ‘do not care’ (in the double sense of the term). Politiki eats its first child, indeed. But the comments do not just express a distrust of politicians and demokrasi in the idiom of kinship. Rather, they judge the legitimacy of the political order and of a particular government or officeholder according to their effect on their social and material lives. This insight has relevance beyond an empirical account of (changing) normative conceptions of legitimacy as they are formulated by farmers in the Kita region. Assessing the legitimacy of a political system implies not just social actors’ considerations of how it affects themselves – as understood by Beetham, who considers assessments of legitimacy in terms of a one-to-one relationship between the powerful and the subordinate. Rather, for subordinates to assess the legitimacy of a political system or an individual officeholder involves a consideration of how the political system shapes and regulates relations among them, and whether the resulting social and political dynamics are beneficial to themselves and others. A conceptual framework of the dimensions of legitimacy requires a consideration of the social dynamics that affect actual judgements of legitimacy, dynamics that occur within a heterogeneously composed, evaluating audience.

Conclusion Four conceptual points emerge from this chapter’s reconstruction of the empirical-normative basis on which Malian farmers assess and attribute political legitimacy. First, farmers from the rural hinterlands of Kita in south-western Mali tend to blur their assessment of the legitimacy of political order and that of individual powerholders. Second, contrary to what much social science scholarship seems to imply, we should not conceive of the process of assessment and attribution of authority in terms of a dyadic social relation (between the judging actor and the person in power) and as a judgement on the basis of individualized opinion or beliefs. As my analysis of senior farmers’ conversations about the central state and Mali’s governments, past and present, demonstrated, those who consider the legitimacy and efficiency of a political system do so by drawing on each other’s opinions (in this case, voiced exclusively among male peers). Their mutual relations, experiences with and disappointment in each other (reflecting, for instance, on

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intergenerational tensions) are a part of the process of judging the legitimacy of a political order. Social relations and expectations therefore form an integral or ‘constitutive’ component of the process of attributing legitimacy. It is in this sense that we need to conceptualize the genesis and attribution of legitimacy as a genuinely social process. A third insight that emerges from this chapter’s account of farmers’ recollections is that legitimacy is assessed not according to timeless beliefs and values, but on the basis of concrete historical experiences with, and judgements of, the performance of a political system. People assess the ‘problem-solving competence’ of a political order, and its performance in granting security and stability, against the backdrop of the material conditions that generate and shape actors’ ‘horizon of experience’ and expectations. These material conditions result from the shaping of local political economies through state regulation and intervention (cf. MacLean 2010: ch. 6). In the case of Mali’s south-west, farmers’ judgements were based on a sedimented history of their interactions and experiences with state officials and their enforcement of regulations. A fourth and final insight of this chapter is that the stability or instability of legitimacy depends on the extent to which a political system is grounded in a coherent set of institutions, norms, and procedures of a given political system. I would even argue that in a situation in which legality and the rule of law are largely absent, and farmers neither expect politicians to act according to its rules nor consider these rules as relevant to themselves, a political system’s performance as a provider becomes a key criterion of legitimacy and hence a key anchor in normative conceptions of legitimate rule.

2 Cultural Performance and Political Legitimacy: The Political Biography of Jeli Praise, 1960–91

Introduction What is the role of cultural performances in generating legitimacy for a political order? In engaging this question, this chapter pursues a double purpose. Conceptually, it critically reconsiders what Beetham identified as the third dimension of legitimacy. Empirically, the chapter centres on cultural performances as a domain in which claims to political legitimacy are made, assessed and contested. I argued in the Introduction to this book that Beetham’s argument about the ‘expression of consent’ as the third constitutive component of the ‘normative structure of legitimacy’ (1991: 90ff) rests on a conflation of genetic (causal) and constitutive accounts of legitimacy.1 Beetham identifies as ‘confusing’ aspects of consent and its relationship to legitimacy, first, the kind of evidence for the existence of consent, as opposed to, say, obedience generated through coercion; second, the question whether consent is the same as, or different from ‘belief in legitimacy’ (if, following Weber, one equates legitimacy with belief in legitimacy).To clarify the matter, Beetham maintains that what matters most about the relationship between consent and legitimacy is the public expression of consent, rather than its underlying belief. The public nature of the expression of consent and of voluntary agreement is what confers legitimacy on a political order or person (1991: 91). This argument suffers from a lack of distinction between a constitutive account of legitimacy (i.e. an identification of its components) on one side, and a genetic account of legitimacy (i.e. its emergence, confirmation and reproduction through the public expression of consent) on 1

Wilfried Hinsch first brought this distinction to my attention.

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the other. However, the distinction between the genesis of an attitude (in this case, consent) and an identification of the components of legitimacy is of key import to empirically grounded accounts of legitimacy. As I will detail below, historical, sociological and anthropological studies that ignore this important distinction end up with limited accounts of the process of nation-state making that they set out to examine. Notable examples are the studies by Turino (2000), Askew (2002), and Apter (2005) who take up the lead of Corrigan and Sayer’s The Great Arch (1985) in studying the role of culture in the making and consolidation of African nation-states. As insightful as these studies are, they mistake the process of generating in listeners particular attitudes of approval for the actual existence of legitimacy. They confound people’s attitude to a political order with their expression of this attitude. I will turn to some empirical and conceptual implications of this confusion below. For now, suffice it to point to two flaws in Beetham’s identification of ‘expression of consent’ as the third component of legitimacy. First, if we define authority as the capacity to make people obey and agree (or, as Beetham puts it, ‘consent’) with the content of a person’s orders even if these orders go against their own interests, then, by definition, consent forms an integral part of authority and, hence, of legitimacy (see Introduction). If this is the case, the expression of consent only follows from an already existing consent. From this follows that the act or process of expressing consent cannot be taken as a structural element of legitimacy but rather as a process that partakes in its constitution or genesis. This does not exclude the possibility that over time, the expression of consent may further reinforce attitudes of consent and ‘naturalize’ them as part of a natural and just order of things. However, the reproduction and reinforcement of consent as part of an authority structure is different from consent as a constitutive element of authority. My second misgiving about Beetham’s identification of the expression of consent as a component of legitimacy is that it does not adequately address the question of how the attitude behind the ‘expression of consent’ was formed in the first place. Rather than merely examining the expression of consent and its (constitutive or genetic) relation to legitimacy, we need to understand how the attitude of consent to a political order and/or to individuals who are considered as key representatives of this order, is made, remade, and transformed. The purpose of this chapter is two-fold. Similar to the preceding one, its main empirical objective is a genetic account of political legitimacy in postcolonial Mali, which involves a discussion of the extent to which actors conferred on or withheld legitimacy from the political system. To

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do so, it will focus on the historical period marked by the governments of Modibo Keita and Moussa Traoré. Second, starting from my critique of Beetham’s third component of normative legitimacy, the chapter examines the structural components of legitimacy, asking whether and in what ways the ‘expression’ of consent forms an essential component of legitimacy. In pursuing the first objective, that is, to offer a genetic account of political legitimacy in postcolonial Mali, the chapter moves to culture as a domain in which ordinary people’s dispositions or attitudes to the political order are forged. Chapters 1 and 3 examine ordinary people’s attitudes, by focusing on argument-centred assessments and justifications of the postcolonial order that transpired from encounters between farmers and state representatives and institutions. In contrast, this chapter and Chapter 4 explore state-orchestrated cultural performances as a domain in which political legitimacy is sought, claimed, attributed, and probed, and people’s attitudes to the political order are made and remade. In contrast to the argument- and cognition-centred analysis of Chapters 1 and 3, discussion extends the analytical focus to the aestheticsensory and ritual-choreographic dimensions of processes that contribute to (or weaken) the legitimacy of a political system. The focus of this chapter on state-promoted productions of culture as a domain in which consent is sought follows anthropological and historical work on state making as a cultural process. Handler (1988), Bendix (1992), Danielson (1997), Askew (2002), Apter (2005), and McGovern (2013) start from the insight that for a political system to maintain itself, more is needed than sheer force and coercion. The authors thereby draw inspiration from Corrigan’s and Sayer’s seminal study on state making as a ‘cultural revolution’ (Corrigan and Sayer 1985; Lloyd and Thomas 1998; see Steinmetz 1999b), from Anderson’s (1991 [1983]) work on nationalism, and from Hobsbawm’s and Ranger’s notion of ‘invented tradition’ (1983). These authors stress the key significance of culture to the making of the nation-state and argue that aesthetics plays a role in the validation or legitimation of a political order (e.g. Askew 2002: 270; Aretxaga 2003: 398; Scheiwiller 2013). Some understanding of political legitimacy and of its working is thus implicit in their argument (McGovern 2013, ch. 1). However, at no point in their analysis do the authors clarify their conception of legitimacy. As I argued in the Introduction, Askew’s (2002) insightful study of Tanzanian cultural politics is a notable illustration of such an underdetermined conception of political legitimacy. The book offers a compelling argument for the role of Swahili music in conjuring the image of a unified Tanzanian nation, without, however, specifying how it conceives of the relation between

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legitimacy and cultural performance. Nor does the book address the effects of cultural performances and how they relate to argument-based assessments of political legitimacy. As a consequence, and also because the book indiscriminately refers to staged cultural performances as well as to various encounters between ordinary citizens and state officials as a ‘performance’ of the nation, it does not satisfactorily clarify what processes of legitimation are at work, and whether the phenomenal quality of legitimation differs from one of these instances and kinds of performance to another.2 Worby (1998), on the other hand, addresses the relationship between ritual and argumentative dimensions of displays of state power, yet with an exclusive focus on everyday encounters of farmers with state officials. To combine the insights offered by these analyses, we should systematically investigate how the different dimensions of cultural performances might conjoin in presenting a political order, or its key representatives, as legitimate. By exploring the relationship between nationalist discourse and legitimacy, the current chapter speaks to scholarly debate on the role of mass media technologies in the mediation of community and national identity. Only recently have studies on the politics of oral performance in African societies started to reflect on the conceptual and theoretical implications of the context of mass-mediated entertainment within which various oral performance genres are increasingly embedded (e.g. Adeleye-Fayemi 1994, 1997; Gunner 1994; Furniss and Gunner 1995; Barber 1997, 2000). This chapter’s analysis of broadcast praise performed on behalf of the governments of Modibo Keita and Moussa Traoré departs from the assumption of the purely instrumental role of mass media technologies that these studies imply. Instead, the chapter views mass mediation processes as generative settings in which meanings are produced, assessed and reconfigured.

Cultural performances, nationalist discourse, political legitimacy The Introduction to this book addressed the close connection posited by scholars between nationalism and nationalist discourse, and cultural performances in the postcolonial world (e.g. Askew 2002; see Danielson 1997). As an essential feature of both the phenomenon and the idea of the nation-state, Askew’s use of ‘performance’ collapses the (what I call) aesthetic-sensory and the choreographic-procedural dimensions of cultural performances. These two dimensions’ legitimating effects might work separately and in opposite ways (Schulz and Hinsch 2014a). 2

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nationalism refers to the claim and the open-ended, continuously evolving effort on the part of political elites to make citizens feel united by a common purpose, one that identifies them through a unifying aspiration and sentiment, rather than through their shared subjection to a particular political order (Calhoun 1997: 4–10; see also Lowe and Lloyd 1997: 7–9). In the contemporary order of nation-states, this communal aspect is rendered by the nation part of the hyphenated nation-state (Comaroff and Comaroff 2001). For citizens of the modern state, a belief in the rightfulness of the political order (and of the disadvantages and voluntary self-regulation that submission to these regulations imply) must exist, as well as a conviction that one shares with others the advantages and spoils of the public order. Nationalism constructs this frame of collective reference not only as a political but as a moral and cultural community that is grounded in shared historical experience and achievements, culture, language, and values (Smith 1995; Lloyd and Thomas 1998: 7–9). Membership in the community requires certain sacrifices and self-limitations from its individual members, and simultaneously serves to justify these restrictions and people’s subjection to the political order and compliance with its regulations (Williams 1983 [1958]). In this way, these constructions of political community lend legitimacy to the political status quo. As Calhoun (1997: ch. 4) observes, historically, the emergence of nationalism in eighteenth-century Western Europe was tied to a particular, that is, ‘ascending notion’ of legitimacy. A sovereign’s rule was conceived as legitimate as long as it expressed popular will and served the interests of the people. In this historically determinate conception, ‘the people’ are no longer an aggregate of individuals. They are conceived of as socially integrated (and deliberating, cf. Habermas 1990 [1962]) citizens for whose free, contract-based interaction the market serves as a model. The people need to believe that they live in a community based on shared roots, be they cultural, historical, linguistic, or defined through common (religious) beliefs and values: the nation (see also Lloyd and Thomas 1998: 2–3). The conception of the nation as a vehicle and expression of ‘the will of the people’ informed nation-building efforts in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere in the postcolonial world. Mali’s first government under the single-party rule of President Modibo Keita promoted nationalist sentiment by highlighting people’s pride in their own cultural heritage and in the ‘glorious past’ of the new nation. However, as I will demonstrate that for Malian nationalism, its underlying ‘ascending notion’ of legitimacy was at variance with understandings of rightful rule that large parts of the population still considered valid. The relation between political legitimacy

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and nationalism in postcolonial Mali (and, I would argue, in other areas of the postcolonial world, too) therefore contrasts with its European model, for which understandings of rightful rule that contradicted the ascending notion of political legitimacy had already lost in support and relevance.

The politics of culture under President Modibo Keita: ‘culture’ and the making of modern nationhood From the outset, Mali’s first government under President Keita (1960–8) singled out ‘cultural traditions’ as a prime field in which a sense of shared historical experiences and cultural traditions could be generated. National radio (Radio Soudan, created in 1957) was identified as playing a central role in the US-RDA party’s nationalist agenda and cultural policy. Rather than conceiving modernization exclusively in economic and political terms, President Keita and party ideologues identified ‘culture’ and African spirituality as elements of African modernity, as one that distinguished African socialism from its Marxist-Leninist model.Their conception of culture blended its different meanings in European nationalist thought, combining the German romanticist notion of culture as the ‘way of life’ of distinct nations with the Enlightenment view of culture as a sign of sophistication and development, and also with the narrower, late nineteenthcentury equation of culture with performance arts, such as music and theatre (see Lloyd and Thomas 1998: ch. 2). Programmatic statements about Mali’s ‘African path to socialism’ called for a ‘reorientation towards our own values’ and a recognition of the ‘value and dignity’ and essentially socialist nature of ‘African’ culture (see Kouyaté 1963; Keita 1965; Haidara 1992).3 At the same time, US-RDA socialist policy sought to do away with elements of ‘culture’ that bolstered socio-economic and political hierarchies and were considered an impediment to economic development (see Chapter 1). US-RDA militants relied on theatre to recruit young party members, disseminate its political goals, and ‘educate’ the people.4 Their conception of culture as a repository of authentic African values untainted by Western Key slogans were the ‘revalorization of one’s own identity’, the ‘moralization of society’, and the ‘protection of culture against the alteration of indigenous customs’ (interviews with T. Makalou and Baba Dabo, ORTM, January 1996; see Snyder 1965, 1967; Cutter 1968: 75). 4 In 1937, Modibo Keita and his wife, Marian Taravelé, founded the theatre company Arts et Métiers to stage mythical heroic stories and figures to denounce colonial occupation and political oppression (Jezequel 1999). 3

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imperialism dated back to the nationalist movement of the 1940s and 1950s, a time when cultural associations became a platform for expressing anti-colonial sentiment throughout the French colonial territories (see Loimeier 2003). Theatre companies were initiated by the first African graduates from the École William Ponty in Gorée, Senegal, and modelled on the Franco-African theatre, an institution (and genre) founded in the 1930s, as part of the French colonial endeavour to make the first generation of French colonial-schools-trained Africans into modern, civilized subjects (Jezequel 1999). After independence, in an effort to address different generations of consumers in town and the countryside, US-RDA party leaders favoured a multitrack policy of using culture for the purpose of nation building and modernization, and to overcome what they denounced as the inferiority complex instilled by colonial rule (Kouyaté 1963; see Snyder 1967). Theatre remained important for the mobilization of youth, yet party strategists now singled out music (Skinner 2015: 519) and oral tradition as the principal cultural expressions of Mali’s rural populations and hence as the cultural traditions most likely to foster a sense of collective belonging.

The objectification of tradition: Regional folklore groups and national youth As a result of the state administration of culture under President Keita, Malian national tradition emerged in an objectified form, in a process that involved some segments of the Malian population more than others (see Handler 1988; Dominguez 1989).That is,‘national tradition’ resulted from the interplay between state-orchestrated celebrations of ‘national culture’ and artists and listeners from the Bamanakan/Maninkakan-speaking areas of southern Mali who, over the years, grew accustomed to the pride of place that their oral and political traditions occupied in official nationalist discourse. National youth festivals (Semaines de la Jeunesse), organized bi-annually under US-RDA party rule and modelled on the pan-African Festival de la Jeunesse of 1958, illustrate the contested process of making ‘tradition’ and national culture. The festivals, together with three state-sponsored performance groups, the Troupe (Ballet) National, the Troupe Dramatique National, and the Ensemble Instrumental National, performed ‘traditional’ Malian music and theatre and provided an institutional basis for the production of a

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national cultural archive (Djebbari 2013).5 Performers who gained national acclaim during annual competitions were recruited into the national performance groups, where they contributed to the ensemble’s repertory. Also, the music performed by regional ensembles was broadcast on national radio, along with the musical productions by national orchestras and ensembles. In this fashion, regional youth productions and performances of the two Ensembles were circulated as icons of an ethnically diverse yet harmonious national culture (Schulz 2020).

The promotion of jeli praise Similar to cultural policy implemented in other multicultural nation-states (Handler 1988: chs 4, 5; Dominguez 1989), the promotion of national culture under President Keita went hand in hand with its objectification and institutionalization as ‘cultural patrimony’ (Cutter 1968; Schulz 2001a, ch. 3; Skinner 2015). As part of the ruling party’s socialist policy, national culture was administered through structures of state patronage, and divided into different domains and ‘folklore’ or ‘art’ forms identified as components of Malian national culture.6 Musical and oral performances were given pride of place in these arts, and Malian national culture was characterized by its ‘unity in diversity’.This stress on inclusion and equal representation in Mali’s regional cultures contrasted sharply with the limited representation of northern performance genres during public events and on national radio, a tendency justified retrospectively by former members of the Ministry of Culture on organizational grounds. Tellingly, already the name of the newly independent nation had been taken from a medieval centralized polity dominated by southern Mande-speaking peoples, the so-called ‘Mali empire’. The lower representation of northern cultural forms in the public arena mirrored the relatively marginal position accorded to the majority of people from the northern regions within the national political economy.7 The economic marginalization of broad segments of northern populations dated back to the early decades of French colonial occupation; it became even more pronounced after the bloody repression of Tuareg separatist revolts In contrast, the Orchestre National played European march music and Afro-Cuban music, on radio broadcasts and during public events and official state visits. Many musicians were US-RDA party members and of jeli or other nyamakala origin. 6 For interesting parallels with state-orchestrated embodied performances of a national cultural heritage in Mobutu’s Zaire, see Covington-Ward (2016, chs 4, 5). 7 Among them were sedentary people of Songhai ethnic origin, members of Arab clans, and people of (racially ‘black’) slave origin, the Bellah-Iklhan (Diallo 2016). 5

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prior to and after independence, even if these uprisings had not been representative of the political agenda of large segments of the racially black sedentary populations (Lecocq 2010; Schulz 2016).8 Characteristic of the cementing of regional inequalities through US-RDA cultural policy was the prominent position attributed to jeli singers from the Bamanakan and Maninkakan-speaking areas of southern Mali (Zobel 1997; Hoffman 2000; Schulz 2001a, b; Roth 2003). Because people of jeli background, men and women, are associated with ‘the past’ and with speaking on behalf of others, they seemed to be predestined to act as potent spokesmen of the new nation’s history. Their music became the privileged expressive means by which US-RDA party officials sought to celebrate the new nation and its glorious past.9 Jeli musicians who accepted their new role as clients of the party and state, and joined the Ensemble National, became key figures in the dissemination of political information and of what party leaders considered fundamental African values.10

The emergence of a radio-mediated national public The promotion of national culture under President Keita hinged on national radio’s capacity to create, in a sense both technical and imaginative, a national public. State radio is an institution and a set of technologies that mediates state presence in citizens’ daily lives and fosters their perceptions of themselves as partaking in a larger political and cultural collectivity, the nation. As the ‘voice of the state’ (Spitulnik ms: 1), state radio structures its relationship to citizens through surveillance and paternalism, even if these disciplinary functions are neither hegemonic nor monolithic (see Askew 2002). Tuareg opposition to the colonial state was led by racially ‘white’ Tuareg clans of mostly noble birth who resented, among other things, their loss of political influence and control over lower status groups under colonial administration. After independence, the incorporation of northern populations in the national political economy put all northern populations groups in a politically and economically marginal position, regardless of their ethnic and social origins. 9 As mentioned in the Introduction, a few jeli families became emblematic narrators of a national past because they had special ties to the new leadership or because their family histories lent themselves easily to the celebration of the nation’s glorious history (such as in the case of the free-born Keita and the jeli clan Kouyaté). 10 Many jeli musicians in the national Ensembles came from urban areas, where they lacked material support from patron families, and were keen on generating an income from their Ensembles. Other jeli musicians organized themselves in the national Association des Artistes Traditionnels. They received donations from individual party members and performed on official occasions, such as post-election parties and campaigns. 8

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If state radio plays an important role in shaping people’s self-perceptions as members of a political community, and hence, in fostering nationalist sentiment, how does this relate to its capacities to generate legitimacy for the political order? Does national radio build up or strengthen people’s perceptions of the rightful nature of a political order? If we take radio broadcasts to be more than a bare, seemingly self-evident material reality unmediated (and unaltered) by culture and social relations, we need to examine how historically, a particular set of technical devices, materials, and technologies, along with certain social and cultural conventions, condense into something hitherto referred to as a medium (Sterne 2003) that then becomes relevant to processes of legitimation. As Warner (1990) points out in his account of the changing meanings of writing and publicity in eighteenth-century America, and of the emergent view of printing as a technology of publicity with an essentially civic and emancipatory character, the connection between print and the public sphere is not self-evident and immanent, but historically created and determinate. Under US-RDA rule, jeli oral traditions figured prominently in cultural programmes on national radio. National radio, as a technology and an institution, thus not only delineated the contours of a national, radio-mediated public; through the broadcasting of jeli praise, it also mediated a particular construction of the nation and helped standardize certain praise formats. Thus, to trace the historical circumstances that allowed Malian state radio to produce these effects provides the starting point for an assessment of the ways in which praise songs performed by jeli singers on behalf of the new political leaders bestowed a nimbus of legitimacy on the new political order. As this chapter will show, the image of the nation invoked through broadcast jeli praise contained a fundamental tension between its appeal to shared experience and collective will, on one side, and jeli singers’ articulation of particularistic identities and histories on the other, and hence went against the ascending notion of legitimacy identified by Calhoun as a characteristic feature of nationhood in European history.11 Independent Mali inherited from French colonial administration a highly centralized, hierarchically structured media system, Radio Soudan (founded in 1957), which targeted mainly urban elites in the south.12 Given its limited readership, the press played a minor role in representations of the new nation. 12 The French colonial network SOFAROM was replaced by the broadcast network OCORA (Office de Coopération Radiophonique) and, in 1969, by the network ORTF (Office de Radio et Télédiffusion Française), which combined domestic broadcasting with 11

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Renamed Radio Mali after independence, national radio was considered by party leaders and state administration the best instrument to reach the illiterate masses and to educate them about the party’s political agenda (sensibilisation politique, ‘political consciousness raising’), and to evoke nationalist sentiment. While these official declarations rarely found an open ear among the population, over time, listeners would associate national radio with the ruling party’s state-making project and nationalist proclamations.13 Jeli praise, too, was tainted by its affiliation with the ruling party’s nationalist project. This affiliation, and the radically altered institutional setting within which jeli musicians now addressed a national audience, radically altered the political effects of their performances and the lyrics of their praise.

Praise lyrics: a rhetoric of national unity and prestigious origins Historical recordings of jeli songs performed during the times of Modibo Keita demonstrate a preoccupation with two objectives (Radio Mali 1997). The first was to laud the new nation whose ‘children’ are united by their experience of colonial oppression and their trust in the new political leadership (Schulz 2020). Jeli singers employed terms that referred to pre-colonial political units, which operated along malleable ties of kinship and alliance. They thus presented the nation as a ‘fuzzy’ (Chatterjee 1993) collectivity that continued with age-old political traditions. Yet jeli singers’ invocation of a national, all-inclusive community stood in tension with the particularistic references of their praise lyrics. Praise songs in Bamanakan and Maninkakan addressed themselves to only a sub-segment of the national community. The exclusionary character of jeli praise remained largely implicit because language selection defined membership in the community to which they appealed; this undermined from the outset jeli singers’ abilities to legitimate the new political order. The second main object of jeli praise was representatives of the political order, particularly President Keita (Cutter 1968). By performing praise conventionally dedicated to historical figures (cèbaw, literally ‘great men’) international radio and television programmes. The formally independent Radio Mali aired OCORA and ORTF programmes and its own productions. 13 It is difficult to ascertain the size of rural radio audiences. The US-RDA promoted radio clubs which, according to several older farmers from the Kita area in 1994, were popular during the early years of US-RDA rule (see Bourgault 1995: 75). Yet opportunities to listen to national radio were rare, given the fact that still in 1974, the distribution of radio receivers was twelve per thousand (Wilcox 1975: 139).

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or mythical heroes, jeli singers celebrated the new political leaders as the descendants of prestigious forerunners, and projected the existence of ‘state’ institutions and representatives back into a mythical past.14 Songs dedicated to President Keita, for instance, posited a direct genealogical connection between him and Sunjata Keita, the legendary founder of the medieval political formation of Mali.15 Positing these genealogical ties had two connotations. One was laudatory insofar as it celebrated a patron’s illustrious family connections. The second meaning was exhortatory and entailed the potential for subtle critique of the recipients of praise, if they did not live up to the expectations tied to their prestigious family history. Over the years of US-RDA party rule, and again, under the subsequent government of President Traoré, the second connotation unfolded momentous consequences because it offered possibilities for subtle criticism and mockery (Schulz 2001a: chs 4, 5). Jeli singers narrated national history by reference to select oral traditions from southern populations that related to centralized political institutions.16 Jeli singers sought to bestow legitimacy on the new political leaders by stressing their obligation to regionally specific groups of the Malian population. The singers thereby articulated a descending notion of legitimacy. By referring to traditional conceptions of rightful rule that identified genealogical descent, autocratic power, and physical coercion as crucial elements of the exercise of power, they cancelled out an ‘ascending notion’ of political legitimacy, that is, of one based on the will of the people, implicit in nationalism. This inherent contradiction added to the tension between collective identification and particularistic references to regional political and cultural traditions, a tension that, as I argued before, undermined widespread identification with the nation as a new frame of collective reference. For both reasons, jeli praise, articulated on behalf of the new political order and of US-RDA party officials, was limited in its capacity to generate legitimacy. This does not preclude rural audiences from the Bamanakan- and Maninkakan-speaking areas of southern Mali from holding broadcast jeli

Continuity was suggested, for instance, by calling the president mansakè, a term that refers to pre-colonial rulers and is commonly translated as ‘king’. 15 Sunjata Keita’s legendary liberation of the Manding area from the rule of Sumanguru Kanté, the sorcerer king under whose yoke people suffered, served as an allegory for the nation’s recent independence struggle. Songs lauded President Keita as a successor to Sunjata Keita and his historical mission of founding the Mali empire. 16 For example, some songs lauded legendary rulers, such as Da Monzon from the ‘kingdom’ of Segu, and Sheku Hamadou, the ruler of the Macina ‘state’. 14

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performances in high esteem. It is to their responses to jeli praise that I now want to turn, to ascertain the extent to which jeli praise was successful in generating legitimacy in the eyes of these select regional audiences.

Audience engagements: consent, dissent and the limits of political legitimacy Examining listeners’ responses to jeli performances in a rural area where jeli praise was likely to find an open ear requires us to consider the challenges of such an inquiry. Assessing the multi-layered and multi-sensory nature of listeners’ engagements with media products is fraught with methodological difficulties. For one thing, much of the response to mass media products, whether cast in aesthetically compelling forms or not, is a visceral one and therefore only partly, if at all, accessible to consumers’ self-reflexive discursive representation.To take into consideration listeners’ spontaneous, non-verbal, gestural, and other bodily reactions makes up only partly for this lacuna. Things become even more difficult, analytically and methodologically, when we seek to recuperate audience engagements from an earlier historical period. We are left with present-day recollections by individual radio consumers, recollections that are partial, incomplete, taken out of social and pragmatic contexts, and tainted by later experiences. One might therefore justifiably question whether such a reconstruction should be attempted at all, and whether a constitutive account of legitimacy can draw on such shaky empirical foundations. As a way out of this impasse (and in analogy to my discussion of farmers’ historical interactions with the state and Mali’s subsequent political regimes in Chapter 1), I propose to take the partial nature of my conversation partners’ recollections of broadcast praise as a way to shed light on their contemporary concerns, rather than as a hindrance to historically accurate depictions of past perceptions. I will argue that by remembering their reactions to jeli broadcast praise ‘under Modibo’ and ‘Moussa’, older farmers in Kita’s rural hinterlands create a dichotomy between the good old times when jeli praise was not yet tainted by the forces of commerce and political clientelism, and more recent times in which things, and jeli praise in particular, fell apart. Like farmers’ contrast between fanga and politiki, and other binary constructions by which actors narrate and make sense of their lives, past and present (Herzfeld 2005: 14–15), the dichotomous depiction of jeli praise before and after its fall from grace allows farmers to reflect on changes in the political and social order that are significant to them.

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Farmers’ recollections also offer insight into the aesthetic criteria by which they discuss the appeal and quality of jeli performances. In this sense, the reminiscences of my conversation partners elucidate what remained of the aesthetic force of jeli praise, even if remediated by radio technology. When I talked to older farmers in the villages in the Kita hinterlands in which I lived in the mid-1990s and again in the period between 2007 and 2015, about their perception of state radio under Modibo Keita, they usually mentioned ‘politicians’ endless talk’, of which they recollected very little.17 What they remembered vividly, in contrast, was their pride about the broadcasting of their ‘own traditions’ on national radio. The melodic-rhythmic patterns and lyrics of their songs referenced particularistic, geographically situated social identities, such as clans and status groups that were tied to histories of settlement and political alliances familiar to listeners from the Kita hinterlands. Because listeners recognized as their own the particularistic identities and social relations that jeli singers sang about, their praise retained a certain appeal. For these particular segments of the national public, the appeal, mediated importantly through the aesthetics of praise, prevailed even if, over time, listeners grew increasingly sceptical about jeli singers’ affiliations with the political regime. But even to people from the Kita hinterlands, who occupied a relatively privileged position vis-à-vis the government in Bamako, radio-mediated oral tradition did not prompt a wholehearted identification with a larger, national community, as Anderson’s claim about the ‘modular’ character of nationalism would suggest.This is so because farmers’ enthusiasm for jeli broadcast performances was due precisely to the music’s indexing of particularistic identities. Even for this regional audience, then, the contradiction persisted between state-orchestrated, radio-mediated constructions of the nation as a rightful political order on one side, and their perception that broadcast oral traditions were significant to them only as long as they expressed local tradition. Listeners from the region started to gain a sense of a broader collectivity out there, yet they simultaneously insisted on local political and social relations as the relevant framework to express social identities and a sense of pride. So far, analysis has focused on state-orchestrated efforts to legitimate the new political order through cultural performances, and how these performances were received and made sense of in a particular local setting, the rural hinterlands of Kita in south-western Mali. Farmers’ enthusiasm for a Elderly conversation partners recalled with special disapprobation that radio speakers addressed them ‘as if we were children’, that is, by lacking due respect for age, seniority, and life experience. 17

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music that they considered as emblematic of their own cultural traditions, and that prompted them to feel favourably towards inclusion in a national community, yet simultaneously to keep a critical distance from political leaders in Bamako, sheds light on the incomplete, inconsistent, and shaky foundations of legitimacy that jeli singers claimed for the new political order and its representatives.There seems to have been little consent, and even less voluntary compliance, with the new political order and its representatives. The question remains as to how successful jeli singers were in their effort to generate among listeners attitudes of agreement or consent with the new political order and its representatives, an effort that continued under the military and single-party rule of Moussa Traoré. This question leads us back to Beetham’s reflections on the relationship between people’s belief in the legitimacy of a political order and their actual display or ‘expression’ of consent. As I explicated in the Introduction, Beetham departs from Weber’s belief-centred model of legitimacy by insisting that it is the public nature of the expression of consent and of voluntary agreement that confers legitimacy on a political order or person (1991: 91). Below, I will further engage the argument that the expression of consent is a constitutive feature of legitimacy. For the moment, let us address another point in Beetham’s model that is relevant to my genetic account of legitimacy. Beetham rightly points to the unresolved question of what may serve as evidence for the existence of consent (1991: ch. 5). We need to distinguish between the existence of an attitude of consent on one side, and its expression, for instance in the form of a particular demeanour, gestures, spontaneous comments, and discursive self-representation, on the other. The absence of an expression of consent does not necessarily indicate the non-existence of consent. The situation is yet more complicated when we rely on methods of historical reconstruction to ascertain the past existence or non-existence of people’s consent. If the historical data we gather do not indicate people’s expression of consent, this may be merely due to the limits of historical reconstruction. In view of these methodological limitations, any attempt to ascertain whether jeli praise effectively fostered in audiences an attitude of consent will remain incomplete. All we can do is to identify outward signs, without being able to differentiate between evidence of an attitude and its expression. This insight relates directly to a genetic account of legitimacy, yet it is also relevant to a constitutive account of legitimacy. Regardless of whether we, as scholars, have evidence of people’s expression of consent or not, it is clear that an attitude of consent precedes, or is coterminous with, its outward expression.With these considerations, let us examine the legitimating effects of jeli praise under changing political conditions.

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An emerging market of praise While socializing with my hosts in the Kita hinterlands in 1994 and 1995, conversations occasionally turned to the subject of jeli singers who continued to perform on national radio after President Keita’s fall from power. Older farmers repeatedly cited the example of Mogontafe Sacko, one of the most eminent chanteuses of the Ensemble Instrumental National (Afro Music 1976), to explain why, over the years of Moussa Traoré’s political leadership (1968–91) they grew disaffected with broadcast jeli praise.18 As Nouhoun (see Chapter 1) put it, Mogontafe … represented everything we appreciated in a good singer. Her voice was piercing, her speech was crisp and rich, her knowledge of her patrons’ history without limits. Hearing her voice on national radio moved us, it filled our hearts with pride. But over the years, … she no longer sang musical traditions (juru) we knew and liked for their moral lessons (ladili). People lost faith in her because she was too quick to affiliate with the new politiki people. Radio, money … all this turned her songs into pure flattery (fasadali). Hers were distorted songs (donkili karabalèn), songs for entertainment (tlòn, play), without use (nafa, value) to us. Still, her voice … always touched us. Even today, it makes my heart swell with pride.

In Nouhoun’s eyes, Mogontafe’s political opportunism, the monetization of praise, and its reproducibility in mass-mediated form robbed the former client service of its true purpose. If he and other listeners from the region were deeply touched by Mogontafe’s voice and speech, they felt that her praise, once it was broadcast and taken out of its original patronage context, became ‘useless’. This judgement suggests that the institutional setting importantly affects the credibility and effectiveness of jeli praise on behalf of patrons. What institutional changes led to the erosion of jeli praise as a mode of legitimating political leaders? And what happened to the US-RDA endeavour to promote nationalist sentiment through appeals to ‘culture’, ‘tradition’, and a ‘glorious past’? Immediately after the coup, jeli praise was banned from national radio. The annual youth festival and regional youth ensembles were temporarily suspended, and funding for the national performance ensembles was significantly reduced. In 1970, the youth culture festivals were reintroduced, in the form of bi-annual events (Biennale Artistique, Culturelle et Sportive) under For instance, when Mogontafe Sacko celebrated party directives and leaders during national political events. 18

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the aegis of the Ministry of Education and, after 1975, under the newly created Ministry of Youth, Sports, Arts and Culture (Arnoldi 2006: 60f). While official rhetoric continued to present the event as part of a nationalist cultural policy, employees in charge of the event felt that this rhetoric concealed a significant shift from Modibo Keita’s nationalist, patriotic agenda to a cultural policy put in the service of the ruling party. As a formerly high-ranking UDPM official put it to me in 1995, ‘from now on, any appreciation of culture was gone. We merely had to entertain the gallery (the place where official state visitors were seated)’. The banning of jeli praise from national radio after the coup formed part of the militaries’ endeavour to break with what many people had come to see as the excesses of US-RDA politics. Leading CMLN officials distanced themselves, even in private life, from jeli singers who had benefited from their affiliation with the previous regime. Yet in spite of the widespread disaffection with jeli praise in the last years of US-RDA rule and its official ban after the coup, jeli praise gradually made its way back into public life. Over the years, thanks to radio broadcasting and, after 1983, television technologies, jeli praise turned into a cultural commodity that, more than other genres, symbolized ‘Malian culture’ to national and international audiences. Well aware of the widespread association of their praise with ‘mere flattery’ on behalf of party politicians, jeli singers who sought to re-enter the political stage formulated their praise of the new political leaders in subtle ways, by playing on the metonymic relationship between a particular tune and a particular accomplishment, family identity, or mythical event. The mere playing of a certain air in the presence of a patron could thus be taken as referencing the patron’s heroic ancestry or noble genealogy. Early songs on behalf of the military regime, for instance, capitalized on the close relationship between certain tunes, such as the janjon and the celebration of military prowess.19 A notable example is the song arme (‘army’), performed in different versions by Tata Bambo Kouyaté and Ami Diarra in the early 1970s and based on a well-known melodic-rhythmic pattern In the song ‘Taratadon Janjon’ (‘Tuesday Janjon’), broadcast in 1968, Toumani Koné (who is not of jeli origin) celebrated the ‘accomplishment of the Tuesday’, alluding to the date of Traoré’s military coup. The legend reports that the janjon was composed in honour of Fakoli after he had beheaded the generals of Sunjata Keita’s enemy, Sumanguru Kanté (Hoffman 1995: 44, footnote 7). The janjon’s rhythmic–melodic pattern alludes to acts of military bravery and is associated with particular lineages, Doumbia, Sissoko and Traoré. 19

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played to extol people of extraordinary courage (Schulz 2001a: 282f). Similar to other songs performed during the early days of Traoré’s military rule,20 textual references to Moussa Traoré remained implicit, yet his identity was unequivocally established by the choice of tune.21 ‘Musically wrapped’ flattery of the CMLN military regime was common until the late 1970s, mostly because the new leaders were reluctant to openly encourage jeli praise. President Traoré refrained from publicly compensating jeli singers even after the creation of the UDPM (in 1976), when praise was no longer banned from national radio. Still, artists such as Mogontafe Sacko and Tata Bambo Kouyaté received indirect encouragement, in the form of money, generous gifts, and favours, from Moussa Traoré’s entourage.22 Other jeli musicians, too, who had gained a national reputation while performing in the Ensemble Instrumental National and who now faced the threat of economic insecurity, showered President Moussa Traoré, the CMLN, and later the UDPM with flattery during public ceremonies and on national media.23 While jeli singers made their way back into public life, they never resumed their earlier role in articulating a national heritage. Nationalist discourse was not high on the agenda of the new ruling party; nor did the new political leaders order jeli singers to perform praise on their behalf. Rather, it was jeli singers, many of them women, who seized upon the newly emerging opportunities for the personality cult to make up for the loss in state support

The song ‘Duga’ (‘vulture’) lauds the courage of heroes, specific clans, and mythical events, and is recognizable by its rhythmic-melodic patterns and praise lines. Its performance alludes to a person who excelled in military strength and courage. In the case of other songs, prosody and speed of delivery index particular social identities and status groups. Already the fast delivery of praise lines, a recurrent feature of jeli praise prosody, indexes the hierarchical relationship between jeli and (ideally, free-born) patron, and of ‘giving and receiving’, and thus intimates the existence of a patron. 21 Tata Bambo cites the names of President Traoré’s parents and adds formulaic praise (‘danmansa wulendin, danmansa wulemba’), which extols the legendary ancestor of the Traoré, Turamakan Traoré. 22 Tata Bambo Kouyaté was among the first to publicly praise President Traoré.Without being openly encouraged or compensated, her praise was broadcast on national radio and in 1988, she received an award from Moussa Traoré. 23 Tata Bambo Kouyaté, started her musical career as a soloist in the late 1960s (Duran 1989: 37). ‘Bambo’, the song that earned her a life-long nickname, draws on a folk song from the area of Kaarta. In the early 1970s, she performed numerous songs in praise of leading party officials and President Traoré.The jeli stars Ami Koita and Kandia Kouyaté belong to a younger generation of singers who, starting out in the national ensembles, became international pop icons (Schulz 2001b). 20

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for the national performance groups, and of Arts et Culture more generally.24 Still, as exemplified by two acclaimed female stars, who incidentally bore the same name, Fanta Damba, only some jeli singers capitalized on the new career opportunities generated by a new political institutional setting and mass media technologies.25 Over the 1970s, as leading figures of the military regime became part of UDPM single-party rule, occasions for jeli praise multiplied outside the political sphere proper. In a political system in which the exercise of power depended on the appropriation of state resources and on the close intertwining of state institutions and lucrative economic sectors, jeli singers directed their eulogies at a range of beneficiaries of the Traoré regime (see Amselle 1985).The name commonly used for these beneficiaries was faamaw (singular, faama), a term identifying wealth and military might as the two principal sources of worldly power in nineteenth-century society, indicates the diversification of possible recipients of jeli praise.26 Whether a faama held a formal office under Traoré or, as in the case of some spectacularly rich Muslim merchants, simply benefited from his closeness to party officials and the military, the term designated the nouveau riche as the paradigmatic beneficiary of Traoré’s regime, as well as his three sources of political power: military strength, economic success, and party affiliation. Praise bestowed on faamaw during public encounters and on national radio became a recurrent feature of official events, and a lucrative business for jeli singers. Praise thus mutated from a client service to a commodified form of prestige enhancement during family ceremonies and also in recordings broadcast on national radio.The praise still bore the conventional stylistics, but novel conditions and settings of performance radically altered its social significance. Public eulogy of faamaw paid so well that singers of For interesting parallels in gender-specific state patronage, see Gilman’s (2001) analysis of Malawian cultural politics. 25 Fanta Damba ‘Numéro Un’, described by Graham as ‘one of leading interpreters of Mali’s oral traditions’, joined the Ensemble Instrumental and made her first recordings as a solo singer with the national radio in 1960. Many of her 1970s recordings praised wealthy beneficiaries of Traoré’s regime (Graham 1988: 128–9, see also Ba Konaré 1993: 247f). Fanta Damba ‘Numéro Deux’ similarly gained national renown for her musical skills and ‘deep knowledge’ of musical traditions but, as older farmers from the Kita hinterlands commented appreciatively, she ‘kept out of politics’ and refrained from public praise of political leaders (confirmed by M. Soumano, personal communication, January 2020). 26 The opposite of faama (literally, ‘the person with means’) is fantan, ‘the person who has no means’, that is, someone poor, weak, powerless, and pitiable. 24

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diverse social origins inserted themselves into the market of flattery and entertainment.27 Most praise interactions between faamaw and their clients occurred in urban areas, yet broadcasting technology extended the culture of flattery to rural populations located within the reach of national radio. The commodification of jeli praise formed part of a broader process of the commercialization of culture in which audio and audio-visual recording technologies played a significant role. Audio recordings spread in the late 1970s, with the influx of low-cost tape recorders sent by migrant workers from France and other West African countries. By the mid-1980s, cassette culture had made a major impact on the national music market.28 This process intensified when national radio expanded its reach to remote rural areas and the urban north and, after 1983, when the creation of national television introduced new, visually mediated opportunities to display wealth and prestige during live broadcasts of jeli praise (Schulz 1999b; Diawara 2003; see Roth 2003). The political comeback of jeli singers formed part of a continued reification of southern musical traditions as emblems of Malian culture (Schulz 2001a, ch. 7), a reification closely related to the expansion of musical entertainment culture via broadcast media. This development had already started under the US-RDA, when jeli music and other southern musical genres were recorded at the national broadcast station and received a pride of place in its archive and daily programmes.29 Under President Traoré, because state radio still held a monopoly over the production and distribution of music, different regional musical styles were still represented very unequally in the radio-mediated national public. Significant segments of the northern population, because of their marginal existence in the nation’s linguistic and cultural landscape, were excluded by this representation of national culture (Schulz 2020).

Participation in international art festivals, which had started under President Keita, supported the professionalization process because the festivals showcased ‘national’ Malian culture performed by musicians from the south. The marketing of jeli music at national and international scales was facilitated by an emerging recording industry. Still, with the exception of musicians such as Mory Kanté and Salif Keita, until the 1990s, Malian jeli singers were mostly listened to by West African audiences. 28 Because no private production studios existed at this time, recordings were made at the national broadcast station and in Abidjan and Dakar. 29 By documenting Mande oral culture, ethnomusicologists and anthropologists contributed to the archive of national Malian music and oral tradition (e.g. Amselle and Bazin 1988; see Charry 2000). 27

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To many listeners from the Kita hinterlands and, more generally, from the Bamanakan-speaking realm of southern Mali, the ‘new jeliw’ (jeliw kura), epitomized the new political order and its culture of cronyism. Farmers of jeli and free-born family background to whom I talked in 1995 and in the 2000s regarded the affiliation of jeli singers with the new political leadership as a breach of a conventional honour code of patron–client relations. Even famous jeli women such as Kandia Kouyaté, for whom singing on behalf of the faamaw had become a lucrative business in this period, described the commercialization of praise as a loss. Their portrayal of commodified praise as an emptying out of age-old tradition and of disinterested traditional jeli praise echoes Nouhoun’s ‘things fall apart’ account of the political biography of jeli singers under Moussa Traoré. It also mirrors the ways in which patrons and jeliw alike retrospectively idealize historical patron–client relations as a social bond untainted by economic interest and as mediated through stylistically and morally pure traditional praise. This idealized image of past relations allows both sides to deplore the dissolution of patron–client ties (Schulz 1998). Rather than take this critique of an emptying out of an age-old, honourable tradition at face value, we should view it as a reflection on significant transformations in the institutional and technological setting of jeli praise that, reaching far back into the colonial period, became more marked during the 1970s and 1980s. Before assessing the implications of these institutional transformations on the efficacy of jeli praise as a mode of generating legitimacy, the following section quickly sketches how the institutional transformations showed in the lyrics and formats of broadcast praise.

Changing forms and lyrics of jeli praise Transformations prompted by the colonial economy, the concomitant dissolution of patron–client relations between jeli families and their free-born or noble patrons, and the alteration of conventional socio-political hierarchies by Western school education and colonial administration created new conditions for jeli praise in urban settings. These processes set the stage for jeli praise to become a distinct occupation performed for pay, on behalf of changing patrons of often questionable origins, and in the service of a new elite tied to state politics. An expanding infrastructure of broadcasting technologies significantly altered the conditions and implications of jeli praise.

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Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the changing institutional parameters of jeli praise manifested themselves in a standardization of praise lines into fixed formulas which, in a cut-and-paste fashion, could be attributed indiscriminately and to changing faamaw. For jeli singers, these changes had momentous consequences. Because mass mediation often rendered the direct interaction between jeli and patron unnecessary, the immediate remuneration, once a fixed component of the praise interaction, was no longer guaranteed. In consequence, jeli singers need to find new ways, or strengthen old ones, to oblige their patrons through rhetorical means to show their ‘gratitude’ (walinyumandon) and recognition of a jeli’s ‘good deeds’. Praise songs performed in the era of President Traoré give a sense of the challenges faced by jeli singers who sought to endear themselves to the new political leadership. Praise lyrics, though performed under radically new conditions, still articulated an idiom of clientelism, that is, of moral and material dependency on the patron’s generosity. At the same time, the lyrics increasingly hinted at shifts in the conditions, significance, and audiences of praise performances, under the effects of commercialization, mass mediation, and radically new political conditions.30 For one thing, the songs revealed a marked concern with eliciting a prompt return for her praise. For instance, in her praise song ‘Mansakè’ (‘kingly ruler’), dedicated to Moussa Traoré and broadcast for the first time in 1973, the jeli Ami Diarra indirectly acknowledges the mass-mediated nature of the praise interaction and suggests that this situation entails a loss in control for both patron and jeli and therefore generates new risks and insecurities. For jeliw, speedy and generous recompense became less certain, and for patrons, the always impending risks of competition, failure, and of a damaged reputation became more imminent. In the song, Ami Diarra repeatedly reminds Traoré as the recipient of her praise, that their interaction now takes place under the watchful eyes of an audience that evaluates the jeli singer’s skills and New musical arrangements illustrate the changing form and conditions of praise. Musical and rhythmic patterns formerly associated with specific status groups and family identities have been disconnected from their earlier patronage setting and reinserted into a context of entertainment culture. New musical arrangements of praise songs combine conventional instruments, such as the balafon and the jembe and dundun drums, with electric guitar and keyboard. New musical styles, promoted by the music groups Twins of Lafiabougou (with Mory Kanté as its most famous member), Railband, and Les Ambassadeurs, were integrated into praise songs on behalf of Moussa Traoré and beneficiaries of his regime; they illustrate the blending of the praise genre with urban leisure and entertainment music, attuned to a new generation of consumers and their preference for ‘hot’ (dance) music (Charry 2000: 335–7). 30

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the patron’s generous reward (Schulz 2001a: 199–203). By highlighting her expectation of an immediate recompense, Ami Diarra hints at the difference between her praise performance and a conventional, routine client service, which was only occasionally compensated immediately. Her insistence on an immediate return references the distinctly novel, short-term nature of the praise encounter between jeli and patron.31 Another recurrent feature of praise in the time of Moussa Traoré was that jeli singers presented themselves as witnesses of the patron’s political successes. By referring to ‘deeds’ of national import, jeli singers alluded to the existence of a national public and to the instrumental role of mass media in creating this public. They stressed that the new, mass-mediated praise encounter between jeli singers and patrons generated new risks and insecurities for politicians and other faamaw. They interspersed praise lines with warnings that patrons should take care not to antagonize clients who are in a position to secure or destroy their name, and that to keep ahead of political enemies, they should show their ‘open-handedness’ vis-à-vis the performing jeli (Schulz 1999b; 2001a, ch. 5).32 Jeli singers thus highlighted their central role in the reputation management of patrons in the conventional form; but their warnings acquired a new salience in the context of mass-mediated performances, which raised the stakes for politicians’ need to save face and maintain reputation and legitimacy. Earlier in this chapter, I argued that jeli praise performed as part of US-RDA party’s nation-building endeavour reflected, and partly foundered on, the tension between particularistic, identity-specific notions of the rightful rule formulated by jeliw on one side, and their assertion that the new political system’s legitimacy was grounded in the will of the people. Because jeli singers laid claim to each of these understandings of rightful rule, understandings that ruled each other out, their endeavour to generate legitimacy on behalf of the new political system was doomed to fail. What arguments about the rightful political leadership did jeli singers offer in their praise in times of Moussa Traoré? Jeli singers posited the legitimacy of Moussa Traoré’s rule by arguing that it was in direct continuity with pre-colonial political traditions and criteria for access to power. Whereas under Modibo Keita, references to See lines 104–6, 117–20 of the song (cited and analysed in full length in Schulz 2001a). 32 This is illustrated by Tata Bambo Kouyaté’s song ‘Sama’: it repeatedly alludes to the new political environment, in which power depends on wealth and privileged access to state institutions and political office. 31

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age-old cultural traditions and a nation born out of anti-colonial sentiment prevailed, jeli praise on behalf of Moussa Traoré’s military regime and singleparty rule highlighted two sources of power: military strength and wealth. Songs stressed the regime’s capacity to exert power through brute force, and celebrated wealth as a source of power and prestige. Jeli praise thus stressed the major difference between, on one side, the ‘intellectual power’ of US-RDA party politicians, whose political office was founded on Western education, and on the other side, the military power of Moussa Traoré and his fellow officers. A good illustration of the changes in jeli argument and rhetoric is Tata Bambo Kouyaté’s song ‘Sama’ (‘Elephant’), broadcast on national radio in 1988. The song justifies Moussa Traoré’s rule and power position as the outcome of the mutual conversion of military strength, money, and prestige (Schulz 2001a: 176f). How did listeners from the Kita hinterlands respond to jeli praise performed on behalf of Moussa Traoré’s regime and its beneficiaries? On what basis did they evaluate the validity of jeli singers’ claims? And to what extent did their comments address the altered conditions of jeli praise?

The shifting effects and effectiveness of jeli praise Authors such as Askew (2002) and Apter (2005), while studying the role of cultural performances in official representations of the nation, have paid limited attention to the effects of these performances on specific audiences. To ascertain how culture actually plays into ‘performances’ of the nation, and of the political order more broadly, a closer investigation is needed of the responses by spectators and listeners to the staged events, and of the attitudes reflected in these responses. Nouhoun, whom I quoted in the Introduction, recalled Moussa Traoré’s rule as a time when listeners from the Kita hinterlands grew increasingly dissatisfied by jeli praise that they perceived as flattery, composed to earn money from various patrons. Nouhoun identified the commodified nature of jeli praise as the main reason for its loss of social relevance, referring to the fact that praise, as a commodity, no longer articulated relations of mutual dependency, and that money now mediated relations between jeliw and patrons. Nouhoun did not mention that the disaffection with jeli praise for political leaders also had to do with their experience of being once again excluded from the spoils of political power. Like those of other farmers to whom I talked in the same locality, his account focused almost entirely on money and jeli singers’‘greed’ as the driving forces of the erosion of patron–client relations.

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This account conceals other important changes in the institutional conditions, changes that deprived jeli praise of some of its earlier credibility and hence effectiveness in generating audience approval and consent. As I argued elsewhere, for listeners to identify money as the major force of degradation implies ignorance, or remaining silent about, how changing socio-political hierarchies and mass media technologies have altered the conditions for jeli praise and thereby chipped away at its credibility and appeal (Schulz 2001a: chs 4, 6). Older farmers’ retrospective critique of jeli praise ‘under Moussa’33 centred as much on its formal characteristics and as on its social function. They often referred to musical and rhythmic components and to a performer’s ‘deep’ historical knowledge and choice of words as criteria of a song’s quality. Yet by far the most frequent criterion, one that also pervaded their evaluations of local live performances, was a song’s (use) value (nafa, also ‘advantage’), a term that refers to a song’s morally edifying and socially binding effects, in other words, its capacity to ‘make people agree’ (bèn, also ‘come together’) and teach them ‘moral lessons’ (ladili). Nafa, my conversation partners often observed, had permeated early broadcasts of their favourite jeli singers. To them, the value of these songs was reconfirmed when national radio broadcast this music to a broader public as national tradition. As Aliou, one of my hosts, put it: with some women [singers], you would always agree (identify, bèn), saying ‘aa, what a voice, what a talent, how she knows our past and the genuine (yèrèyèrè) tunes of our place!’ Fanta Numéro Deux, no matter what she sang, … people would say ‘uh, stop talking and listen to her, she speaks about us, listen carefully’. … We recognized the way she played, she made us agree. To hear our own real tunes [on national radio], this really pleased us.

Siaka, of approximately the same age as Aliou, similarly recalled the emotionally moving effects of Fanta Damba’s early radio songs. Fanta Damba’s songs were agreeable. When I heard her play ‘Jajiri’ ee, no, I felt … words cannot tell you, so agreeable was her song. … We felt elated, indeed. It made us jump up and dance. The same goes for ‘Tara’. This song, you know, it is played for El Hadj Umar, the great warrior. So when you hear it, you feel the past closing in you, that what he did in the past, it matters to us, it is meaningful to us. Conversation partners in the Kita rural hinterlands distinguished between the CMLN military regime and the UDPM one-party rule as ‘times of fanga’ and ‘the time when politiki came back’. They did not apply the same distinction to broadcast praise, but broadly referred to ‘Moussa’s time’ as when jeli praise’s true value was ‘emptied’. 33

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Both comments locate the value (nafa) of a song in a voice’s capacity to affect listeners, to boost their sense of belonging, of being grounded in the local community and in the past. The polysemic term bèn reflects the close link posited by Aliou and Siaka between music, voice, the social, and the moral. The verb bèn denotes a social act with a physical and experiential-moral component (‘to meet’ and ‘to agree’); as a noun, bèn denotes both rhythm and beat. Its causative form (labèn) means both ‘to beat (a rhythm)’ and ‘to make people agree’ (see Charry 2000: 325). Aliou and Siaka identify as the value of broadcast jeli performances their capacity to ‘beat’ them into agreement and hence to make them a community of shared aesthetic appreciation. This characterization hints at the sensory and aesthetic dimensions of generating consent through jeli praise. The comments also refer to the role of broadcast technologies in mediating community. Both speakers describe radio-mediated voice as fostering an emotional rapprochement of listeners, and between listeners and the jeli singer, across physical distances.To them, radio broadcasting made a difference, but only in degree, not in quality, because it strengthened the community-building effects of jeli voice, praise, and speech. Yet Nouhoun’s portrayal of ‘distorted’ praise also indicates that his attitude and that of other listeners from the Kita region to jeli praise under Moussa Traoré was deeply ambivalent.To them, the distortion of praise referred first to the mixing of styles and tunes, a mixing that my conversation partners related to the superficiality, speed, and cultural and moral promiscuity of urban life on one side,34 and to technologies of recording, duplication, and broadcasting on the other.35 In contradistinction to these ‘distorted’ songs, farmers posited (and reified) the existence of genuine, unchanging musical traditions of their locale that were associated with specific social identities, such as clan names. Farmers’ labelling of urban music as ‘distorted’ hints at a moral and spatial ordering scheme (a ‘moral geography’, see Thomas 2002) that brings to mind the contrast between pre-colonial power (fanga) In Bamanakan/Maninkakan, differences in tempo, temperament, and temperature are semantically ordered through the same categories (kalan, ‘hot’, ‘fast’; sumaya, ‘cool’, ‘slow’). Sabali means both to slow down and to show patience (see Charry 2000: 327). 35 This was also evident when farmers recalled how they visited town and saw jeli women perform on national television. As one host put it, ‘when I saw her [Mogontafe Sacko on television], I was pleased, I said, “aa, now I can finally see how she looks like.” … But what she did was mere amusement (nanaje, tlon, play). Night after night they show the same song, so what she says loses its meaning. They [the new jeliw] did not tell us something meaningful. These new jeliw, they had nothing to do with us.’ 34

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and politiki (see Chapter 1). By emphasizing their attachment to their ‘true’ (yèrèyèrè) traditions, which are the opposite of jeli praise corrupted by broadcasting and commerce, farmers such as Nouhoun deplore their own political and economic marginality within the national community (see Stokes 1992: 10–14; 1994: 7; see also Williams 1973). The second characteristic feature of a distorted song, its lacking of ‘head and tail’, refers to its uprooting from the original social and performance context. Praise, although designated for specific patrons and family identities, was now bestowed on any rich person, regardless of whether the events referred to in the song had any connection to his or her family. As Modibo (whom we know from Chapter 1) put it, deriding jeli singers who performed the duga (a praise designated for bravery in war):36 this praise without head and tail started under Moussa … All of a sudden, you heard jeliw (on national radio) play the duga, and say, ‘you are the son of so-and-so, your father was a great hero, you are a hero, you traveled everywhere, even to France.’ But there is no meaning, no nafa. They play it for someone who has never seen a lance in his life. Someone who is a merchant. Why sing the duga for them, if they never excelled on the battlefield? … this [kind of flattery] became even worse when politiki came back (i.e. after 1979).

To which Sharif, Modibo’s age-mate, added, ‘what these new jeliw said was useless to us. They were only after money. They had nothing in common with our real jeliw, those who tell us who we are.’ Both remarks identify radio broadcasting and commodification as mechanisms that dissociate particular tunes from regionally specific social identities, such as status categories and clan names.37 Praise-for-pay, and the concomitant standardization of the praise’s exchange (monetary) value, casts doubt on both jeli and faama. Modibo’s and Sharif ’s ‘things fall apart’ perspective on jeli praise not only idealizes the allegedly disinterested nature of traditional praise and what it accomplished historically (see Introduction). The perspective also brings

According to Bird (1972: 280, 468), the duga was originally associated with Duga Koro, the king of Kore, and, after his defeat by Da Monson Diarra of Segu, with the latter (see Charry 2000: 155). 37 As mentioned before, radio broadcasting contributes to another form of dissociation: the separation of individual elements of jeli performances, such as praise passages, and their objectification as ‘pieces’ (morceaux in French) of music that become emblematic of ‘Malian’ music. Pace Keita (1995) and Diawara (1996, 2003: 223–35), these processes are invigorated but not prompted by mass media technologies. 36

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to mind Walter Benjamin’s famous argument about the effects of cultural forms’ technical reproducibility on their significance (Benjamin 1968 [1936]). According to Benjamin, the auratic qualities and authenticity of traditional art works depended on the immediate cultic context in which they were embedded, and on the physical distance between observer and object. Works with ‘aura’ (and this element of his argument has sometimes been overlooked) also generated particular modes of attention, that is, absorption, empathy, and identification, all of which are (in a political sense) passive. The rise of technologies of ‘mechanical reproducibility’ allows for the production of cultural forms that lack the auratic qualities and affective effects of earlier art works because they dissociate art works from their ritual context and abolish the distance between art form and consumer. Benjamin (who thought mostly of photography and film, see 1968: 32), posited that the new, reproducible cultural forms generate new modes of perception that encompass distraction (‘shock’), and, Benjamin emphasizes, a sense of distance or ‘distanced estrangement’ (Verfremdungseffekt) that have the potential for more active – that is, critical and therefore politically relevant – engagements (1968: 41). While Benjamin has been taken to task, most famously by Adorno (1938), for his technological determinism, his analysis is relevant insofar as he points out that not only the qualities of cultural forms change, but with them, consumers’ modes of aesthetic and affective perception (Apperzeption). Only if we recognize the import of aesthetic perception will we understand the seemingly paradoxical ways in which jeli praise invoked, and simultaneously pointed at the limits of, traditional conceptions of rightful rule as the foundations of political legitimacy. Aesthetic perception is crucial to our understanding of the ambivalent responses to jeli praise, responses that make more room for contradiction than Benjamin’s account of the move from tradition to modernity, from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft (as Tönnies would have it), from embedded ritual to dissociated and reproducible cultural forms.38 We can conclude from the evaluation of broadcast jeli praise by farmers from the Kita hinterlands that they perceived the effects of broadcast technologies to be deeply paradoxical. They stressed radio technology’s Discrepancies between farmers’ and Benjamin’s accounts of what prompts the erosion of cultural form’s use-value (or ‘aura’) replays the controversy between Adorno (1938) and Benjamin over whether technological innovation per se deprives art forms of their ‘aura’. As a curious echo of Adorno’s position, farmers identify as the principal motor of alteration not radio broadcasting, but ‘money’ and the forms of dissociation and social fragmentation it embodies. 38

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capacity to magnify a voice’s aesthetic appeal and to generate experiences of community through replication and dissemination, yet they also pointed to the technology’s uncanny capacities to dissociate praise from its earlier social relevance. Did farmers’ disaffection with ‘distorted’ praise mean that jeli singers failed entirely in fostering consent with the political status quo? To what extent, and in what ways, were jeli singers successful in generating legitimacy on behalf of the political order established under Traoré’s CMLN and UDPM rule? Clearly, the farmers whose recollections of Mogontafe and Fanta Damba I quoted did not take their claims at face value or consider them to be accurate; they nevertheless felt compelled by the aesthetic appeal of their praise and also, during live interactions between jeli singers and faamaw, by their display of rhetorical prowess, prestige, and wealth (Schulz 1999b). Jeli praise did not generate legitimacy on behalf of the new political elite in any direct, argumentative way, but it helped garner respect and awe for political leaders by lauding them in an aesthetically pleasing form that echoed conventional modes of prestige enhancement (see Bourdieu 1991: 177–81). Also, jeli praise helped to naturalize the nation-state as the new frame of collective reference. Radio audiences from the Kita rural hinterlands felt elated by the mere experience of hearing their own cultural traditions being broadcast on national radio. Their resentment of distorted jeli praise did not keep them from genuinely enjoying them when they heard them on national radio. Therefore, the promotion of jeli oral performances under US-RDA party rule eventually came to bear its fruits under Moussa Traoré, although in ways unintended by US-RDA party ideologues. The broadcasting of jeli praise undermined its credibility with regard to its construction of rightful political rule.Yet among audiences whose historical traditions jeli praise articulated, such as the populations from the rural hinterlands of Kita, the remediation of jeli praise via national radio (and, after 1983, television) fostered recognition of the nation as a shared framework of reference.

Conclusion What conclusions can we draw from the preceding genetic account of political legitimacy under the first two governments of independent Mali? In what ways did jeli praise contribute to generating legitimacy on behalf of the postcolonial nation-state? And where does this leave us with respect to Beetham’s identification of the expression of consent as a constitutive element of legitimacy?

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The effectiveness of jeli praise can be judged only by ascertaining the dispositions it generated among audiences; yet because of its retrospective nature, the reconstruction of these dispositions has limited reliability. Judging by the reminiscences of older farmers from the Kita hinterlands, the broadcasting of jeli praise under the presidencies of Keita and Traoré prompted a range of reactions, spanning from elation, emotional identification, pride, disaffection, and outright rejection. It fostered in listeners a disposition of agreement and compliance as much as it gave room for disappointment, probing, and dissent. The claims, aesthetics and rituals of radio-mediated jeli praise were effective above and beyond its widely agreed-upon venal nature. It appealed to individuals on whose behalf jeli praise was performed and also to audiences from the south who recognized in jeli praise their own oral and musical traditions. For other regional audiences, however, the repetitive broadcasting of jeli praise on national radio was a strong reason to disagree with official celebrations of the nation, and to highlight their political and economic marginality within the nation-state (Schulz 2020). Jeli singers’ attempts to generate legitimacy on behalf of the governments of Modibo Keita and Moussa Traoré thus remained unfinished business. As we already saw in Chapter 1, the legitimacy foundations of the nation-state remained shaky and in question. Highlighting the paradoxical effects of jeli praise is of key import to understanding how legitimacy dispositions are generated. Even if jeli singers or the rhetoric or stylistics of their praise may give reason to reject specific claims of jeli praise, this does not exclude a song’s aesthetic appeal and its emotive effects on listeners. The aesthetic dimension of praise, as well as its choreographic mise en scène, may be of similar or greater import to a compelling praise performance as the claims formulated by jeli singers. This insight has several implications for our understanding of the effectiveness of jeli praise as a mode of generating acceptance of a political order. First, jeli praise worked most effectively in generating acceptance in indirect ways, that is, not by providing explicit justification, but by fostering identification with a broader collectivity defined by a shared historical experience and cultural traditions. This confirms a point made already in Chapter 1: when exploring people’s views and practices of conferring or probing political legitimacy, we are well advised to distinguish analytically between the legitimacy of a political order and that of individual representatives of a political system, even if the social actors in question do not uphold this distinction in their assessments.

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Second, jeli praise worked most effectively through its aesthetic and ritual-choreographic dimensions, not through argumentative claims, for instance, about a leader’s deeds or prestigious genealogy. Third, the multidimensional workings of jeli praise, and the fact that, to listeners from the rural hinterlands of Kita, its appeal outweighed its alleged venal nature, points to the limitations of studies of the politics of jeli praise that focus exclusively on praise lyrics (Cutter 1968; Diawara 1994, 2003; Zobel 1997; Hale 1998; Schulz 2001a). Fourth, the fact that praise performed by jeli singers from different areas of southern Mali on behalf of the governments of Presidents Keita and Traoré retained some of its appeal calls for a systematic assessment of the interplay between the argumentative, the aesthetic, and the choreographicritual dimension of the performances through which jeli singers sought to foster acceptance of the new political order among Malian populations. Only by paying systematic attention to how the three dimensions intertwine can we understand the seemingly contradictory comments and responses of my hosts in the rural areas of Kita. The following chapter will take up this insight and explore its implications for the subsequent history of cultural politics in Mali. It is now time to return to Beetham’s tripartite model of the ‘normative structure’ of legitimacy, specifically to his argument that the ‘public expression of consent’ forms a constitutive element of legitimacy. Beetham uses the word ‘consent’ to describe the favourable attitude of subordinate groups of society to the political order and its representatives. Consent in his account comes close to agreement with and acceptance of a political order; it also implies that subordinates give those in power the licence to decide and act as they see fit. Beetham does not consider the attitude of consent to be in itself a structural component of legitimacy. Rather, in his account, consent needs to be expressed in order to operate as a constitutive feature of legitimacy. It is hard to see how this could be the case and how the argument fits Beetham’s overall approach to legitimacy. Subordinates’ attitudes of consent or agreement are essential components of political legitimacy, regardless of whether these attitudes find public expression or not.Yet although I disagree with Beetham’s argument that only the expression of consent generates legitimacy, I find it important to take seriously his insistence on the centrality of practices of approval. I maintain that the expression of consent does play a constitutive role for legitimacy as long as we conceive of legitimacy as persisting, unfolding, and receding in time. The expression of consent contributes to legitimacy’s stability and perpetuity over time and is in this sense, an essential component of legitimacy.

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This leads me to argue, as a reprise of my argument in Chapter 1, that we should abandon a static, schematic view of legitimacy as either existent or absent. If we adopt instead a dynamic approach, we recognize that for the longevity and stability of legitimacy, its permanent reproduction and making (in part, through the subordinate’s expression of consent) is a necessary condition without which it could not exist. This leaves us with the question as to whether the notion of consent offers a useful entry point for accounts of the structure of legitimacy. Conceptually, the distinction between consent and its expression reiterates a long-standing dichotomy between ‘internal attitude’ and ‘outward performance’ that fails to consider the performative dimension of speech, gestures and other practices, not only their representative dimension (see Starrett 1995; Asad 2003, ch. 2; Mahmood 2005, ch. 4). Also, earlier in this chapter, I mentioned that considerable empirical and methodological difficulties are involved in the study of public expressions of consent. If we focus on visible and audible responses to official celebrations of power, it is impossible to distinguish consent from compliance (Wedeen 2015 [1999]). Conversely, I would argue, we cannot extrapolate from the lack of public signalling of consent that consent is non-existent. Empirical difficulties are even greater if we aim at a historical reconstruction of past dispositions or signs of consent. But the solution to this empirical-methodological impasse is not, as suggested by Wedeen (2015), to replace ‘consent’ with ‘compliance’, and to argue that those subject to state power simply engage in make-believe practices. Dismissing the relevance or actual existence of legitimacy altogether would confront us with a host of questions discussed in the Introduction to this book. Perhaps most importantly, this argument responds to an empiricalmethodological challenge with a conceptual argument (about the irrelevance of legitimacy). In contrast, I suggest that we respond to the difficulty of reading responses and attitudes by expanding our empirical lens. That is, I maintain that people’s dispositions towards a political order should and can be extrapolated from a range of practices in which they engage outside and beyond the settings and situations of staged performances and mass-mediated celebrations of state power. We need to look at the legitimizing effects of praise songs beyond people’s responses to and engagements with them. The next chapter turns to practices and comments through which actors assess, assign, and contest political legitimacy outside the staged celebration of state power or of individual politicians.

3 Decentralization and Political Legitimacy in Mali You ask me what we, the farmers, got from decentralization? Well, nothing. Decentralization, the commune … all this is part of politiki people’s wheeling and dealing. There is no advantage for us in decentralization, it is something for intellectuals from town. Farmer in his sixties, from the circle of Kita, April 2015

Introduction For more than a decade after the toppling of President Traoré in 1991, scholars of Mali portrayed the Malian transition to multiparty democracy as a watershed event that marked a departure from a highly centralized and authoritarian single-party system to one granting room for public debate, associational life, and other forms of civil society participation (e.g. Bingen et al. 2000; Bratton et al. 2002;Wing 2008; Baudais 2016; see Schulz 2012: ch. 1). Stressing the legitimacyenhancing effects of these institutional transformations, authors tended to take the actions and demands of an educated segment of Mali’s urban populations as representative of ‘widespread political will’ and of the perceptions of ‘many Malian citizens’ (Wing and Kassibo 2014: 113; see also Bratton et al. 2002; Hetland 2007: 96–7;Wing 2008: 3, 6, 79).Against such sweeping generalizations about Malian popular opinion, and optimistic views on how swiftly institutional reform might bring about a change in people’s constructions of political legitimacy, this chapter probes whether constitutional and institutional changes introduced in Mali in the 1990s did indeed prompt substantial transformations first, in popular perceptions of the legitimacy of the political system and its key representatives; and second, in the rationale and forms of political decision making, influence taking, and control. The forms and nature of political practice in Africa have been a favourite subject of political and social science scholarship on Africa. In an effort to decide whether one can speak of a specific character in African politics

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(Médard 1982) or of ‘the African state’ (Bayart et al. 1997; Mbembe 1992a, b), authors have examined what rationale informs the actions of state officials and those who solicit the services of the state bureaucracy, or alternatively seek to evade its regulatory efforts. The results of these analyses have remained somewhat inconclusive, as authors have generated different, sometimes even opposed typologies of ‘the African state’ and ‘politics in Africa’ (see Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 2014). Moreover, questions relating to the legitimacy of the political system and of individual office holders, state officials, and politicians have not been addressed in a systematic fashion.The classificatory impulse of political science scholarship on politics in Africa makes authors overlook the actual dynamics of legitimation and legitimacy. Particularly striking is the tendency of authors to mix questions relating to the legitimacy of a political system (notably, people’s assessment of the performance of a political order or of individual office holders) with the motivations and perspective of those who occupy posts within this system and on whose practices the working, and the modus operandi of the state administrative and political apparatus depends significantly. Characteristic of this lack of analytical distinction is Erdmann’s and Engel’s (2006) critical review of the neo-patrimonialism paradigm in Africanist political science literature, and of the concept’s adequacy for understanding the nature of politics in sub-Saharan Africa. Tracing the concept from Weber to Eisenstadt (1973), Médard (1982), Bratton and van de Walle (1997) and Chabal and Daloz (1999), Erdmann and Engel maintain that a proper conceptualization of the term is needed to account for the essentially ‘hybrid’ nature of African politics, that is, of its combination of ‘patrimonial’ and legal-rational bureaucratic types of domination that penetrate each other and ‘twist’ each other’s ‘logic, function, and effect’ (2006: 17–18). Erdmann’s and Engel’s observation of the impossibility of neatly separating the rational-legal system from the patrimonial system is very pertinent. Still, their discussion suffers from a lack of distinction between ‘types of domination’ (which they characterize, following Weber, as distinct types of legitimation and sources of legitimacy), the ‘role systems’ within which the office holders (such as state and party officials) act, and finally the ‘logics’ according to which, on one side, these office holders make political decisions and perform their administrative tasks, and on the other side, ‘ordinary citizens’ navigate the politico-administrative system and pursue their interests and goals (Erdmann and Engel 2006: 18). Another case in point is Olivier de Sardan’s reflection on the neo-patrimonialism literature, in particular his critique of its tendency to adopt from Weber an argument- and ‘belief ’-centred approach to legitimacy (2015: 81).

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While Olivier de Sardan’s critique is entirely apposite, it is not evident how his proposition to understand African political practice in terms of ‘practical norms’ could bring more clarity into the debate. Simply replacing one concept by another, without further conceptualization of the non-cognitive dimensions of ‘practical norms’ and of the exact relationship between ‘norms’ and ‘practice’, is not a satisfactory solution. To understand political practice and legitimacy requires scrutinizing the different components of actors’ dispositions that form the backdrop to their actions and strategies.1 Moreover, substantial clarification is needed of the relationship between, on one side, the conceptions of a political order that inform people’s assessments of a political system’s legitimacy, and on the other, the general dispositions or attitudes that these people hold vis-à-vis the political system. To pursue this line of analysis, the chapter reflects on the implications of political reform for notions of political legitimacy. It does so by focusing on how a specific segment of Mali’s southern rural populations engaged with decentralization reform that international donors, political leaders, and also some political analysts hailed as an important means of bolstering the legitimacy of the new political system (e.g. Wing 2013: 477, 480; Wing and Kassibo 2014; but see Kassibo 1997a; Hetland 2008: 23, 26). The chapter elaborates on existing scholarship on the forms and implication of decentralization reform in Mali (e.g. Kassibo 1997a,b; Djiré and Dicko 2007; Wing and Kassibo 2014), by centring attention on the relation between legal-institutional reform, people’s perceptions of political legitimacy, and their actual engagement with the newly created political structures.With its empirical focus on the changing conditions for, and conceptions of, political legitimacy in one particular rural locale since the mid-1990s, the chapter also offers a counterpoint to generalizing assumptions about an allegedly broad initial acceptance of decentralization by an ‘engaged citizenry’ (Wing 2013: 479–80; Wing and Kassibo 2014: 113).2 The same observation holds for Therkildsen’s (2014) use of Erdmann’s and Engel’s (2006) concept of ‘hybrid logics’. Although he observes that the actions of bureaucrats are informed by motivations other than a legal-rational and the patrimonial logic, he does not further conceptualize them. 2 To posit a broad initial support for decentralization is especially misleading when tied to the argument that the ‘failure’ of decentralization policy to ‘live up’ to the ‘expectations of many Malians’ fostered the return of armed conflict in the north after 2006 and ‘intra-village conflicts’ (Wing and Kassibo 2014: 113, 131; see Wing 2013). Intra-village resource conflicts have a complex legacy in Mali’s different regions and may often have been merely reignited by decentralization politics (e.g. Kassibo 1997a; Fay et al. 2006; Lima 2003; Benjamin 2008). Similarly, as demonstrated by Lecocq and 1

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Administrative decentralization After 1994, the government of President Konaré embarked on an ambitious programme of administrative reform, the Politique de la Décentralisation. ‘Decentralization’ has been a broadly defined common denominator for a variety of institutional-legal reforms financed by Western donor organizations across sub-Saharan Africa since the early 1990s (e.g. Rothchild 1994; Parker 1995; Ouedraogo 2003; Dickovick and Wunsch 2014). Decentralization refers to three distinct processes of devolving competences to local actors. First, the delegation of administrative competences; second, the delegation of functional-technical capacities; and third, the devolution of political powers, for instance, those necessary for participation in local decisionmaking processes (Leclerc-Olive 2007: 413–14; see Nijenhuis 2003: 70–1; Wunsch 2014: 9–11). Given the great variation in the forms and degrees in which decentralization reform has been put into practice, the actual implementation of decentralization policy can be assessed by considering which dimensions have been realized and which powers the central state is reluctant to transfer to the local level.3 The Malian Politique de la Décentralisation aimed at the devolving of administrative powers and financial autonomy to local administrative and executive units. A considerable measure of budgetary decision making and control, as well as administrative tasks concerning educational and health infrastructure, was to be delegated to the newly created units (communes), managed by (elected) municipal councils and mayors (Felix 1996; Kassibo 1997b; Coulibaly 2010; Wing and Kassibo 2014). The eight new regions, in addition to the capital district of Bamako, consist of five to nine districts (cercles) each that break down into several communes that, in turn, are divided into villages or quarters. The urgency of administrative decentralization was underscored by militant opposition to the central state in the northern regions, particularly around Kidal and Gao, which had contributed to the destabilization of Moussa Traoré’s regime since the mid-1980s and flared up time and again after President Konaré’s election in 1992 (see Seely 2001; Hetland 2008; Lima Schrijver (2007) and Lecocq et al. (2013), dynamics leading to uprisings in Mali’s north are more complex than a disappointment with decentralization reform. Here again, analysis is needed of how different groups of Mali’s northern population perceived political-administrative reform and engaged new local government institutions. 3 The different dimensions of ‘decentralization’ might occur separately and conflict with each other (Leclerc-Olive 2007: 414).

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2013).4 In 1996, the government and an alliance of factions that participated in the armed conflict signed a ‘Pacte National’ to end the fighting and restore stability in the north. The pact granted a certain measure of autonomy to the north as well as an increase in government resource allocation, and created favourable conditions for repatriating the civil population that had fled the country during the conflict. It led to a temporary appeasement in Mali’s northern territories, yet it also strengthened multiple parastate structures of power and control in the far north, particularly in the region of Kidal, which vied for the allocation of resources from the central state and international aid agencies (Klute and Trotha 2004), and led to renewed political instability in the north after 2006. Contrary to the claims connected to this ambitious reform programme, and similar to other African countries (see Ribot 1999; Fay et al. 2006; Dickovick and Wunsch 2014), in Mali so far the delegation of administrative powers has not been accompanied by a transfer of financial and technical means necessary for communal office holders and staff to realize their newly acquired mandate and responsibilities (Hetland 2007: 112–13; Lima 2013: 107–9; Wing and Kassibo 2014: 114, 118,120, 127). Nor has the central state provided local administrative structures with the political and legal powers necessary to resolve matters of conflict among different local factions. Instead, administrative decentralization measures generated new dynamics at different junctures in local politics, and between local and national politics, with consequences that were neither intended nor anticipated by international donors and policy makers. Moreover, as Maiga and Diallo (1998) point out, the repercussions of political and administrative reform varied considerably from region to region and from one locale to another.5 The following discussion teases out the specific dynamics in the The government represented the uprising as a ‘Tuareg rebellion’. Leaders of the northern oppositional movement spoke of their struggle against a government of ‘southerners’ that since independence had marginalized northern peoples economically and politically. Yet the uprising put into relief more complex lines of competition among different segments of the northern population that were partly prompted by their differential access to the central state (Lecocq 2010; Boiley 1999). 5 Maiga and Diallo (1998: 6–7) observe of the Mopti region that the stakes and actors of these struggles vary from one location to another, which makes it hard to generalize about their outcomes. Conflicts over land and water have increased in many places since the 1980s as a consequence of drought and soil erosion that made cultivable land an increasingly embattled resource, and that forced pastoralists to adopt farming as a source of income. Conflicts increasingly pit extended families or village ‘communities’ and individuals against each other, a trend boosted by the return of former civil servants 4

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rural hinterlands of Kita where this ethnography of farmers’ conceptions of political legitimacy has been located so far. In line with the book’s overall interest in questions of legitimacy and authority, the current chapter analyses the repercussions of decentralization reform that crystallize in local political arenas, yet reach out regionally and nationally, asking how these dynamics affect farmers’ conceptions of political order and legitimacy.

Decentralization as a motor of political legitimation? Has decentralization reform changed farmers’ understandings of rightful rule and their attitudes to the state political system? Optimistic accounts such as those by Leclerc-Olive (1997, 2003, 2007) view decentralization as contributing to the effervescence of a ‘hybrid space’ (espace métisse) that fosters local political participation and, in the long run, strengthens the ‘legitimacy’ of the central state.6 According to Leclerc-Olive, administrative decentralization has put a greater burden on the new local administrative institutions and representatives who, held accountable by their electorate, find themselves under considerable and conflicting pressures to resolve conflicts in the interest of their support groups (2007). Leclerc’s argument about the legitimizing effects of greater downward accountability is called into question by authors such as Hetland (2007: 112f) and Wing and Kassibo (2014: 114, 125), who cite the limited accountability of local government representatives as a reason for the ‘failure’ of the Malian decentralization programme. Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan (2003) offer an even more differentiated portrayal of the effects of recent political reform. They argue that democratization in sub-Saharan Africa, along with decentralization reforms since the late 1980s, has added layers of complexity to the already existing heterogeneous and conflict-ridden landscapes of local politics, but has not substantially increased local acceptance and legitimacy of state institutions and actors. This argument is echoed by authors who argue that decentralization in Mali (Beridogo 1997; Kassibo 1997b) and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. Ribot 1999) has led to a proliferation of forms of political authority, rather than to a broader legitimacy base for the state political system (see Krämer 2016). According to these authors, the granting of to their rural homes after the 1980s public sector reforms, and by the privatization of land, especially in urban peripheries (Bertrand 1994, 1999). 6 Echoing Leclerc-Olive’s optimistic portrayal of decentralization reform, Bratton et al. (2002) and Wing (2008) maintain that devolving decision-making powers to the local level enabled greater civic participation.

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formalized, state-backed power to traditional authorities (for instance, by making them elected municipal councillors) generates new opportunities for assertions of tradition-based authority, but also for their contestation. Not only do these ‘traditional’ authorities often lack the pedigree necessary to actually perform their newly won administrative powers, but the very basis of their power, that is, its grounding in allegedly long-standing local tradition, frequently becomes an object of contestation. This argument is highly significant because it extends the analytical focus beyond the legitimacy of state institutions (Wing and Kassibo 2014; Wunsch 2014), and allows scholars to account for the complex and potentially diverse implications of coexisting and partly competing sources of political legitimacy. Geschiere (2009: ch. 6) offers a related interpretation of democratization and concomitant transformations in the politico-administrative landscape in Cameroon, where, he argues, these political changes have led to an inversion of the vectors of accountability of politicians. Prior to the 1990s, a centralistic logic prompted politicians to play down their allegiances to constituencies ‘back home’ in the countryside. Under conditions of multiparty competition, deputies compete for an electoral basis in their home province. They need to prove their attachment to their home locales through considerable financial and emotional investment that, ultimately, fosters claims to belong and the divisive politics of autochthony. Geschiere thus stresses that local government structures have the potential to generate or reinforce social and political divisions. His observation contrasts with Leclerc-Olive’s insistence on the legitimacy-enhancing effects of local state officials’ accountability to populations, a view shared by Wing and Kassibo (2014), even if they question whether downward accountability has been realized. These conflicting interpretations of local political dynamics in the era of post-decentralization and democratization raise several questions that touch directly on the nature and foundations of political legitimacy in Mali. The principal question is whether the new ‘public sphere of proximity’ claimed by Leclerc-Olive, along with the new tasks and accountability assigned to local political structures, imbue the state with greater legitimacy. To address this question, the following discussion proceeds through a two-pronged analysis. First, it starts from existing accounts of the limited institutional changes initiated by decentralization reform in Mali7 to explore how these changes have transformed channels of decision making and political influence E.g. Benjaminsen (1997); Beridogo (1997); Kassibo (1997a); Lima (2003, 2013); Benjamin (2008); Hetland (2008); Idelman (2008); Coulibaly (2010); Wing and Kassibo (2014). 7

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between the local and national levels. In a second step, the discussion moves beyond extant scholarship on decentralization by addressing the subjective attitudes of ordinary local citizens to recent political institutional transformations. It asks: how do local government structures, intertwining with multiparty competition, affect the dispositions that inform the strategies and political activities pursued by various political players in the local arena? Because all three questions can be answered satisfactorily only by extending empirical data collection beyond interviews, court cases, and other written material, discussion proceeds through a presentation of select case studies on conflict and competition in local political arenas.8 The effects of the intertwining of new municipal structures with party politics was brought home to me when I was following the ups and downs of a dispute in the village K. for more than fifteen years. Shortly before my first arrival in November 1998, a conflict had pitted two brothers against each other over the allocation of a plot of good cultivable land located close to the village. The beginnings of the conflict dated back to the late 1980s, when a younger brother had decided to split off from one of the founding families of the village to build a new hamlet (D.) on an outfield. Tensions flared up again in the mid-1990s when the head of the family back in the village (initially unsuccessfully) sought to withdraw from his younger halfbrother (the household head of the break-away family) the plot of land originally granted to him. Part of his argument – insinuated during a meeting of the elders’ council – was that the younger half-brother did not count as a true descendant of the family because his mother was already pregnant with him when she married their father as his second wife. Soon after the first municipal elections in 1999, the younger brother took his revenge using his influence with a member of the municipal council, an ADEMA party member.9 He claimed that a plot of land, located on the outskirts of the village, had been for generations cultivated by his family and was best suited to become the new communal grazing zone for the Fulbe herders to whom villagers entrusted their cattle. The younger brother’s strategy was ingenious

Cases were chosen from a database of twenty-four extended case studies collected between 1994 and 2015, according to criteria such as representativity of patterns of conflict and conflict resolution, and categories of actors. Our selection and discussion of individual cases was based on a methodological combination of the extended case study method, grounded theory, and narrative analysis (see Charmaz and Mitchell 2001; Cortazzi 2001; Tavory and Timmermans 2009) 9 This contact was facilitated by a maternal uncle who, as an employee of the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Bamako, had his own reasons for becoming a player in the conflict. 8

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because, as no other family of the village was keen on sacrificing its land for communal use, family elders sided with him temporarily. But his older brother, at that time a CNID (Congrès National d’Initiative Démocratique) party member, retaliated in kind by capitalizing on his friendship with his age-mate Sheikne, a high-school professor from Bamako who, as a native of K., intended to run as a CNID candidate in the next municipal elections. It was therefore of utmost importance to him to keep the upper hand in this showdown with local ADEMA party militants. Sheikne solicited the assistance of one of his paternal uncles, the CNID deputy of the area, and with his help persuaded the mayor of the commune to return the plot to his friend, the older brother. However, when I returned to the village in 2015, I realized that with the upcoming municipal elections (postponed several times and finally organized in December 2016), the dispute could flare up again any moment.10 At first sight, the case simply confirms the argument of authors who point to the limited transfer of decision-making powers and service provision capacity to the local level to stress local actors’ unequal benefiting from decentralization (Hetland 2008;Wing and Kassibo 2014: 127; see also Wunsch 2014: 15). Parties to conflict, in their effort to overrule or neutralize their political adversaries in local controversies, remain strongly dependent on connections to national political contacts. Yet the case also adds greater nuance to present accounts of decentralization in Mali by demonstrating the growing complexity, and sporadic mutual neutralization, of channels of mutual influence with decision makers (see Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 2003). Farmers use short-cuts to political power in Bamako whenever they see an opportunity and a prevailing interest, even against the will of village chiefs or elders. The possibilities of tapping into these connections have multiplied because of the various channels to power introduced through the multiparty electoral system. Below, I will discuss more extensively how to conceive of the disposition and considerations that inform farmers’ political actions. For now, suffice it to say that their strategies are not guided exclusively by conventional conceptions of rightful rule and proper political procedure, but by pragmatic considerations of when it would be best and opportune to follow them, and when not. As this case, as well as the following one, suggest, there is a growing awareness in the population that local government structures, and the competition for votes this implies, give them greater leverage vis-à-vis politicians

In the meantime, Sheikne and his uncle had switched party affiliation to the Rassemblement Pour le Mali (RPM) party, founded by Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in 2001. 10

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who depend on their support. Nevertheless, as the introductory quote reveals, farmers feel largely sidelined by the local government structures. They know all too well that to have their share in local politics, that is, to exert political influence, they need intermediaries such as Sheikne, whose intervention is far from disinterested but forms a building block in his political career. They are acutely aware that decentralization has brought the greatest advantage for intellectuals such as Sheikne, who, faced with considerable difficulties in securing a permanent job or regular income in Bamako, view in the municipal structures an expanding and promising field of employment and income-generating activities. This point explains why farmers regard decentralization reform with mixed feelings.They understand that local municipal structures provide a space for a range of new actors to participate in local affairs while simultaneously unfolding exclusionary dynamics that, according to Hetland (2007: 91, 116), risk bolstering central state power and the informalization of politics. Farmers have picked up on yet another equivocal implication of decentralization reform in Mali.While they recognize that local government structures open up opportunities for influencing local political processes, they simultaneously fear or resent, as my interlocutor put it so aptly, that the central state has moved closer to, and interferes more easily with, village political matters. The following case illustrates how these Janus-faced effects of decentralization reform play out for farmers in their efforts to secure infrastructural investment. In the village M., a European NGO initiated the construction of a well and a dam of a local stream, to promote horticultural production that started in 2010.The project was launched at the invitation of Sheikne who, in pursuit of his political ambitions, had attracted international donor funding for his local constituency. But after a few months, a conflict broke out between two contending branches of the chiefly family, with one faction represented by the village chief and supported by most village elders, and the other faction spearheaded by the village chief ’s cousin and backed by the majority of ‘young’ (unmarried) men.When the quarrel effectively brought the dam construction to a standstill, the NGO decided on a temporary withholding of funds. A few weeks later, the director of the NGO decided to abort project activity altogether, after learning from Sheikne that the mayor, a staunch ADEMA party member, had leaned on some family fathers to withhold their share of the community work on the dam, which, because of its close association with Sheikne and his RPM party, had been a thorn in his side. After the NGO’s retreat from the scene, Sheikne, aware that his reputation depended on the success of the horticultural project, consulted with his younger cousin Lamine, who was in charge of a local (male) youth association.

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After deliberating how to secure new funds for the dam construction while simultaneously circumventing the village chief ’s (and mayor’s) opposition, Lamine mobilized other young men to convince their ‘fathers’ to support the project. Meanwhile, Sheikne relied on his RPM party contacts with the Ministry of Economic Infrastructure to procure funding for the dam from another international donor agency. Because Sheikne really wanted to be on the safe side, he also asked the adjunct secretary of the regional RPM section to approach the new mayor of the commune, who had since been elected, and ask him to mediate between the quarrelling factions that had been at the origin of the dam construction fiasco. Sheikne’s intervention was successful. When I visited the village in 2012, a significant part of the dam had been put in place. In this case, the presence of local government structures intensified already existing political antagonisms. Local governmental institutions might not automatically generate new conflicts, but they have expanded opportunities to deal with local struggles and to approach actors in the higher ranks of politics and administration to bend the terms of trade to one’s own advantage. The new state-endorsed institutions of executive power have the potential to reinforce existing power inequalities in the villages, yet they also offer dissenting actors opportunities to keep party politicians in check and, if necessary, to turn the tables on them. In each case, the conflict-generating effects of decentralization are evident and prevail in the eyes of farmers. In the above case, the former (ADEMA) mayor surreptitiously perpetuated existing antagonisms in the village, helping village elders to keep the upper hand in the conflict. But growing opposition to this political alliance between mayor and elders led to the mayor’s replacement by an RPM mayor, a turn of events that moved the dam project beyond its standstill, yet also reinforced farmers’ perception of the unpredictable outcome of any political action implicating the municipality. The conflict-generating and ultimately unpredictable implications of decentralization explain farmers’ reticence vis-à-vis the reform and the official rhetoric of participation that has accompanied it. It also explains, once again, the above-cited claim that decentralization has benefited primarily ‘politiki people’ and ‘intellectuals from town’, a point also stressed by Hetland (2007, 2008). Developments in the Kita region, and in Mali more generally, appear to parallel the one posited by Geschiere for Cameroon, even if Geschiere’s analysis centres primarily on the implications of multiparty competition. Under single-party rule, with its absolute primacy of party membership, efforts to connect with influential individuals had been oriented towards

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the capital as the centre of state power and resources. Devolving certain administrative functions to the communal level has rendered the local political field more complex and opaquer. Vectors of political influence and resource mobilization that connect local and national levels (and that are decisive in gaining the upper hand in local controversies) are fraught with greater indeterminacy. Local administrators feel under pressure to respond to the often-conflicting expectations of diverse local constituencies. At the same time, they remain strongly oriented towards national partisan party politics and administrative decision making. Similarly, multiparty competition puts politicians under greater pressure to mobilize support in their home locality. In a situation in which the government is unable to guarantee basic services and fails to make basic infrastructural investments in the countryside, for a politician the most effective way to secure a local electorate is to secure funds in the capital or among external donors, such as NGOs, that would benefit their community back home (see Geschiere 2009: ch. 6). As Sheikne’s example demonstrates, the effort of politicians and those who plan on a political career to gain a reputation as someone capable of bringing development and wealth to the home community often goes hand in hand with claims of emotional attachment and rootedness in one’s rural home community. Moreover, administrative decentralization has created new possibilities for aligning with political support structures regionally and nationally to enforce one’s claims in a local arena, and therefore for combining conventional power credentials (such as belonging to the clan that was historically in charge of allocating land to newcomers) with the executive powers tied to local government and administrative structures.11

Conflicting sources of legitimacy? How has decentralization reform affected the validity and coexistence of different conceptions and criteria of political legitimacy discussed in Chapter 1? To explore this question, the following discussion focuses on resource This insight contrasts with Ribot’s (1999) interesting argument that decentralization policy prompted a new wave of centralization across the Sahel. Analysing resource management projects, Ribot argues that involving ‘traditional’ authorities in local decision making (mostly in an advisory role) does not enable greater ‘enfranchisement’ because local administrative staff are accountable to higher administrative levels and the central state rather than to local populations. In the Kita zone, multiparty politics, especially the effort of party officials to prove their obligations to their home area, complicates the administrative dynamics analysed by Ribot. 11

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allocation conflicts, which constitute a major bone of contention in the Kita area and illuminate the complex relations of coexistence and collision between different sources of authority. The allocation of land and other natural resources has been at the core of local conflicts in rural Mali for a long time.12 With decentralization reform, conflict resolution or arbitration now nominally falls within the mandate of the new local government structures (Djiré and Dicko 2007: 189–94). Yet the complexity and diversity of local (so far unlegislated) resource tenure regulations (the so-called conventions locales) and also resistance on the part of the state regional and national administration has slowed down considerably the de facto empowerment of local administration (Maiga and Diallo 1998; Diakite and Diallo 2004; Djiré and Dicko 2007; Wing and Kassibo 2014: 120).13 Sector legislation further impedes the competences of local government14 and perpetuates a situation in which local actors follow customary regulations that the state treats as illegal and may therefore punish and repress at any time, regardless of the regulations’ longstanding existence and effectiveness. The situation is further exacerbated by the communes’ lack of financial and technical means and expertise to develop and execute the plans necessary for the realization of their own mandate.15 Moreover, considerable competition exists between communes and regional administration over executive and judicative competences in matters of local conflict resolution.

In contrast to regions where conflicts over land are multiplying and often involve migrants (cf. Nijenhuis 2003; Togola 2011), in the first region and Kita hinterlands, land allocation to outsiders is not a major issue (Koenig 2005a, b; Koenig et al. 1998). Cotton cash crop production in the mid-1990s increased competition for good arable land, but land is easily granted on a temporary basis, as long as migrants submit to the authority of the dominant clan. Instead, controversies often emerge among dominant families of the area. 13 Resource laws and regulatory orders, passed between 1995 and 1998, gave communes the mandate to manage and conserve natural resources (see law no. 96-050, article 10, cf. Benjamin 2008: 2261). But mandates depend on prior elaboration of management plans by the respective line ministries, based on resource inventories and annual harvesting quotas. Thus the de facto transfer of powers over natural resources has been limited. 14 See Benjamin’s (2008: 2261) account of impediments relating to the 1995 revised Forest Code. 15 Management plans are devised by NGOs or consulting firms that are legally obliged to consult with local authorities, yet often disregard the interests of user groups who have little leverage against local government structures (Benjamin 2008: 2273). 12

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The state administration’s reticence in enlarging the mandate of local government structures has fuelled, rather than reduced, the poignancy and frequency of confrontations between different segments of the local population over natural resource allocation. In the absence of formalized, legalized, and authoritative resource use regulations, since the mid-1990s a plethora of local grass-roots arrangements have emerged that police resource allocation, particularly of marketable natural resources such as wood (Benjaminsen 1997; Djiré and Dicko 2007; Benjamin 2008). While these local resource arrangements might be tacitly condoned by state agents, their informal and extra-legal status makes them vulnerable to repression by local or regional executive state power as soon as they collide with the interests of these institutions or agents. All of this generates a political dynamic at the interface of formal and informal institutions that significantly contrasts with the autocratic regimes of Presidents Modibo Keita and Moussa Traoré. Prior to 1991, because of the highly centralized structure of the state administration, the central government had only limited control over local resource management. Apart from occasional encounters with rent-seeking state foresters or security forces who arbitrarily imposed fines for infractions, such as surreptitious wood cutting, local populations were mostly on their own in dealing with resource allocation conflicts. Past experiences with the corrupt and extortive practices of the administrative staff, judiciary, and state extension agents are still very much on people’s minds. They inform their reservations regarding state representatives, whether they work in the state administration or at the tribunal at the cercle level, or they form part of the security forces. Local populations’ reticence in engaging with local executive and judiciary powers only compounds the legal and executive void resulting from a stalled transfer of powers to the communes, as well as their lack of authority (see Hetland 2008: 114–17). By and large, farmers have followed the devolving of executive powers to the communal level, and the concomitant stalling of a de facto transfer of competences, with a sceptical eye.To them, decentralization has extended the state’s grasp on local affairs, thus depriving them of the room for manoeuvre that formerly granted them some measure of self-sufficiency. Scholars who focus on the degree and forms of decentralization reform in Mali have tended to overlook many farmers’ interpretation – and resentment – of decentralization reform as a path towards greater state encroachment. Yet the resentment of greater state interference is directly relevant to our understanding of farmers’ attitudes to the political order and hence, to the nature of political legitimacy in Mali. To farmers, their loss of autonomy

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has not been accompanied by a simultaneous increase in the actual capacity, and hence authority, of local government structures to settle conflicts in a generally binding manner. This leads me to ask how rural populations in the Kita region respond to a situation in which the coexistence of authority sources is compounded by a legitimacy deficiency of local state institutions. The following two case studies illustrate that the failure of newly created local state institutions to regulate resource allocation in a predictable manner reinforces farmers’ scepticism about the central state and induces them to continue to circumvent formal political procedure whenever informal channels of political influence appear more promising to them. Both cases illustrate that in a situation of competing sources of authority, the lack of efficiency and ‘capacity’ (Wunsch 2014: 10) of local state institutions risks exacerbating the state’s legitimacy deficiency. The first case centred on a classified forest (forêt classée) in a commune of the cercle de Kita.16 Because the forest’s proximity to the main road to Bamako enables facile transport to the markets of Kita and Bamako, the forest had been an embattled resource even prior to decentralization reform. Villages adjacent to the forest clashed regularly with commercial wood collectors who, coming from outside, operated clandestinely and on account of high-ranking civil servants or influential merchants. In the early 1990s, in response to these clashes, all villages adjacent to the forest agreed on a set of regulations regarding permits and fines for wood collection and drawing on customary regulations and chiefly authority. The villages also put together a forest patrol that, composed of all adult males, was to keep watch and, if necessary, apprehend and impose fines on clandestine wood collectors. Initially, the mayor and communal councillors of the commune in question, as well as officials at the cercle level, tolerated the management plan in spite of its non-legal nature, reasoning that, as long as the plan did not give rise to major controversy or collide with the interests of the commune, it maintained a certain modus vivendi among stakeholders. Also, villages who partook in the arrangement regularly paid a fixed percentage of the income generated through fines and permits to the commune. Communal representatives thus applied the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ strategy practised by other communes throughout the country (e.g. Benjamin 2008: 2268), a strategy that reflects civil servants’ and party politicians’ awareness of the legitimacy of traditional authority-based user regulation schemes.

16

For a similar case in the region of Mopti, see Benjamin (2008).

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However, things soon heated up and the different authority sources entered into direct competition. The villages’ efforts to control the commercial exploitation of firewood led to repeated altercations with commercial wood collectors and seizures of their carts. This prompted a process during which the villagers’ forest use arrangement was overruled by higher administrative cadres in Kita. Until then, the commercial wood collectors, sub-contracted by entrepreneurs from Kita and also by highranking state officials in Bamako, had enjoyed the support of lenient state forestry agents willing to deliver permits in exchange for fees with an often unknown final destination. In 2003, several of these wood collectors took their case to the district (cercle) prefect in Kita who, in consideration of the non-legal nature of the local resource allocation scheme, declared the cart seizures to be illegal and threatened villagers with penalties in case of future seizures. When the villagers solicited their mayor’s support, both against the prefect’s decision and to protect themselves against the venal practices of forest service agents, the mayor declared his inability to overrule the decision of the district prefect and to deter the forest service (also coordinated at the cercle level) from issuing permits at their discretion and, one might add, to their personal financial advantage. In conversations in 2000 and again in 2008, the mayor (who, partly owing to his ADEMA party membership, had been re-elected in the meantime) expressed his frustration about the situation. His main concern was that administrative decentralization fostered competition over competences between cercle and communal levels. In most instances of resource allocation conflicts, considerable confusion exists as to who should have the ultimate decision-making authority. Not only did the unresolved legal situation hamper his and the commune’s capacities to resolve matters of immediate economic concern for villagers. The fact that the authority to issue woodcutting permits was in the hands of the forest service at a higher administrative level also deprived the commune (and, as farmers would argue, the mayor) of an important source of income. Since then, the situation has not changed substantially. In the absence of a comprehensive resource management plan for the commune in question, villagers are forced to protect themselves against the wood harvesting activities of outsiders, while simultaneously avoiding direct confrontation with them. Villagers poignantly remark on the inability of local government institutions to find solutions to situations of existential import. Given that resource allocation conflicts are especially charged when they occur around marketable goods, and that their unresolved status affect farmers’ livelihoods in immediate, existential ways, farmers justifiably question whether

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decentralization reform has brought them any advantage. To them, cases such as the unresolved classified forest use dispute, prove the weakness of local government institutions which lack the power to set resource use regulations in a binding manner. Decentralization has multiplied vectors and opportunities to influence influential actors, but it has not strengthened the authority, or legitimacy, of state institutions. Because villagers cannot ascertain the respective effectiveness of the different sources of authority, they feel insecure whenever they involve state actors in the resolution of their conflicts. Notably, their insecurity is not just one of judicial uncertainty (one that was rampant already prior to the 1991 political changes) but also one of uncertainty about authority. To farmers in the rural hinterlands of Kita, the authority uncertainty becomes particularly salient in their frequent confrontations with nomadic cattle holders. During my research stays in the hinterlands of Kita in the mid-1990s and again in 2006 and 2015, these conflicts frequently ended in physical assault and sometimes even in court cases. As the following episode case, farmers’ earlier experiences with self-interested, sometimes corrupt practices by state office holders shape their expectations vis-à-vis the newly created local government structures, and inform their decisions about what authority sources and vectors of political influence to draw on. In a commune of the cercle of Bafoulabé, about 105 miles from Kita, two villages had clashed repeatedly over the question of granting access to Fulbe nomadic cattle holders during the dry season. The chiefly families of both villages claimed the authority to act as ‘owners of the land’ and hence to grant usufruct rights over the territory in question. In the absence of a clearly defined border between the adjacent villages, ‘village A’ (where I resided at that time) complained that the other village (‘village B’) had granted the right to pasture to Fulbe herders on a territory over whose use only village A could decide.17 Already in the early 1990s, the conflict had almost reached the tribunal in Bafoulabé. At that time, the village chief of village B had used his political ties (at that time, one of his younger brothers was a high-ranking ADEMA party official in Bamako) to prevent a bloody altercation between farmers from village A and Fulbe herders from turning into a court case.18 Members of village A had taken the disadvantageous The new municipalities are defined by village membership, not by territorial boundaries, which gives rise to conflicts over territorial delimitation that are notoriously difficult to resolve (see Idelman 2008, 2009, 2011). 18 The village chief of village A had taken the conflict to the court in Bafoulabé where, according to my hosts in village A, the judge had been partial to village B at 17

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‘resolution’ of this conflict as proof of the partial, self-interested motivations of state officials (in this case, the district prefect and the judge). When the conflict erupted again in 2009, village A was in a better position to bend the rules of the game. In a first step, the (newly appointed) village chief and council of elders appealed to the commune, knowing well that the mayor (a cousin of the village chief) would settle the issue in their favour.Yet meanwhile, village B (aware of the family ties between the mayor and the chiefly family of the contending village) had taken the case to the district prefect in Bafoulabé, who promptly intervened, arguing that such a settlement of territorial matters was beyond the purview of the commune, and threatening the mayor and village A with legal consequences in case of disrespect of his orders. At this point, the chief of village A called upon a nephew, an official from the Ministry of Justice in Bamako, to intervene on behalf of his home village, with the result that when conflict parties reconvened at the district prefect’s office, the prefect adopted a more conciliatory tone and suggested a solution amenable to consent by both parties to the conflict. The case sheds light on the subjective dispositions developed by inhabitants of Kita’s rural hinterlands vis-à-vis the political order. It illuminates why in the present situation, farmers see little reason to abandon their long-standing doubts about state officials’ claims to disinterested decision making and respect of legal-rational procedure, and hence why a situation of legitimacy deficiency persists. Well aware that state officials work the bureaucratic and political system in consideration of their personal stakes, farmers similarly seek possibilities to combine personal interests and formal bureaucratic procedures, for instance by activating personal ties to highranking officials. Farmers also carefully weigh the discrepancy between state officials’ claims and practice whenever they decide whether to work through the legal-bureaucratic apparatus or instead bypass it. The jockeying between regional administration and local government structures shows that the authority distribution is not settled between these structures and their representatives. In this realm, too, considerable authority uncertainty exists. Both instances of resource allocation conflict show that local government structures have not altered the uneasy coexistence, that is, the lack of interaction and partial incongruence between formal political and legal-bureaucratic institutions of power and authority on one side, and

a provisional hearing. The prefect of Bafoulabé settled the matter before it became a proper court case by imposing an agreement that was advantageous to village B.

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informal, personalized and clan-based institutions and sources of political authority on the other. So far, decentralization has not facilitated the integration of the diverging authority sources and conceptions of political order. The incompatibility of these authority sources is felt now more starkly than before, during the authoritarian regimes of Presidents Keita and Traoré, when the state’s presence in resource use regulation was limited to occasional interference by rent-seeking state agents. From this follows that local actors (farmers, but also political and administrative office holders) operate in a situation of uncertainty, fraught by the difficulty of anticipating the efficiency and outcome of their own actions and those of their enemies. To farmers, the uncertainty is exacerbated by what they consider the arbitrary and self-interested nature of the decisions taken by officials in local, regional, and national government. That leads me to ask the following questions: on what grounds and institutions do state officials and politicians base their authority? What are the results of this relationship of coexistence and potential conflict? Does their coexistence weaken the authority of state power in different degrees, depending on whether the sources are mobilized in the realms of executive, legislative or judicial powers? In response to these questions, the following case study draws out the complex implications of a situation of coexisting conceptions of political order and competing sources of authority. The case involved residents of the hamlet Kankan and the village chief and family elders of the village from which the hamlet had emerged. In the years preceding the decentralization reform, occasional argument had erupted in Kankan over the future seat of village chieftaincy. Because the main village’s former chief had taken up residency in the hamlet for the last ten years before his death, Kankan, rather than the village had been considered the seat of village chieftaincy. As is common practice in the area, after the chief ’s passing, the chieftaincy fell back to a younger brother resident in the main village. Still, some residents of the hamlet resented the loss of chieftaincy because its ‘return’ to the main village meant a loss at once in importance and decision-making power for them. Their political ambitions were rekindled by the decentralization campaign. During public meetings, villagers (mostly family elders) could freely deliberate on their future communal membership. An open conflict broke out between residents of the hamlet and the main village, but also between family elders of the hamlet and some of their sons, over the question of whether the hamlet should become an autonomous village or whether it should continue its existence as an offshoot of the main village.

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After further negotiations with the chiefly family of the mother village, most family elders from the hamlet conceded to its status as a satellite of the main village, where chieftaincy power should be located henceforth. Still, two family elders from the hamlet disagreed. The dissidents were vocally represented by a nephew (Marmari) of the former village chief, a native of the hamlet and retired schoolteacher who had spent most of his professional life in Mopti and saw great advantages for the hamlet in gaining autonomy from the mother village. First and foremost, it would have allowed it to join another commune than the one to which the main village had declared its allegiance, a move that, as Marmari, the school teacher, retrospectively surmised in 2015, ‘would have brought many advantages of economic and infrastructural development to our hamlet’. Marmari also expected personal benefits from the hamlet’s membership of the neighbouring commune. Two years into his retirement, he had the political ambition to become a councillor or even mayor (on account of the then ruling party ADEMA), and was well aware that his chances of success would be greater once Kankan joined the neighbouring municipality. In the weeks following the public deliberation session (during which elders from the hamlet and from the main village disagreed over their future municipal affiliation), Marmari sought to win more supporters of his dissident cause among other intellectuals from the hamlet who lived in Bamako, and among higher-ranking members of his political party. For this, Marmari used family ties with an association of migrants to Paris from the region to secure their financial support for the construction of a bridge that would have significantly improved travel and transport between the hamlet and the administrative centre of the neighbouring commune, and hence enhanced residents’ chances to market their agricultural products profitably. But Marmari’s attempts were to no avail. After lengthy discussions among the elders of the hamlet, the two men who had once supported Marmari’s cause endorsed their former opponents’ position, arguing that age-old family ties, obligations toward their ‘mother’ village, and the chiefly prerogatives of their lineage weighed more importantly than practical considerations.19 Other intellectuals from the hamlet followed suit, arguing that continued opposition to their fathers’ decision was fruitless and smacked of disrespect of elderly authority. Gnashing his teeth, Marmari withdrew from the local political scene, yet made a comeback when the next municipal elections brought to power

They cautioned that by switching municipalities it would place them under the authority of ‘distant’ (that is, matrimonially non-related) and socially inferior lineages. 19

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a mayor from his commune with a blacksmithing background.20 Knowing well that the elders would recoil at the thought of ‘being commanded by a blacksmith’, Marmari renewed the financial support, provided for infrastructural projects by the French–Malian migrant association, to contravene a bridge construction project initiated by the new mayor and to hold out instead the prospect of road construction to the (more attractive) administrative centre of the neighbouring commune. At the time of my last visit to main village in 2015, the situation had come to a standstill. The mayor had successfully mobilized his party connections to block Marmari’s second foray, yet found himself in a political deadlock facing opposition from several villages. The mayor’s inability to realize the infrastructural projects he had promised to accomplish cost him repute. His authority was further undermined by the widespread contestation of his credentials of political office by villagers who flatly refused to solicit him in case of conflict. At an immediate, empirical level, the case substantiates the argument that NGO development initiatives assume responsibilities that municipal structures fail to provide (Hetland 2007, 2008; see also Wunsch 2014: 9f) and thus lay open, and in a sense sustain, weak state capacity. With regard to this chapter’s conceptual interest in questions of authority and legitimacy, the case points to a situation of coexisting conceptions of political order, and of authority sources that enter into competition with each other. Once the different conceptions of political order and sources of authority play out in the realm of executive state power, they animate sources of authority that collide and ultimately rule one other out. Initially, village elders referred to conventional credentials of political hierarchy and power that, drawing on principles of kinship, lineage privilege based on first-comer status, historical patterns of domination, political clientage, and social rank differentiation, set clear and incontrovertible precepts, according to which villages and clans would keep what they considered their age-old political prerogatives, even in the new political context of decentralized executive powers. In the face of these criteria and related sources of traditional authority, Marmari’s effort failed to privilege justifications that were closely related to the executive powers of the state, such as the pragmatic considerations relating to economic and social benefits generated by development and infrastructural projects. Proponents of conventional conceptions of political order prevailed in this case, even though this contributed to Kankan’s continued administrative and territorial isolation.

In contrast to national politics, at the municipal level, the election of mayors of inferior social birth is still the exception. 20

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As the case evolved, conventional understandings of rightful access to power and related authority sources prevailed to a lesser degree. Nevertheless, they proved to be strong enough to seriously weaken the authority of a mayor of inferior social origin.Village elders argued that ‘handraise politics’ did not endow a person of inferior social origin with the authority to give political orders and resolve conflicts among families of superior social rank. Their opposition effectively blocked the political decision-making process and related implementation of measures that would have proved the validity of new power credentials (the rightful exercise of power assessed according to a person’s formal qualifications, not according to birth and social rank) related to the state political system. All in all, the case demonstrates the great weight of conventional credentials of power access and exercise, as well as these credentials’ decisive role in perpetuating a situation of legitimacy deficiency and instability. Assessments of decentralization reform that centre on the authority of state institutions (e.g. Wing 2013; Wing and Kassibo 2014; see also Villalon and Idrissa 2005) would benefit from a nuanced consideration of these conventional power credentials (see Fay 1995; Kassibo 1997b), their local or regional specificity, and the complex and incongruent ways in which local actors mobilize them while engaging state institutions (see Sanankoua 2007). The persistent weight of conventional credentials of political authority (illustrated in this case by the opposition of the village to the new mayor) continues to undermine the authority of state administrative and political executive institutions, office holders, and procedures. Farmers’ attitudes to the state political order, especially their unwillingness to heed rules that go against their interest, demonstrates the weak legitimacy of state institutions and actors. The decision of family elders to solicit the intervention of the district prefect in Kita further undermined the standing and authority of the mayor. It also shows that villagers do not blindly or exclusively adopt conventional conceptions of political order; rather, they mobilize different authority sources depending on what goals they seek to achieve. Significantly, these goals do not emerge from a purely rational deliberation of advantages and disadvantages, and hence from a simple means–end rationality in the sense of rational choice theory. By arguing that farmers’ political actions are fuelled by diffuse motivations and aspirations, I differ from an interpretation of their strategies as a matter of ‘forum shopping’, adopted by Von Benda-Beckmann in 1981 from the realm of international private law, to analyse situations of legal pluralism (Von Benda-Beckmann 1981: 117).Von Benda-Beckmann importantly noted that in navigating plural legal terrains, actors are always circumscribed by institutionally entrenched power

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relations that also mould considerations and decisions by enabling certain options while inhibiting others.To this, I would add that actors’ strategies are informed by diverse aspirations and desires that deserve empirical scrutiny and conceptual consideration. The following subchapter elaborates on this point against the backdrop of existing debate on the ‘logic’ or ‘rationality’ of political actors.

A ‘hybrid logic’ of political practice in Africa? The chapter set out with a critique of the scholarly literature on politics in Africa, which tends to jumble questions relating to people’s assessment of the legitimacy of a political system or office holders with the motivations, ‘logic’, or ‘practical norms’ that inform the activities of political actors (be they office holders or ordinary citizens). This tendency is evident in studies that address the ‘hybrid’ nature of African political systems and thereby posit the existence of two separate ‘logics’ and ‘role systems’. Although a number of authors take for granted that the logics conflict with each other (e.g. Erdmann and Engel 2006; Zobel 2008; Therkildsen 2014), this is far from evident. It may well be that the ‘logics’ collide only in the realm of executive and juridical state power, as opposed to the legislative realm. A more nuanced analysis of the respective weight of the patrimonial and the legal-rational ‘logics’ in each of these realms is necessary. Does their respective weight change from one of these realms to the other? Is their weight contingent on individual situations and actors? Are there realms in which the logics systematically collide? Another way of bringing more clarity into the literature is to distinguish between the motivations that inform people’s political practice and their understandings of political order and legitimacy.There is a close connection between the motivations or ‘logic’ that inform the practice of political actors and the criteria according to which the legitimacy of a political order is assessed. Both the motivations that inform political practice and the criteria of assessment are based on conceptions of rightful power exercise. Yet as I argued at the end of the last subchapter, motivations for political practice are also strongly informed by a set of often diffuse aspirations and desires, which lead me to speak of actors’ ‘dispositions’. These dispositions are complex and might entail contradictory elements. An actor’s knowledge or conviction of how to act properly might stand in tension or conflict with his actual deeds, which may be guided to various extents by his desires and aspirations, in spite of what he knows to be the correct conduct.

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A reflection on the nature of political practice and legitimacy requires one, first, to recognize the different components of the dispositions that inform political practice; second, to ask what conceptions of political order they reveal; and third, to ask whether these dispositions bolster or rather weaken the legitimacy of a political order. In what follows, I will present case studies that exemplify the diverse motivations and aspirations that inform the practices of different political actors and that allow us to draw conclusions about the stability and solidity of political legitimacy. The first case occurred in a rural commune about forty miles north-west of Kita. During his first term as a mayor in the second half of the 1990s, the current mayor, a member of the former ruling party ADEMA, clashed repeatedly with his first deputy (Sidi) who, at that time, also had ADEMA party membership. A year into his political office, the two quarreled over a well construction project, funded by an international NGO, that was to be dug at the outskirts of the commune’s capital. When the mayor decided to move the location to a site adjacent to his own courtyard, Sidi publicly confronted him, blaming the mayor for his self-interested decision and claiming that he had ‘eaten’ some of the funds destined for the well construction. In retaliation to Sidi’s accusations, the mayor launched a public campaign in the months leading up to the next municipal elections, blaming in turn Sidi for embezzling funds of the communal infirmary, and for using the infirmary’s motor bike (a donation from the Ministry of Health) for personal affairs. Sidi solicited the intervention of his cousin Sheikne, the high-school professor from Bamako whom we encountered in preceding anecdotes. At that time, Sheikne was already engaged in the electoral campaign, touring the area as the prime RPM candidate for a neighbouring municipality. He used his political connections with high-ranking officials in Bamako to put an end to the mayor’s public defamation campaign. Soon afterwards, Sidi, knowing that the confrontation had cost him credibility at the communal level and effectively foreclosed his chances of being re-elected as the ADEMA representative, shifted his allegiance from ADEMA to RPM (Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s party). Sidi withdrew from the political scene to wait for a political change that would bring the RPM to power. In the meantime, his enemy, the mayor, who had been re-elected for a second time, plotted his revenge, this time against Sheikne who in the meantime had been elected municipal councillor of the neighbouring commune. The mayor prompted Sheikne’s summons to his office, and later, in consultation with the head of the local police force, effected Sheikne’s arrest, on the charge of having beaten up a Fulbe herdsman during an altercation between him and agriculturalists from his home village. Faced with the accusation, Sheikne called up a former

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classmate, the head of the hospital in the regional capital, Kayes, who, in turn, contacted the head of the local hospital where the Fulbe herdsman had been hospitalized. Having verified that the Fulbe herder’s hospitalization had been the consequence of a fall from a tree, Sheikne called a cousin, a high-ranking clerk in the Ministry of Justice.The cousin, who had trained the judge charged with Sheikne’s case, used the personal short-cut to pressure for a quick dissolution of the case. The charges against Sheikne were dropped and he was released immediately. The series of altercations between the mayor, Sidi, and Sheikne illustrates the conflict parties’ dexterity in mobilizing the authority vested in the institutions, procedures, and norms of formal political institutions, and also personal ties to high-ranking officials to strengthen their respective positions and to sideline, damage, or eliminate their political adversaries. This insight is uncontroversial and has been widely discussed by scholars of politics in Africa. What requires further scrutiny are the dispositions that form the backdrop to the political actors’ decisions and actions. I have already argued that these dispositions are multi-composite and entail components that may be countervailing and rule each other out. To further substantiate the argument, let us take a closer look at the different components contained in the respective dispositions of Sidi, Sheikne, and the mayor. In each case, the cognitive component (here defined not as ideas and judgements about what is good and right, but about what is effective and right) of the disposition consisted in granting the politico-administrative system a certain legitimacy in the sense that they recognized that first, certain legal rules need to be applied and that officials can be held accountable by these regulations; and, second, that the political and bureaucratic apparatus has a certain effectiveness, that is, it generates specific expectable results. But they were also aware that individual officials do not always or fully comply with the legal regulations, and that pressure needs to be exerted (through people located in more influential positions of the politico-administrative hierarchy) to make sure that the officials in question abide by the rules. But these actors were also guided by other aspirations. All three of them have a limited desire to act in accordance with what they think is the good and correct political practice. They follow proper procedure only as long as it advances their personal cause and will avoid or bypass the proper regulations whenever these regulations are likely to generate political costs and disadvantages for them. Sheikne, for instance, will feel as good about acting according to the rules of correct procedure as he will feel whenever he can circumvent them to pursue his personal goals and interests. The same holds true for Sidi, who, in his attempt to counter the mayor, used established

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procedures of public intervention as much as he diametrically opposed them, by intervening through personal ties, rather than formal legal procedure.The incongruent attitudinal components of Sheikne’s disposition are indicators of the authority that the political system holds in his eyes. The components may point in different directions, for instance, when Sheikne’s view of what is correct and good is diametrically opposed to his motivation to ignore the procedures of proper political practice whenever they do not promise optimal results for him. Thus, although at the cognitive level, Sheikne, Sidi, and the mayor attribute a certain legitimacy to the political system, tensions within their respective dispositions point to the state political system’s weak and deficient authority. The different, potentially conflicting components that inform political actors’ dispositions show that neither the notion of ‘logic’ nor that of ‘hybridity’ offers us an adequate understanding of the multi-composite, only partly cognitive nature of the motivations that fuel political action in a field of intermingling formal and informal sources of authority. Nor does the notion of a hybrid logic help account for the fact that the different motivations, understandings, and convictions that guide an actor’s actual decisions and practices may collide with, and to a certain extent rule one another out.

Conclusion A guiding concern of this chapter was to ascertain whether or to what extent decentralization has changed the legitimacy deficiency of the state political system, and to come up with a nuanced understanding of the uneasy coexistence of incongruent conceptions of political order on which it is based. Several partly paradoxical trends shape up. First, the incomplete devolving of administrative functions to the newly created municipalities seriously impedes the communes’ executive powers, fosters the intervention of new local power players, and simultaneously strengthens the credibility, and sometimes the effectiveness, of conventional conceptions and sources of political authority. Impediments to a de facto transfer of executive and financial powers to the local government appear to strengthen conventional conceptions and sources of political authority. Many farmers perceive the local administration to be incapable of effectively resolving natural resource conflicts and other pertinent matters relating to local populations’ livelihood production. Accordingly, many farmers express considerable doubt about decentralization

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as a process that facilitates greater state encroachment without, however, gaining in authority, which would show in its greater capacity to settle conflicts in a binding manner. Inadvertently and somewhat paradoxically, decentralization has given greater value to and hence revitalized sources of authority that are locally conceived of as ‘traditional’. Second, administrative decentralization, by intertwining with multiparty competition, has prompted a partial inversion of vectors of accountability, and has rendered more complex the ways actors in the local arena exert political influence. Yet it is not evident that this has substantially altered the nature of the considerations and dispositions of political actors, be they state officials, party politicians, or members of the local population. The ambivalent nature of their dispositions vis-à-vis the state political system casts doubt on the solidity and stability of state authority. As long as political actors prioritize their personal interests, rather than rule-bound conduct, the state clearly lacks capacity to generate and capitalize on institutions and procedures that have a binding validity for citizens, in the sense of obliging them to do something, even if the results of these actions and decisions have personal costs for them. Third, decentralization reform and multiparty politics have done little so far in advancing the integration of diverging conceptions of political order and related sources of authority. Still, these conceptions of political order appear to collide and threaten to supplant each other only in some realms, and on specific occasions. In matters of chieftaincy and political allegiance, farmers tend to agree that earlier political hierarchies between villages and clans cannot be easily overruled, and that traditional criteria for rightful access to power therefore need to be respected.Yet whenever the stakes do not involve political and social hierarchies (and related criteria of political order), but more individualized cases of resource and land allocation, farmers are ready to defend their case by variously drawing on local traditional authority or on state institutions and actors. Thus, even if different conceptions of political order, and related sources of authority, occasionally clash, this does not necessarily mean that one rules out the cogency of the other. Farmers may feel that conventional power credentials, based on lineage affiliation, rank and social origins, are more valid than those granted and promoted by the state. Yet no farmer would be so short-sighted or steeped in an attachment to traditional conceptions of political order as to forgo opportunities and connections provided by acquaintances, relatives, or other facilitators who might strengthen his strategic advantage over opponents and adversaries.

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Fourth, as a development that started even prior to multiparty democracy (and has been steadily reinforced since then), farmers in the rural hinterlands of Kita, as much as other citizens of Mali, have gradually become accustomed to the institutions of the state and to state regulation of, and interference with, domestic life and subsistence economies. Along the way, the formal bureaucratic procedures and legal-rational rules have gained wider recognition and hence, objectivity, even if their force and reach are circumscribed by the ongoing validity and occasional strengthening, of the conventional criteria for legitimate power. This insight lends further substance to Baudais’s processual view of state formation as the gradual strengthening of state institutions over an extended time period, a process to which she refers as ‘institutionalization’ (Baudais 2016: 24–8). The insight also puts into perspective Wing’s (2008) insistence on civic participation as a way of generating greater legitimacy for the institutions and procedures of multiparty democracy (cf. also Bratton et al. 2002; Bleck 2015: 11–12). As I have argued, there are hints that farmers’ dispositions towards the bureaucratic state apparatus, its representatives, and party politics are gradually changing, as exemplified by a growing awareness among local populations of their own greater leverage in influencing the political process and exerting pressure through party politics. Still, and this is the final point of this chapter, for the moment, farmers in the Kita hinterlands have an acute sense that decentralization has worked mainly to the advantage of ‘those intellectuals from town’.This judgement accurately depicts decentralization as a mechanism that has created new opportunities for intellectuals from Bamako to generate channels of influence between local actors and decision makers in Bamako (Hetland 2008). It also reveals farmers’ perception that their interests, as vital as they are to their daily struggles to make a living, are still not really taken into consideration (see Benjamin 2008: 2267f), and that once again they have been sidelined by political and administrative change. For rural populations, then, there are strong reasons to grant greater credibility to conventional sources of authority. The strengthening of conventional sources of authority manifests itself, and feeds into, a trend towards revalorizing (and partly revitalizing) ‘traditional’ institutions of power (cf. Leclerc-Olive 2005, 2007; see Krämer 2016), which takes particular forms of cultural production and expression (Schulz 2020). This trend will be the subject of the following chapter.

4 Staging ‘culture’ and Political Legitimacy in the Era of Liberalization

Introduction This chapter returns to questions raised in Chapter 2, and addresses them with respect to another historical period, that is, the era heralded by the introduction of multiparty politics and the granting of civic liberties since the early 1990s. The chapter asks what role cultural performances play in the legitimation of the state political order, and, if so, to what particular aspects of this order they lend legitimacy. Do the workings and effects of state-orchestrated cultural performances vary with the political and institutional conditions under which they take place? If they do, in what ways have the new conditions of multiparty democracy and a pluralized media landscape changed the terms of political legitimation? The chapter thus makes a historically specific argument about the relation between culture and legitimation: it examines how conditions for generating legitimacy change with the transition from an autocratic and authoritarian political system to one in which, as we saw in the preceding chapter, the channels by which people in local arenas seek to gain influence and to induce certain decisions have become more complex, confronting the central state with the challenge of containing the centripetal forces of decentralization. In the Introduction to this book, I argued that existing scholarship on the role of culture in nation-building processes in the postcolonial world should be complemented on two accounts. First, the focus on ‘cultural forms’ (Corrigan and Sayer 1985) and on aesthetics needs to be balanced by a more comprehensive account of the different dimensions of ‘legitimation’ processes and of how these dimensions mould actors’ perceptions and dispositions. Second, as most studies centre on earlier periods of postindependence cultural politics, it is important to spell out the historical specificity of their arguments and insights. We need to ascertain whether

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the same government agenda of nation building holds true in the era of post-liberalization, when multicultural nation-states are challenged by a new politics of local particularity and difference on one side, and by the interventions and partly revised agendas of international and supra-national bodies on the other. In a post-structural adjustment era of curtailed state sovereignty, as state functions and services have been to a degree replaced by agencies of transnational reach, the interplay between a politics of (local, cultural) difference with a centralist state project of containment, generating legitimacy, and maintaining the capacity to govern in spite of its curtailed powers deserves further scrutiny. While this interplay can be fruitfully studied from various angles, this chapter continues with a focus on culture and the politics of culture. It examines whether, along with the changed political conditions for the making and modus operandi of nation-states, the significance of ‘culture’ for this political project has shifted as well. Have cultural performances been accorded a new role in generating in people a sense of belonging to what is officially evoked as the political community of the nation-state, and in fostering a broader acceptance of the political status quo, and hence as an integral element of legitimation processes? As I noted in my discussion of Lisa Wedeen’s analysis of popular responses to official celebrations of President Assad’s regime in Syria, we may grasp the complexities of people’s attitudes toward a political order only by combining an analysis of their responses to state-orchestrated displays of power and legitimacy in and beyond the realm of media engagements, with that of people’s daily strategies in dealing with the state political system and its representatives. Chapter 3 discussed how inhabitants of the Kita rural hinterlands interacted with the newly created structures of political decentralization and its key office holders, and examined what dispositions informed their actions in a situation in which new political structures intertwine with conventional institutions and rationales of decision making and legitimation. Along with the political learning process that this changing and complex logic implies, inhabitants of the Kita hinterlands now distinguish to a greater extent than before between the performance and beneficial character of a political system on one side, and those of individual politicians and state officials on the other (see Oomen 2005: 199). As social actors grow used to acting within the confines of the nation-state and its institutions and procedures, actors become accustomed to assessing the beneficial nature of the political system itself, rather than focusing exclusively on the performance and behaviour of individual politicians. In an era of multiparty democracy and administrative decentralization, the political constitution

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grants more opportunities to express disagreement with what was formerly imposed in the name of ‘the people’. In this situation, the state political order is under more pressure to prove its capacity of horizontal integration, holding people together and enabling the representation and realization of diverse local interests. Herein exist significant parallels to the long-term implications of nation-state building in Europe (see Calhoun 1997). Beyond these historical parallels, the analysis also needs to consider the distinctive legacy of autocratic leadership and state-imposed nationalism, in Mali and elsewhere in Africa. Here, a multitude of cultural, ‘ethnic’, and religious identities were forcefully incorporated at one stroke, in the form of the post-independence nationalist projects of political elites. In the absence of long-standing processes of integration and accommodation of difference, as was the case for most European nation-states, in contemporary Africa, the challenge of horizontal integration has grown abruptly and acutely with political liberalization. Jean and John Comaroff pointedly refer to these novel challenges of the state as a matter of its ‘hyphen-nation’: present-day politics of particularity and difference (in Africa and beyond) pose new challenges to the hyphen that holds together ‘nation’ and ‘state’. In this situation, they argue, the state needs to visibly and palpably display its capacity to mend internal difference within the political community, and to counterbalance the centrifugal forces set into motion by liberalization (2000, 2004; see also Geschiere 2009: ch. 6). Starting from this observation, this chapter argues that political and economic liberalization not only poses new challenges to the state’s capacity for integration and equitable representation. Rather, liberalization has also brought significant changes in the ways in which political leaders may secure people’s support for and acceptance of the legitimacy of the state political order. As decentralization and multiparty democracy set off new dynamics and arenas of particularistic politics in Mali, for political leaders to seek legitimacy for the political order requires new strategies of justification and of representing the nation-state as a shared framework of belonging with which citizens identify voluntarily. This chapter explores these new challenges of political legitimation. Starting from the argument that generating a sense of voluntary identification with the nation rests importantly on evoking shared cultural belonging, it conceives of these constructions of belonging as a process of ‘authenticating’ cultural traditions. To do justice to the new politics of local particularity set in motion by decentralization policy since the 1990s, analysis centres on the interplay between these dynamics and governmental measures aiming at the

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promotion of ‘local culture’. The state-administered production of ‘local culture’ is conceived as an arena in which the governments of Presidents Konaré and Touré sought to display, prove, and perform the state’s ability to contain local particularity and difference.

The politics of culture since 1991: Promoting ‘local culture’ How has the trend towards privatizing cultural production, along with the more expansive engagements of various international bodies and private sponsors, in conjunction with the introduction of multiparty democracy and administrative decentralization, affected the forms and significance of ‘national’ and ‘local’ culture?1 Arnoldi (2006), drawing on Touré’s (1996) detailed analysis of the bi-annual cultural festival (the Biennale) organized under Modibo Keita, has convincingly demonstrated long-term continuities in Malian post-independence cultural policy (2006: 64). Nonetheless, I suggest that underneath apparent continuities in official rhetoric about Mali’s ‘glorious past’ and honourable patrimony, significant shifts in emphasis and meanings of ‘the national’ have taken place. In contrast to the times of Modibo Keita and Moussa Traoré, when Malian national culture was celebrated with reference to its ‘glorious past’, the governments of President Konaré and his successor, President Touré, downplayed ‘national culture’. They instead highlighted the multicomposite nature of the Malian nation and the variety of local traditions defined by their rural origins. Accordingly, governmental cultural policy under Alpha Konaré was marked by the effort to promote the diversity of Mali’s regional cultures and performance traditions as a source of pride and of income. The liberalization of governmental enterprises, initiated since the mid-1980s and continued under the new presidency of Alpha Konaré, led to drastic cuts for the state-funded national performance companies and to the organization of various regional festivals and cultural productions that, depending on the kind of audiences and sponsors they targeted, met with diverging success.2 Rather than speak of ‘neoliberal’ economic policy, I prefer ‘privatization’ to describe aspects of neoliberal reform that became relevant to cultural policy in Mali. 2 Shortly after President Konaré was voted into office, his wife Adam Ba Konaré initiated the annual festival Tabale, partly funded through private sponsors. For more than a decade, this and similar governmental initiatives found little popular resonance. In contrast, the Festival au Désert (Festival in the Desert) and Festival sur le Niger (Festival 1

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The new government-supported initiatives, very often in cooperation with various international agencies and private sponsors, once again made the field of culture a key arena for the articulation of pride in Mali’s heritage. Yet they simultaneously reflected the new government’s effort to break with the long-standing association of culture with single-party rule and propaganda (de Jorio 2016: 17). The short-lived biography of the bi-annual cultural festival, the Biennale Artistique, reflected this shift in emphasis and also the new government’s efforts to integrate the northern regions into the display of Malian cultural traditions (Djebbari 2014).3 Reintroduced in 2001, the festival was organized exclusively in regional capitals, included private performance companies, and offered special consideration and privileges to northern performance groups.Yet the limited popularity and financial success of the festival led to its discontinuation after 2010.4 As part of liberalization policy, in 1992, the national broadcast station RTM5 was renamed ORTM6 and turned into a publicly funded, independently run entity.7 Along with the organizational restructuring of the station and consumer-oriented revisions of certain programme formats, additional regional relay stations were built to expand coverage to urban areas in Mali’s northern regions and to remote rural areas in the south. Paralleling the mushrooming of private and communal local radio stations (Schulz 2000), a second channel of national radio, Chaîne Deux, was created, which targeted urban, mostly younger consumers in Bamako.These organizational and logistical improvements not only expanded the accessibility of national radio but nurtured expectations about having one’s favourite music and ‘very own’ culture broadcast on radio, a trend mirrored in the overwhelming popularity of various music and talk radio formats adopted by local radio stations (Schulz 1999a). These structural changes went hand in hand with a revised communication policy regarding the representation of cultural on the Niger) have been highly successful, partly because they attracted international audiences and sponsorship (see Doquet 2008; Sy 2012). 3 The Biennale Culturelle was discontinued under President Traoré in 1988, as a result of structural adjustment austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund. 4 Interview with members of the Ministry of Culture, August 2015. See de Jorio (2016: 17). 5 Radio et Télévision du Mali. 6 Office de Radio et de Télévision du Mali. 7 Établissement Publique à Caractère Administratif. In spite of the formal autonomy granted to ORTM, the national broadcast station operates de facto under close scrutiny of the state.

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diversity on state media, with revisions pointing to changes in the meanings and political function of national culture. Starting in the early 1990s, cultural programmes on national television were redesigned to portray Mali’s many local cultures in more equitable ways for a nationwide audience, and to ensure a more balanced representation of the traditions of peoples from the north.8 The ending of the civil war in Mali’s north in 1996 marked an important step in these governmental reformulations of Malian national culture on state media.9 In view of the call for greater budgetary and administrative authority articulated by groups in the northern regions of Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu, Konaré’s government devised cultural programmes on state radio and television that gave more room to the political histories and musical traditions of Mali’s northern populations. Although such a strategy of fostering a politics of belonging ‘from above’ appears counter-intuitive, the policy reflected a government effort to pre-empt or counterbalance attempts by oppositional groups from the north to situate their claims for political representation in a rhetoric of cultural exclusion. The new policy of promoting ‘local particularity’ and the countryside as a seat of traditional culture also fit the general drift of administrative decentralization implemented at the behest and with the strong support of European and North American donor agencies after 1994 (see Chapter 3). In spite of these amendments, artists and oral and musical traditions from southern Mali continue to figure prominently on television. Similarly, except at certain time slots reserved for music on the local relay stations of national radio, for the daily rural extension morning programme, and for national language programmes, musical and oral traditions from the Bamanakan and Maninkakan-speaking areas still hold a place of pride. The imbalance between northern and southern cultural traditions on national media thus continues to this day – in spite of much official rhetoric and actual governmental efforts to represent a greater diversity of musical styles and oral traditions. The imbalance is even more pronounced in the case of When national television was created under President Moussa Traoré in 1983, it showcased mainly the Bamana and Maninka cultures of southern Mali.Two programmes, Musique du Terroir, with a focus on southern cultures, and Dallol, featuring performance traditions from the northern regions, became regular cultural programmes under President Konaré. Dallol was discontinued in the early 2000s. 9 National media in Bamako and some scholars described the conflict situation in Mali’s north as ‘political instability’ or ‘insurgency’, yet ‘civil war’ more accurately depicts the complex alliances and rifts within northern populations that fuelled the conflict dynamics. 8

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television because of its comparatively weaker reach in rural areas. Because cultural television programmes are consumed mainly by urban audiences (located mostly in the south), the cultural dominance of Mali’s southern peoples in mass-mediated portrayals of the Malian nation is unbroken. Yet regardless of the ongoing biased representation of Mali’s regional cultures on national media, there are indications that, as with the integrating effects of radio broadcasting discussed in Chapter 2, televised representations of national culture gradually induced audiences (wherever they actually received national television) to consider themselves as forming part of the nation-state.10 Television allowed a growing constituency of spectators to follow televised cultural performances, thereby granting particular segments of the national public the occasion to enjoy and learn about ‘traditional’ Malian culture, and to become acquainted with the display of cultural diversity on television. From the early days of national television, these audiences greeted the display of ‘local cultures and traditions’ in cultural programmes with enthusiasm.11 Below, I will argue that the enthusiastic reception of cultural television programmes stems from their function as platforms for the display of local cultures and identities and for facilitating the intertwining of national and local belonging. Insofar as cultural programmes offer opportunities for horizontal integration within the multicultural nation-state, they play a significant role in the legitimation of the political order. In preparation for this argument, the following subchapter sketches out the broader context of cultural entrepreneurship within which the new political significance of ‘culture’ unfolded.

A diversified market of cultural entrepreneurship The end of state patronage of the arts opened the door for the popularization of a greater variety of musical genres and performers on national media (mostly television) and local radio stations.12 Following the demise of state and party sponsorship of the national performance groups and the privatization of cultural production more generally, a heterogeneous sector The argument draws on surveys on television and radio reception among inhabitants of Kita, Segu, and San conducted in 1994/95, 2006, and 2012. 11 A number of spectators express their enthusiasm for television programmes in letters to the producers and programme directors. 12 Some patronage ties between performers and individual state and party officials survived these changes, but only in an unofficial form. 10

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of artistic, handicraft, and literary production emerged, substantially aided by its integration into a global cultural industry.13 Whereas certain domains of cultural creativity, such as photography and fine art paintings, appeal to a relatively small educated elite, a range of musical and oral genres thrive across the social spectrum of national and international audiences, massively supported by the spread of audio-visual, broadcast, and digital technologies (Diawara 1994; Duran 1995b; Keita 1995; Schulz 2001a, b). Other areas of cultural production, most notably the manufacturing of ‘traditional’ Bamana mudcloth (bogolan) and ‘Dogon’ artisanal work, have become the signature products of an international market of Malian cultural tradition and heritage (Schulz 2007a; Rovine 2008). The demands of the tourist industry intersect with dynamics generated at the interface of a national policy of promoting local artisans, local attempts to commercialize cultural products, and international, UNESCO-sponsored heritage politics (see Rowlands 2007; Rovine 2008; Joy 2012; de Jorio 2016). Only in some regions, and with respect to certain cultural artefacts, do these developments amount to what Comaroff and Comaroff have recently labelled ‘ethno-prise’ (2009), that is, to an increasing marketing and branding of cultural identity, and of ethnicity itself (Schulz 2020; see Chanock 2000). Still, since the mid-1990s, there has been an undeniable trend toward the commodification of traditional culture, and of its transformation into a site of new entrepreneurial initiatives. In this process, the old-standing close association of notions of the ‘traditional’ with the countryside (an association clearly evident in the promotion of national culture under Modibo Keita) has gained a new political salience. An artefact’s or cultural practice’s connection with a particular rural locale and its soil (French, terre) invests it with an aura of genuineness that lends additional weight to claims and politics of local belonging (Geschiere 2009). The ending of state patronage for national performance groups after President Traoré’s fall from power heralded a new era of increasingly competitive musical production.The prohibition of broadcasting jeli praise on national media set clear limits on what had been, at least for select singers and musicians, a highly lucrative business. Jeli singers and instrumentalists from the national ensemble to whom I talked in the mid-1990s – some of whom had thrived Tailoring and weaving are a lucrative business because of broad demand for spectacular outfits. Other cultural producers, such as painters, writers, and filmmakers are in a more precarious position, except for those who orient themselves toward tourists and expatriates who appreciate ‘authentic’ Malian dress, artisanal objects, and fine arts as an expression of a modern Malian artistic identity (Schulz 2007a; Rovine 2008). 13

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in their position as state employees and as clients of individual politicians or businessmen under the Traoré presidency – expressed their deep resentment of these changes. They portrayed the cultural privatization policy of Konaré’s government as a ‘selling out’ of Mali’s cultural traditions, putting the blame on the president’s alleged ‘lack of appreciation and support’, rather than on long-term structural transformations in jeli–patron relations that under Moussa Traoré’s presidency had culminated in widespread disaffection with mercenary and corruptible jeli praise (Schulz 1998; 2001a: ch. 6). Still, as illustrated by farmers’ highly equivocal reactions to Mogontafe, jeli praise continued to be greatly appreciated for its musical and oratory qualities, regardless of its opportunistic nature. Also, the mere fact of being publicly lauded maintained some of its former glamour and appeal.14 People’s continued great appreciation of musical and rhetorical prowess was certainly one reason that singers and musicians of various nyamakala origin found ways to make up for the drying-up of state support and to become cultural entrepreneurs by exploring niches in a national and international market of cultural activities. Jeli singers were still solicited to perform during family celebrations, outside and beyond the realm of formal politics and a mass-mediated public. Musicians also capitalized on the international entertainment market that had developed since the mid-1980s.15 Female singers in particular benefited from the opportunities provided by national television and a growing video industry to become trendsetters in fashion, lifestyle, and new performance stylistics. The enormous success of these female pop stars in the national and international entertainment market has helped establish their music, which draws on the political and historical traditions of the Bamanakan-and Maninkakan-speaking people, as emblematic of Malian national culture (Schulz 2002). The disjuncture between state sponsorship and cultural production has spurred a diversification of musical genres in the entertainment market, a development facilitated by administrative decentralization and its attendant trend of celebrating local culture. Musicians from Mali’s north now

The dissociation of jeli singers from the realm of formal politics under President Konaré did not thwart the efforts of some jeli singers to laud, albeit in a subtler fashion, potential sponsors in songs sold in audiotapes (Schulz 2001a, ch.6). 15 The most successful ones are those who find sponsors to launch an international career, such as the jeli women Kandia Kouyate and Ami Koita, and the world-famous kora player Toumani Touré. Other internationally acclaimed musicians, such as Rokia Traoré, Salif Keita, Habib Koite, Ali Farka Touré, present themselves as ‘artists’, disclaiming the significance of their social origins for their career as musicians (Traoré 2000). 14

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compete with the range of performers and musical styles from different southern regions, including music from the Wasulu region, hunters’ music, and balafon music.16 Local radio stations further this trend and the success of musicians who articulate regionally specific traditions, and are hailed by their audiences as articulators of local particularity and rural tradition. The musicians thus benefit from the new political conditions prompted by decentralization, notably a strong trend toward celebrating the ‘multicomposite’ nature of national culture, and the capacity of the state to contain and integrate these differences.17

‘Valorizing’ culture How do international and supra-national agencies affect the political dimensions of cultural production in the contemporary era? How do these agencies intervene in the devising and implementation of state cultural policy? How do they complicate existing understandings of, and debates on, national or local culture, and the above-mentioned intertwining of national and local politics of particularity and cultural difference? Starting with a national cultural policy plan in 1993, revised in 1997, and through consecutive ‘cultural development plans’, the Malian Ministry of Culture has drawn on the institutional and financial support of Western donor agencies and aimed to implement the UNESCO paradigm of making ‘culture a resource of development’ (cf. Doquet 2014).18 In line with the UNESCO paradigm, the Ministry of Culture targeted the mise en valeur (‘enhancement’) of ‘local culture’, by devising supporting local initiatives aiming at the commercialization of activities, artefacts, materials, and art genres emblematic of ‘local tradition’. In 2010–11 the Ministry of Culture devised an overarching ‘development plan’ that hinged on three strategies: first, the coordination and support of initiatives by groups or The diversification of performers and genres of ‘Malian culture’ has prompted new scholarly research on music and performance genres other than those of the jeliw (e.g. Duran 1995a; Maxwell 2008). 17 So far, the arrival of northern refugees in Bamako and other southern towns has not spurred broader recognition of national musical diversity. The refugees have not (yet) accessed music production studios or national television. which remains an important player in the production and promotion of popular music. 18 The UNESCO paradigm feeds into a state-orchestrated heritage politics that has made ‘cultural patrimony’ a source of revenue, yet also an arena of contestation for the state and for a range of cultural producers and local elite initiatives (Joy 2012; de Jorio 2016). 16

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individuals involved in forms of ethno-enterprise regionally and locally; second, the promotion of ethno-tourism; and third, to lend institutional and financial support to the organization of regional and local cultural festivals. This policy set in motion a ‘festivalisation’ (Niang 2014) of culture. Festivals have become primary platforms for the commercialization of various expressive practices under the label of ‘local’, sometimes also ‘ethnic’, traditions. Government policy of promoting ‘local culture’ by turning it into a source of income was put into effect, with a lag of about ten years, in the country’s southern and northern regions. With regard to the northern regions, the ministry’s main strategy to ‘valorize local culture’ was promoting international tourism for the towns of Timbuktu and Gao.19 Here, starting in the early 2000s, an emergent tourist economy and an annual cultural festival, the Festival au Désert, directed at a mostly international audience, furthered the standardization of performance styles and ritual practice, their objectification as emblematic elements of locally specific traditions, and the conversion of these practices into a source of income (Schulz 2020). The often deeply divisive effects of state-supported ‘valorization of culture’ at regional and local levels is illustrated by the annual Festival de Médine, organized since 201220 at a fortified structure (tata) built by a nineteenthcentury centralized political formation, or kingdom, of Dembaya in the frontier region of Mali and Senegal. In a 2013–18 regional development plan, the Ministry of Culture declared the tata, which had been renovated with UNESCO funding since 2009, an important site for the ‘valorization of culture’. But the festival has not generated revenue for the different local groups targeted by the ministerial development plan. Instead, the festival benefited a few intellectuals from one dominant clan, refuelled resentment between the two dominant clans in the area, and erupted into a conflict over what should be staged and sold as ‘local culture’. The festival was initiated by a businesswoman whose outsider status (as a native from the town San in south-eastern Mali) and effort to promote the festival as a ‘community affair’ made her disregard the weight

The policy was part of a governmental strategy plan that, following the 1996 peace treaty with northern ‘rebel’ groups, channelled considerable development aid funds to the north, where it benefited considerably some ‘white’ free-born Tuareg and other privileged social groups. 20 The festival, organized under the tutelage of the Ministry of Culture, replaced a one-day ‘cultural event’ (Journée Culturelle) initiated in 2005. 19

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of long-standing political animosities.21 She failed to consider that the castle’s history was tied to one particular clan22 and that this history was very controversial. At the time of the French colonial conquest, the Dembaya kingdom had swiftly become the ally of the advancing French troops in an effort to gain the upper hand over its enemy, the kingdom of Logo Sabusèrè. The death of the king of Logo Sabusèrè at the hands of the French and the subsequent destruction of the tata was celebrated by the leaders of the independence movement in the 1950s as anti-colonial martyrdom.23 To this day, descendants from the kingdom of Logo Sabusèrè stress their own heroic past and consider those siding with the kingdom of Dembaya as traitors. After inviting only representatives of the Dembaya clan to join the festival organization committee,24 the businesswoman was vehemently opposed by a youth organization associated with the Logosèrè clan. The youth organization25 refused to participate in the festival, and challenged the organizing committee’s choice of ‘oral traditions’ to present as ‘local music and dance’, arguing that these traditions pertained only to the Dembaya clan and its dependents. Partly as a result of this refusal to participate, the annual festival has been increasingly appropriated by a younger generation of intellectuals belonging to the Dembaya faction who reside in Bamako, work for NGOs in Kayes, the regional capital, or occupy posts in newly created local government structures. While conflict surrounding the festival was framed in cultural terms that is, as a disagreement over local culture and history, it revolved on the allocation of revenue generated by the festival. Divisions along age, educational, and occupational background, and political ties played into the conflict; it was exacerbated by struggles over the nomination of the next mayor and community council – a nomination in which access to influential party politicians in the capital Bamako played a decisive role. The following discussion draws on the account by an official from the Ministry of Culture in charge of organizing the festival. 22 Both royal clans belong to the ethnic group of the Khassonke, but stress differences in regional origins and linguistic and cultural affiliation with the Fulbe (in the case of the Dembaya) and Minianka (Sabusèrè) ethnic groups. 23 The castle of Sabusèrè was never rebuilt, but a monument dating back to Modibo Keita’s presidency memorializes the first resistance to colonial invasion. That US-RDA party leaders chose the historical date of the castle’s destruction as Independence Day illustrates the significance of Sabusèrè’s colonial history. 24 The businesswoman’s decision went against the suggestion by officials from the Ministry of Culture to make the Logo Sabusèrè clan participate in the festival organization. 25 Association des Jeunes pour le Développement de Médine. 21

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The Festival de Médine illustrates that the commercialization of ‘culture’ has deeply divisive effects on the local population in whose name and interest this development measure was undertaken in the first place. These dynamics result from a collision of interests and competition among various actors and interest groups located at different points in a continuum of rural– urban connections; the dynamic replays, and partly exacerbates, long-standing divisions between local political factions and between men of different generations and educational backgrounds.26 The conflicts surrounding the Festival de Médine also suggest that as soon as cultural festivals are set up to convert ‘local’ culture and history into sources of revenue, the very meanings of the term ‘local’ change.27 Cultural festivals, although created to showcase local identity and tradition, simultaneously bring into focus disagreement over who should benefit from the ‘valorizing’ of local culture and whose history is representative of the local community.The conflict surrounding the Festival de Médine also shows that, similar to other regional festivals, an educated local elite, and a few entrepreneurs from other regions, have become the main beneficiaries of the ‘valorization’ of local culture (see Doquet 1996). Groups and families that did not benefit from the marketing of local culture do not see that the commercialization of ‘local culture’ leads to anything other than, as one interlocutor put it, ‘the selling out of our traditions’. To them, official claims that the promotion of local culture would enable wider participation and benefit have once again proved to be unwarranted. We can conclude that the implementation of UNESCO’s cultural policy has not significantly altered previous power inequalities and mechanisms of exclusion; nor has it generated wider people’s acceptance of the nation-state as a political order that grants equal treatment and benefit. De facto participation in local decision-making processes and partaking in the spoils of the ‘valorization of culture’ remain key criteria for assessing the state’s legitimacy.

Staging integration, producing ‘local culture’: the programme Terroir Earlier in the chapter, I argued, following Comaroff and Comaroff (2000), that political liberalization has set new conditions for the central state to ensure ‘hyphen-nation’, that is, the link between ‘nation’ and ‘state’. For striking parallels in the commodification of ‘local culture’, inter-generational rifts, and the intertwining of these developments with decentralized politics, see Doquet (1996). 27 Regional festivals support the objectification and standardization of performance genres as elements of ‘local’ culture (Schulz 2020). 26

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Multiparty democracy and political decentralization have generated new conditions for the expression of dissent and difference, and thus potentially reinforce the centrifugal forces inherent in the political order of the nation-state. Cultural policy implemented with the support of international agencies reinforces, rather than attenuates, these tendencies. Under these circumstances, the central state needs to perform (understood in its double meaning of ‘realize’ and ‘display’) its capacity and efficacy to keep together a heterogeneous political community. I argue that this performance of the capacity to integrate should be seen as essential in the legitimation process, yet not in the sense of providing an argument about the credentials of individual politicians (as this was done by jeli singers, for instance). Rather, displaying the state’s capacity to integrate and mend differences partakes in the process of legitimation insofar as it fosters acceptance of a political order that proves beneficial to its subjects and serves the interests of all. Further below, I will argue that the state performs its integrative capacity, inter alia, by summoning consumers’ aesthetic identification with what they perceive as their ‘genuine’ or ‘authentic’ culture. As an element of political legitimation, the summoning of identification involves a process of ‘authentication’ (see below, subchapter ‘Authenticating “local culture”’). We can thus take the staging of culture during official events and in national media broadcasts as one arena in which the state displays and enacts its capacity for integration and equitable treatment of all citizens. The simultaneous performance of cultural diversity and of the state’s integrative powers implies a significant break with the earlier nationalist project, which stressed – or claimed – unity on the basis of a shared national past. To explore the implications of this break, the following discussion centres on the cultural programme Terroir, which, broadcast weekly on Malian national television, offers a stage for the state’s display of its ability to contain local particularity. The origins of ‘Terroir’ date back to President Traoré’s single-party rule, when state radio and television, with its production studio in Bamako, held a monopoly over the production and archiving of ‘Malian culture’, and disseminated these objectified forms of ‘culture’ through regional relay stations located in Mali’s southern triangle. The programme was launched in the mid-1980s with documentaries on select cultural events and individual performers who, living in remote rural areas of the south, had come to the attention of the programme’s producer. These early, irregularly aired documentaries were greeted with such enthusiasm by television audiences (at this time mostly located in Bamako and in Segu in south-western Mali) that in 1989, Musique du Terroir became a regular Tuesday night show. Although the programme

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was officially presented as a platform for the nation’s different regional and local music, dance and ‘folklore’, the programme covered productions almost exclusively from the southern regions.28 As the programme started to integrate all kinds of ‘local folklore’ and changed its title to Terroir (French, ‘(from) the earth’), it partook in a process of re-signifying ‘culture’: ‘local culture’ was no longer exclusively defined through music and dance, but now comprised a broader range of cultural and social activities. The programme’s new name also reflects the earlier mentioned, long-standing trend of envisioning the countryside as the site of ‘original’ local culture and as a source for the expression of particularistic, culturally defined identities. While this view of the rural as the site of an original, undistorted culture is neither novel nor specific to postcolonial Africa (e.g. Williams 1977; Handler 1988: ch. 3; Ferguson 1992), Terroir’s enormous popularity indicates that in the post-1990 era of administrative decentralization in Mali, conceptions of the rural as the seat of original culture and particularistic identity construction have gained a new political significance.29 The great symbolic appeal of the countryside is a corollary to the partial inversion of vectors of political accountability and representation, illustrated by politicians’ efforts to prove their rural and local belonging (Geschiere 2009, ch. 7). Terroir thus at once reflects and responds to the heightened symbolic and political significance that ‘the local’ has gained with the decentralization of administrative and political decision-making structures. The close connection between the new symbolic value of the local and recent administrative and political decentralization is also reflected in how the programme is financed nowadays. Whereas under Traoré’s presidency, the production of Terroir was funded exclusively by the national broadcast station, today, the national broadcast station provides only for the montage and broadcasting of the documentary; production costs are to be covered by the hosts of the event (that is, a village or a commune). The new funding policy, which forms part of the earlier-mentioned trend to privatize cultural production, has an important political dimension. For villagers to be able The programme manager and producer explained the bias as a result of logistical and other pragmatic constraints. 29 Those in charge of Terroir repeatedly maintained that, in the absence of surveys and other assessments of consumers’ media preferences, the programme’s popularity was confirmed by the extensive, unprompted audience feed-back after the airing of the programme. Immediate ‘feed-back loops’ also connect hosts of other national television and local radio programmes to their spectators, fans and critics (see Schulz 1999a). 28

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to gather the funds necessary to cover the televised production of their ‘local culture’, they rely on the ressortissants, that is, relatives who live in town and who, as we saw in Chapter 3, organize themselves in associations to honour obligations to their kin ‘back home’ by providing financial and other forms of assistance (Meillassoux 1968; Quiminal 1991; Flore 1999; see also Lentz 1998a; Nyamnjoh and Rowlands 1998). Ressortissants who pursue a political career in the newly created local administrative and political structures are very eager to sponsor Terroir productions, and their investment in producing and displaying ‘local culture’ works both ways. Hoping to increase their popularity among local populations, the ressortissants enable their rural relatives’ access to state institutions in regional towns and Bamako, for instance by inviting the ORTM camera team to come to the village, and make the necessary financial and logistical arrangements in preparation of the production and first screening of the documentary. The ressortissants’ role as brokers between the home village, the administrative centre of the rural community, and the capital Bamako is thus essential to the success story of Terroir as a platform for claiming locally specific, culturally defined identities (Schulz 2007b: 202; 2020).30 The first screening of a Terroir production offers an opportunity for reflection on, and genuine enjoyment of, one’s ‘own traditions’. For this nightly event, villagers whose ‘culture’ is covered in the Terroir production flock in great numbers to the administrative centre of the commune or a nearby town to watch it in the courtyards of relatives who own a television set.31 Together with acquaintances and relatives from other villages, they enthusiastically respond to whatever they identify as instances of their ‘very own’ (yèrèyèrè) traditions;32 and they express their satisfaction that national television shows them to ‘other Malians’ unacquainted with the history and ‘customs’ of the locality. Motivations to initiate a Terroir coverage of ‘local culture’ include aggrandizing one’s own standing or that of one’s family or village, or bolstering one’s claims to land property. Political ambitions run particularly high during electoral campaigns. 31 The programme’s format does not correspond to Euro-North American standards of ‘documentaries’, in that it often lacks commentary. Nevertheless, ‘documentary’ aptly describes the programme because spectators often identify the absence of explanation as very proof of the programme’s ‘objective’ nature – that is, of its capacity ‘to depict things as they are’. Their comments mirror a culturally specific conceptualization of a ‘documentary’ as a media format whose accuracy consists in the lack of explanation. 32 Responses include non-verbal responses (jumping up, dancing to particular tunes) and remarks such as ‘this is true’, ‘o how well she sings’, ‘this is our very own tune’, ‘this is indeed how we have always done things’. 30

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Terroir’s popularity points to the new meaning that ‘the local’ has gained in cultural policy. Under the governments of Modibo Keita and Moussa Traoré, ‘the local’ was not a relevant category, and any mention of ‘regional’ cultural diversity served the project of forging one shared national culture. Only with cultural policy established since 1991 has ‘the local’ become a category with a key role in the official display and containment of cultural difference. Notably, the new significance of ‘the local’ reveals a changing understanding of Malian national culture, underneath apparent continuities with earlier cultural policy that other authors have stressed (Touré 1996; Arnoldi 2006). President Keita’s nationalist project addressed the nation’s ‘unity in diversity’ as a programme of integrating ‘regional’ cultures into one joint national culture. Since the early 1990s, governments have promoted the idea that difference and opposing particularistic interests can be contained by celebrating them as a matter of cultural diversity. The display of cultural diversity and of local particularity now plays an essential role, not in highlighting the existence of one national culture, but in creating the image of a strong and ordering central state capable of containing the centrifugal tendencies of the heterogeneous political community. Villagers’ enthusiastic remarks about national television hint at their appreciation of a government that grants them airtime on national television, and that they eagerly take up this opportunity to claim a particularistic, culturally defined position within the multicultural nation-state. At the same time, Terroir’s celebration of original local culture obscures mechanisms of exclusion that are decisive in what is represented as ‘local culture’ and, similar to the dynamics surrounding the cultural festivals, weaken the credibility of the television programme as a suitable medium for local culture. To inhabitants of the locale that hosts the Terroir documentary, its depiction of their ‘very own traditions’ closely reflects local inequalities in power and wealth. These inequalities come out even in the production of footage, when only those connected to locally powerful families have a chance to influence decisions on what should be presented as ‘local culture’. Nominally, elders and ritual experts have the authority to decide on what should be filmed, and what should be omitted. However, whenever ressortissants enjoy the patronage of influential sponsors or politicians (locally and nationally), it gives them some leverage in interactions with the camera team.33 Thus, The producer and the camera team also play a part in deciding which passages to film and which ones to omit. During the montage process, the producer weighs the sensitivity of recorded material and selects passages that might refer to formerly socially restricted knowledge, thus reconstructing ‘local culture’. 33

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similar to the commodification of culture set off by festivals, televised productions of ‘very own traditions’ foster and conceal disagreement over the meanings of ‘the local’.34 The broadcasting of ‘local culture’ on national television has therefore paradoxical implications. For those villagers who remain bystanders to decisions on what to depict on screen, yet who nevertheless contributed to the financing of a Terroir production, the documentary is at once a source of feelings of pride about their ‘very own’ culture and visual proof of their own continued marginality in local networks of influence and political decision making.

Authenticating ‘local culture’? So far, I have interpreted the television programme Terroir as part of a government effort to strengthen the image of the state, in its capacity of offering equitable representation to its different peoples and cultures and of containing the centrifugal tendencies inherent to this heterogeneous political community. As such, the programme can be viewed as part and parcel of a legitimation process. This raises the question of how effective this televised mise en scène of the state’s ordering capacity is and how exactly it addresses spectators as citizens. Do Terroir documentaries induce spectators – those who hosted the production event, but also other audiences – to accept the official display of the state’s capacity of integration and of equitable treatment of local particularity? If so, what processes of aesthetic mediation prompt them to agree with these claims? Villagers who hosted a Terroir event and whom I asked about possible changes in the televised version readily conceded that differences exist between the remediated and the live performance. Other spectators, too, who watched a Terroir production on television are generally well aware that televised documentaries are selectively arranged renditions of original performances. Still, they passionately claim that the Terroir programme ‘teaches them about Mali’s diverse local cultures’. What is it about the televised productions of ‘local culture’ that generates in spectators a sense that these are faithful renditions of their ‘very own’ traditions? How does Terroir generate a sense of genuineness or authenticity, and how does this feed into a broader process of legitimation?

Because conflict parties strive to shift the power balance to their advantage, they end up fighting over what elements of ‘local culture’ should receive coverage, fights that often reanimate long-standing conflicts. 34

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The question of how a performance or experience is rendered ‘authentic’ plays an important role in recent scholarship on cultural performances and on mediation, yet there is room for specification of what the process of ‘authentication’ actually entails. Anthropological studies of heritage politics stress that the ‘authentic’ cannot be defined in essentialist terms. They trace the political and social dynamics that allow particular artefacts or cultural practices to become ‘authentic’ elements of a national culture or tradition, yet do not enquire into how the aesthetic and sensory nature of these objects makes them appear ‘authentic’ (e.g. de Jong and Rowlands 2007; Schulz 2007b; see Keane 2003). Similarly, recent scholarship on autochthony highlights that claims to authentic origins or belonging play a key role in present-day struggles over resource allocation (Ceuppens and Geschiere 2005; Marshall-Fratani 2006; Geschiere 2009). What remains an open question is how constructions of authentic belonging become compelling, so that, for instance, spectators who watch Terroir recognize in practices or elements the markers of an ‘authentic’ rendering of local culture. A pertinent response to this question has come from scholars who highlight the key role of aesthetics, materiality, and bodily sensation in authentication processes (Van de Port 2004, 2005; Meyer 2004, 2009; Meyer and Verrips 2008;Vasquez 2011). In line with Keane (2003), they argue that people’s perception of the authenticity of an experience or object is the result of the operation of symbolic forms. What these authors highlight, then, is that the process by which people come to recognize a practice, actor, or object as ‘authentic’ operates to an important extent through sensory perception and affective appeal, and only partly through argument and explanation. To consider the aesthetic and sensory dimensions of authenticity perceptions is an important step in understanding why spectators consider Terroir productions as ‘original’ renderings of local culture. Still, in the abovementioned studies, it often remains unclear what the term ‘authentication’ refers to.This conceptual indeterminacy has significant implications (Schulz and Hinsch 2014a, b). For instance, Van de Port argues that the adoption of visual media technologies into conventional Candomblé ritual practice in Brazil generates authentic religious experience by opening up … a new register of mediation …, with all the problems of authorization and authentication the use of new media tends to entail, and with all the controversy and contestation new media tend to give rise to. (Van de Port 2006: 445)

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Van de Port refers to two distinct processes as ‘authentication’: one is an assessment of the authentic character of a performance or object on the basis of existing authenticity criteria; in the second process, actors attribute the label of ‘authenticity’ to a performance or object, and hence create a new fact on the basis of which future performances are assessed.35 Because Van de Port does not distinguish between these two processes, it remains unclear what he demonstrates, apart from the statement that ‘authentic is what people construct as authentic’. A similar indeterminacy is evident in Meyer’s perspective on how ‘religious mediations address and mobilize people and form them aesthetically’ (2009: 9). Drawing on Maffesoli’s notion of ‘aesthetic style’ (1996: 31ff), Meyer highlights the at-once structuring and structured effects of ‘style’, which give it the capacity to induce a ‘shared sensory mode of perceiving and experiencing the world that produces community’ (2009: 9), and maintains that mass-mediated cultural forms (in the case of her empirical material: religious images) generate forms of perception that validate certain religious experiences as genuine and true. This argument is an ex post facto account of how people experience ‘community’ that cannot be falsified: cultural forms prompt people to spontaneously sense the ‘authenticity’ of a performance, yet these cultural forms are simultaneously constructed as criteria.The account thus collapses a culturally specific conception of authenticity and an account of the social process through which authenticity is generated. If we followed its argumentative logic, it would be hard to identify an instance in which people do not have an authentic community experience. Also, an exclusive focus on aesthetic mediation risks neglecting other dimensions of the generation of authenticity that do not result from symbolic mediation. We need a conceptual framework that accounts in a systematic fashion for the different forces and conditions relevant to the authentication of cultural forms as instances of ‘original’ local culture. The framework needs to make room for the social and material conditions that enable people’s recognition of a televised performance as a faithful rendition of local culture. Discussing the insertion of visual stylistics of soap operas into video productions of Candomblé ritual, he observes: ‘Of course, at first sight one is tempted to say that the insertion of bikini beauties and cakes in the depiction of a religious ceremony is evidence that both the producers and consumers of these videos are not at all concerned with questions of authenticity. … Yet one needs to ask if these videos might seek to produce an authenticity of another kind. Could the source of authentication that these videos draw on be not Mother Africa but TV itself? In other words, is it possible that these videos seek to inscribe candomblé rituals in everyday realities by using televisual styles and formats?’ (Van de Port 2006: 454) 35

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I propose that we distinguish between four dimensions of the authentication process. First, a cognitive-argumentative dimension; second, a sensory and aesthetic dimension; third, a procedural and choreographic dimension; and fourth, the material and social conditions under which spectators consider a performance a faithful rendition of local culture.The cognitive-argumentative dimension includes the propositional content of arguments, judgements, and considerations that inform spectators’ assessments of a performance. By ‘sensory and aesthetic dimension’, I refer to aspects of a performance that affect the aesthetic, and hence sensory perception of viewers, participants, and bystanders, such as sounds, paralinguistic speech qualities, the timbre, phrasing, and other qualities of a voice or instrument.This dimension is at the centre of Meyer’s approach to aesthetic mediation. It includes the specific aesthetic qualities highlighted by particular technologies of taping and transmission as they show, for instance, in the audio-visual, or audio recordings of a performance. ‘Procedural-choreographic’ elements refer to formal features of a performance and how they are arranged spatially and temporally. Because the formal features are adjusted and transformed through media-specific formats of presentation, they need to be understood in their intertwining with the media infrastructure at work. The final dimension of authentication processes, that is, the material and social conditions that inform spectators’ assessments of a performance, calls for an account of how the claims articulated in the performance (in verbal or non-verbal form) relate to the socio-economic realities of everyday life that inform what Negt and Kluge (1993) aptly term the spectators’ ‘horizon of experience’, by which they refer to the ways people give their life a purpose and direction on the basis of their experiences. How do these dimensions affect spectators’ assessments of Terroir productions, and their judgements of these productions as faithful renditions of their ‘very own culture’? Following Greg Urban’s argument that ‘[p]erceptions and feelings … precede their formulation in publicly accessible words … [and] cannot be studied directly but only indirectly through the words in which they are encoded’ (1996: 22), I take the terms by which spectators assess live performances and Terroir renditions to understand their judgements. I consider non-verbal, bodily responses to the performances to equally shed light on spectators’ appreciations and disappointments.36 Verbal and non-verbal responses highlight a performance’s auditory dimensions, regardless of whether a performance consists of dance, speech, instrumental music, chants, or a combination of these elements. 36

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When spectators feel appreciative of a performance, they approvingly use the term ben (to meet, to agree) to stress that their aesthetic and social expectations have been met. The term bèn refers to the argumentativecognitive and aesthetic-sensory dimension of a performance. It implies a statement about a performance’s aesthetic-sensory qualities, the morally edifying nature of what is claimed and argued in a performance, and the socially creative effects of the successful combination of argument and aesthetics.The term bèn connotes social connectedness; it is used to describe meetings, or a consensus achieved, and also to describe the congruence between one’s own social, aesthetic, and moral expectations (that is, between a person’s judgement of what is right, proper, and acceptable) and particular conduct, or what is said and done in a performance. A bè bèn an’w ma (‘this is agreeable to us’) states that a performance ‘is agreeable’ to one’s senses and aesthetic preferences and to one’s moral and social values. The fact that spectators attach primary importance to the congruence between a performance’s moral, social, and aesthetic features is noteworthy. It shows that the expression ‘one’s very own’ does not refer primarily to the authentic or original nature of a piece. Rather, the statement identifies the televised rendition as one that equally achieves a congruence between certain social, moral, and aesthetic effects. When listeners judge a performance as their ‘very own’ culture, they apply aesthetic criteria, such as rhetorical skills, the timbre of a voice, and ‘deep knowledge’ of local history, and thereby ‘authenticate’ a performance, in the second sense of ‘authentication’ discussed earlier in this chapter. Yet because spectators also validate a performance by reference to its success in ‘bringing people together’, their appreciation is contingent on the circumstances under which a song is received and evaluated. Even if spectators apply certain fixed authenticity criteria, their decisions about how to prioritize them are similarly contingent on the situation and on people’s ‘horizon of experience’. When discussing the third dimension of a performance that is, its formalchoreographic features, differences between the formal arrangement of a live performance and that of its audio-visual representation come into play. Formal features of live performances that operate as ‘cues’ for a faithful rendition of local culture comprise the spatial choreography of dance and song performances; the sequence and length of different elements of the performance; and particular objects such as instruments and dress items considered emblematic of the featured locality. Notably, not all these formal elements need to be included for a performance to be considered a truthful rendition of local culture. Taken on their own, changes in the location, audience access, or other formal aspects of a performance would not prompt

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spectators to question its original nature, unless there is a great number of changes in the performance’s spatial and procedural mise en scène.37 That a performance’s choreographic arrangement may be modified without prompting doubts about its ‘true’ nature also applies to Terroir productions, even if they are generally more variable in their presentation and recombination of formal features.38 Another characteristic feature of the Terroir presentational format consists in (for Western observers) long-drawn-out passages of individual sequences of a performance. Individual speakers, dancers, and instrumentalists, but also members of the audience, are depicted at length and in great detail. The length of these passages generates three important effects. First, it gives the impression of a one-to-one and hence truthful reproduction of the filmed live performance. Second, the detailed rendition underlines the status of the camera team as ‘real-time’ witnesses of the live performance. And third, it gives spectators ample opportunity to scrutinize individual speakers and dancers and to comment in detail on their qualifications and their personal ties to them. Used repetitively, these spatiotemporal arrangements and cues become standards for televised representations of ‘culture’; and they streamline and coordinate the systematic responses of spectators (Schulz 2011).This habituation process generates a déjà vu experience in spectators and is therefore essential to their recognition of a certain performance as a faithful rendition of their ‘very own culture’. In some cases, political considerations or a sense of disappointment may prompt listeners to discount a rendition as less-than-faithful or as ‘not agreeable’, even if it meets the formal and aesthetic standards. Inversely, spectators and listeners might feel deeply moved by a historical recitation’s aesthetic-sensory qualities, for instance, while simultaneously contesting the account itself. There is therefore no one-to-one fit between the different dimensions of a performance and in how they play into spectators’ perceptions and judgements.

For practical reasons, ‘ritual dance’ performances formerly staged in the village centre now take place in public spaces outside the village, even if they feature masquerades for formerly restricted audiences. The public (televised) showcasing of performances prompts contestation over what should be kept from the public but (judging from the events I attended) not over a performance’s ‘original’ character. 38 Televised formats draw on elements that can be easily modified during the montage. They vary with respect to angles and length of camera shots, and the choice of sounds and scenes of ‘village life’. 37

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That political considerations might undermine any consensus on a performance’s stylistic and aesthetic qualities was brought home to me during a Terroir production process in January 2012. Situated in a village located about twenty-five kilometres away from Manantali town, the Terroir coverage had been initiated by a group of ressortissants, with the financial support of a retired lawyer from Bamako who, as a native of the village, was working on a political career as future deputy of the area. Prior to the Terroir coverage, a decade-long conflict had divided the host village and a neighbouring village over the selection of the chef-lieu of the commune (created in 1997). Because both villages claimed historical precedence and leadership status in communal politics, the question of whose version of the local settlement history should be recorded by the ORTM camera team was highly contentious. The account that was ultimately presented to the team, recited by an elder from the host village, could be taken as an argumentative basis for justifying the host village’s claim to political precedence. During the live performance and also during the Terroir production’s first screening, members from the audience native to the village pointed to this historical account, and also its audio-visual rendition, to stress their genuine nature. Not surprisingly, other audience members, among them a few older men from the competing village and another neighbouring village, challenged this version of ‘local history’, and argued that Terroir had been ‘misappropriated’ to circulate a misleading account of the relations between different clans of the area. The example shows that to judge a Terroir production as a ‘faithful’ reproduction of local culture and history is not merely a matter of evaluating its aesthetic or formal characteristics. Political and social considerations might outweigh the relevance of a performance’s different features. The case is different for television spectators with no personal ties to, or knowledge of, the locality in question. Certain audio-visual cues and presentation formats prompt them to assume that they are watching ‘rural tradition’.They feel enthusiastic about the programme, regardless of whether they believe that it offers an accurate depiction of ‘local culture’. There are therefore multiple reasons why spectators might enthusiastically respond to – or reject – a Terroir production of ‘local culture’, and assert or dismiss its genuine nature. Three insights follow from the preceding discussion. First, whether members of the host village feel that a Terroir production represents their ‘very own’ culture partly depends on the stakes involved in inviting the camera team in the first place, and also on the possibility that they will be able to steer the production process. Second, spectators’ contingent

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responses to the display of their ‘very own traditions’ on Terroir draw attention to the gap between objective markers of an ‘authentic’ performance and the subjective recognition of a performance’s unaltered or ‘authentic nature’ by individual spectators. None of the television productions are ‘authenticated’ in the sense discussed earlier in this chapter, that is, by referring to a fixed set of formal criteria. Rather, the criteria that qualify a performance as a faithful rendition might vary and can be combined in different ways. People from the locality who hosted the Terroir coverage and spectators who watch the Terroir documentary may assert and ‘construct’ its original nature by privileging certain aesthetic, formal, and argumentative elements over others. Stating that ‘authenticity’ is attributed in a contingent way, and loosely and selectively referring to certain formal and aesthetic criteria, bring greater specification to Van de Port’s argument about the ‘authentication’ of religious experience. Rather than demonstrate how spectators authenticate a performance by reference to existing criteria, Van de Port stops at the argument that people claim the authentic character of a performance. Third, spectators’ recognition of Terroir’s faithful rendering of local culture is not the most important reason for the programme’s astounding success. Terroir’s popularity resides in its capacity to provide a platform for claims to particularity that, framed as a matter of culture, are made available to a nationwide audience. Terroir’s dissemination on state television is essential here. Whatever cultural practices and objects are depicted on state television as emblematic of ‘traditional culture’, they all receive additional significance through their dissemination to a national public.

Conclusion Political and economic liberalization in Mali heralded a shift in official constructions of national culture and belonging underneath apparent continuities in political rhetoric. At stake, here, is what Geschiere describes for Cameroon as a ‘switch between quite different forms of belonging: from a focus on national citizenship, as at least formally the most important form of belonging, to autochthony as a crucial criterion’ (2009: 170). Even if in Mali, ‘autochthony’ is not the master metaphor through which struggles over belonging have been fought, along with administrative decentralization, since the mid-1990s, claims to local particularity, framed as a matter of cultural specificity, have gained political salience. This process affects the

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role assigned to culture in defining citizens’ place within the nation-state, and also in staging the state’s ability to order and to contain difference.39 The development depicted in this chapter, from an earlier subsuming of cultural diversity under a unified national culture to the contemporary celebration of diverse local cultures, may appear as a subtle one, and as one of quantity rather than of quality. Yet it actually implies a significant rupture, one that signals a departure from earlier forms of imagining national citizens. Whereas earlier nation-building efforts showed in an effort, most notably by President Keita and his US-RDA party, to invoke a unified national community, cultural policy under President Konaré and President Touré involved another mode of invoking national unity and belonging to the nation-state. In a situation in which multiparty democracy and the relegation of administrative and political competences to the local level prompts centrifugal tendencies, the government needs to harness allegiance to the nation-state in new ways. ‘Culture’ is again assigned a central role in ‘forging national citizens’ (Geschiere 2009: 168), as cultural policy frames them as proud ‘owners’ of their locally specific culture. At the same time, as illustrated by the dynamics surrounding the commodification of local culture through festivals, governmental efforts to foster attachment to the nation-state through the ‘valorization’ of local culture are disrupted by various local political dynamics. These divisive effects constitute the flipside of governmental invocations of a national community unified by its pride in ‘culture’. Where do these insights and the discussion of Terroir leave us with regard to the programme’s function to stage the state’s ability to integrate local particularities and difference? Does the programme strengthen the conviction that the nation-state is essentially a beneficial political order among its diverse audiences? I answer this question with a qualified yes. Even if the ‘authentic local culture’ displayed on Terroir always results from a rearrangement of select elements and sequences of a performance, and although spectators are aware of it, Terroir productions nevertheless foster broader acceptance of the multicultural nation-state, at least among those segments of the population that This insight adds nuance to Skinner’s (2015: 102–115) insightful analysis of the ‘Afripolitan musical ethics’ articulated by musicians in Bamako.Whereas Skinner centres on how musicians understand their own responsibilities as artists, this chapter has shown that the significance of music broadcasts also unfolds against the backdrop of long-term changes in a state-orchestrated project of integrating particularistic identities and identity claims. 39

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see their ‘local cultures’ displayed on screen. Terroir offers a mise en scène of a multi-composite nation, and of a state that admits and promotes cultural diversity and local particularity. Terroir also provides a platform for the display of cultural diversity and for the government’s capacity to integrate various forms of cultural and regional difference into a common framework of reference, the nation. Cultural festivals similarly demonstrate the great appeal of invocations of the local in the eyes of inhabitants of the area, in spite of the deeply divisive implications of the marketing of ‘local culture’. While the very meanings of ‘local history’ are open to disagreement and contestation, the terms ‘local culture’ and ‘local history’ lend themselves to local inhabitants’ continued efforts to reflect on and claim their distinctive place within the multicultural nation-state. Still, in the absence of more substantial reforms that will improve rural livelihood conditions and opportunities for political participation, it is unlikely that programmes such as Terroir will convince audiences of the state’s impartial treatment and integration of its diverse populations and of its capacity to suppress difference and competition. Thus, insofar as Terroir is used as a stage to celebrate the state’s ordering power, the programme will do little to strengthen the legitimacy of state political order, even among audiences whose culture is celebrated on national television. Cultural policy in the era of political and economic liberalization has put into relief existing power inequalities and mechanisms of exclusion, rather than altering them. Measures aiming at the promotion of ‘local culture’ and its marketing have not generated wider people’s acceptance of the nation-state as a political order that grants equal treatment and benefit. De facto participation in local decision-making processes and partaking in the spoils of the ‘valorization of culture’ remain key criteria for assessing the state’s legitimacy.

5 Legitimacy in Question: The Challenge of Islamic Renewal

Introduction In June 2015, a Friday sermon delivered by a preacher at a mosque in one of Bamako’s popular neighbourhoods culminated in the following statement: our problem is not the Islamists in the north, with whom we can always make arrangements. In fact, the ‘sharia’ they are imposing is not so different from our vision. Our main problem is the secessionists in the north. As long as we stay together as a nation, we can jointly work toward making Mali a country in which the rules of Islam are followed in everyday life.1

This statement is remarkable in several respects. It asserts that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation-state is of greater import than the secular order to which the Malian nation-state adheres in its present form. According to the preacher, the state is in dire need of reform so as to allow its citizens to live in greater conformity with Islamic precepts aiming at the political and moral ordering of collective and personal life. The statement thus implies a judgement about the sorry state of affairs of the government and of the political order more generally, which is depicted as an order devoid of legitimacy because it cannot ensure the basic conditions for citizens to live in proper moral terms, that is, as believers who abide by God’s law. That ‘Islam’ has become the battle cry to challenge the legitimacy of Mali’s political leadership is illustrated by the following sobering journalistic assessment of the political situation under the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita:

1

A. Ouoleguem, personal communication, Bamako, July 2015.

160   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali The ruling class in Mali has reached such a state of atrophy, of dejection and flight that is has been relegated to a role of servility vis-à-vis religious leaders who, whether one likes it or not, keep on a leash national public opinion. … (T)his public opinion has become a function of the sermons delivered by these preachers. … This is not surprising because they sell people the dream of a country liberated from corruption, and promise them a revenge on those who profit from being in power. … The imam Haidara is right when he says that the Muslim movement can elect whomever it wishes to run the country. He only declares via loudspeakers what everyone already knows. Indeed, one has the impression to live in a country in which the state and religious leaders seem to have entered a pact. The former busies itself with mismanaging the country, while the latter transform the population into bigoted people. … People lose any sense of their rights and duties as citizens. They become bigoted, period, that’s all.2

The newspaper comment, published in 2017, reveals considerable ambivalence about the political role assumed by religious opinion leaders under President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s government. It states flatly that the growing political weight of Muslim interest groups and their leaders allows them to challenge a government suffering from a lack in credibility. The comment also names a major protagonist of the challenge mounted by Islam to Mali’s political leadership: the preacher Shaykh Cherif Ousmane Haidara who, since the late 1980s, has called for a moral renewal of society and established himself as an influential opinion leader in national politics, with the effect that, according to some observers of politics, ‘Haidara can elect and overthrow any president anytime today in Mali’.3 Alongside Shaykh Cherif Haidara, there are other influential spokesmen of Islamic renewal, most notably, the imam Mahamoud Dicko, who, since the late 1990s, has assumed an ever-growing presence in public debate mediated by media in the urban south, as an outspoken critic of governmental secularist policy. The growing influence of these Muslim leaders attests to the fact that over the last three decades, the ‘symbolic language of Islam’ (Eickelman 2000) has become the most formidable challenge to secular nation-state politics, among Mali’s urban and rural populations. In the country’s central Boubacar Sangaré, ‘Mali, le ‘Krach’ National’, 8 January 2016, Mondafrique, www. mondafrique.com/le-mali-vu-d-en-bas/mali-le-krach-national/ (accessed 20 April 2017, translation DES). 3 Souleymane Diallo, personal communication, January 2017. These observers do not consider themselves followers of Shaykh Haidara. 2

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and northern regions, the idiom of religious renewal has been articulated most forcefully by various militant groups since the 2000s. The preceding chapters addressed the nature and process of political legitimacy from the vantage point of one particular rural region of Mali’s south-west. As I argued in Chapters 1, 3 and 4, over the 1990s and 2000s, farmers engaged in what one could call a ‘political learning process’ insofar as they gradually saw themselves as part of the national community, and adapted their criteria of evaluation to the changing rationale for political action under conditions of decentralization and multiparty democracy. Nevertheless, in spite of these changing perceptions, since the 2000s there has been a growing tendency to question the political order and its representatives, as farmers increasingly realized that the promises of multiparty democracy and decentralization had not been borne out. In urban areas, too, a popular discourse of disenchantment poked fun at President Touré’s political opportunism and criticized his government’s failure to enable broader political participation and grant people their share of the national wealth. This chapter explores the challenge of an Islamic idiom of moral and political reform to the present political system, and thereby shifts the location of ethnographic inquiry to the urban south, in particular to the capital Bamako, Segu, and Kita town. In so doing, the chapter relates the perceptions of political legitimacy formulated by the populations of the Kita hinterlands in Mali’s south-west to the mainly urban-based movement of Islamic reform whose leaders so powerfully challenged the legitimacy of President Keita’s government until his fall in August 2020.

Actors, idioms, and institutions of Islamic renewal The challenge posed to the Malian state by Muslim armed forces in the country’s northern and central regions is the culminating point of an emergent Islamic consensus (see Brown 2011: 102) on the need to reform society in line with Islamic precepts. This consensus has been building up steadily since the late 1990s, fuelled by people’s growing realization that the governments of Presidents Konaré and Touré failed to deliver services, goods, and substantive reforms promised to them in the name of democracy. Capitalizing on the civil liberties introduced after Traoré’s ouster in 1991, various organizations, actors, and visions of Islamic moral renewal moved to public prominence, transforming the visual, auditory, and architectural topography of urban and rural areas through a sprawling infrastructure of

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Muslim education, proselytization, and worship.4 While referring to these various Muslim activist initiatives as a ‘movement’ of social and moral renewal, it is important to note that those who support it strongly disagree among themselves about the ways in which Islamic precepts should be made relevant to personal conduct and the regulation of family relations and public order (Schulz 2008, 2012: ch. 1). The movement draws its strongest support from the urban middle and lower-middle classes, and increasingly also among young men in the rural hinterlands of southern Mali. The challenge posed by supporters of Islamic renewal to Malian state politics draws on, and extends widely beyond, the reform efforts of earlier generations of Muslim activists. As early as the late 1930s, Muslim intellectuals sought to rework the institutional conditions imposed by the colonial and later postcolonial state, through educational reform and by seeking to align local religious practices with what they deemed proper Islamic prescripts (Kaba 2000).5 Reform-minded Muslim intellectuals also sought to facilitate believers’ access to the written sources of Islam, to deepen ordinary believers’ religious knowledge, and to purify conventional religious practices from what they considered unlawful innovation (bida).6 Their efforts clashed with those of established religious leaders who were backed by the colonial administration as representatives of a ‘Black Islam’ (Islam noire), which was allegedly more tolerant of ‘hybrid’ practices and local understandings of the workings of invisible forces (Brenner 1985, 2001).The disagreements among Muslim leaders and religious specialists transpired in a Muslim ‘discourse about ignorance and truth’ (Brenner 2001: 134f), by which each party claimed superiority in religious interpretative authority. After independence, inter-Muslim factionalism and confrontation continued as a new generation of Muslim activists capitalized on the financial support offered by the Arab-speaking Muslim world in the name of da’wa to build schools and mosques and offer education (Brenner 1993b; Otayek 1993). In the 1980s, some Muslim activist groups received funding from a transnational da’wa movement sponsored by Arab-speaking countries (Schulz 2012: ch.1). About 150 officially recognized Muslim associations and organizations existed prior to the 2012 coup d’état (Thiriot 2010). 5 Some religious leaders and intellectuals, backed by the French colonial administration, played an important role, for instance in education; but they never exerted a political influence comparable to that of religious clans in Nigeria and Senegal (Brenner 1993a, 2001; Loimeier 1997, 2003; Launay and Soares 1999; Kane 2003). 6 They called for a stricter dress code and denounced lifecycle rituals; some promoted a prayer posture tied to Wahhabi doctrine (Kaba 1974; Amselle 1985b; Triaud 1985; Launay 1992; Masquelier 1999). 4

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Partly because of this friction, the political effects of Muslim educational and reformist activism remained limited at that time. In contrast, present-day Muslim activism in Mali poses an increasingly powerful challenge to understandings of public order and personal conduct associated with the state political order, and to foundational principles of the Malian constitution. As intimated in the sermon quoted at the beginning of the chapter, ‘Islamic renewal’ also serves as a reference point to evaluate and denounce the performance of individual politicians. It draws on a reformulation of earlier discourses of citizenship and its secular foundations (see Brown 2011: 117). Yet significant regional differences in the ways in which supporters seek to realize their search for a new order based on Islam reflect their diverging integration into the political economy of the Malian nation-state. In the country’s northern and central regions. the idiom of Islamic renewal was adopted by some armed groups after the 2012 coup d’état to challenge the secular foundations of the Malian constitution as well as the nation-state’s claim to constitute the overarching framework for belonging and national citizenship. Leaders of the Muslim insurgency frame their efforts to establish a theocratic order as a struggle against the central state, which, they assert, is ruled by ‘unbelievers’. By renouncing Malian citizenship, these armed forces of Muslim militancy position themselves outside the national community, perpetuating the separatist agenda of racially ‘white’, free-born, and noble Tuareg clans that have resisted state encroachment since the colonial period. Shortly after independence in 1960 and again in the 1990s, separatistminded groups of Tuareg society initiated several ‘Tuareg revolts’ (Lecocq 2010; Lecocq and Schrijver 2007), in response to their continued economic and political marginalization within the Malian nation-state.7 Their separatist endeavour regained momentum after 2006, culminating in the occupation of Kidal and Gao by the Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA) and the declaration of an independent Tuareg nation of Azawad shortly after the March 2012 coup d’état. Very soon, however, the Tuareg separatists became embroiled in military confrontations with several Muslim

With their call for an independent Tuareg nation, separatists disregard the ethnic and status heterogeneity of populations in the regions of Gao, Timbuktu, and Kidal, and omit long-standing inequalities that oppose noble and free-born Tuareg clans to their former slaves, some of whom increasingly define themselves in racial terms, that is, as ‘blacks’, rather than as ‘Tuareg’ (Diallo 2016). 7

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armed organizations, the MUJAO,8 AQMI9 (which descended from the militant group GSPC10 in Algeria) and Ansar Dine led by Iyad Ag Aghaly11 After a few months, Tuareg separatists lost out in the confrontation with Muslim militants. Relations among these groups of armed Muslim militants are shaped by competition and factionalism. They all benefit from resources provided by al-Qaida and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, and from a thorough immersion in a trans-border economy of hostage taking, contraband, and drug dealing rooted in long-standing trans-Saharan ‘connectivities’ (Scheele 2012).12 Capitalizing on this trans-border economy, a coalition of oppositional forces under the leadership of Iyad Ag Aghaly and his Ansar Dine group effectively controls Kidal and its surrounding areas, in spite of the MINUSMA military presence in the Gao and Timbuktu regions since January 2013.13 The coalition CMA (Coordination des Mouvements de l’Azawad) comprises the MNLA, the HCUA (Haut Conseil pour l’Unité de l’Azawad), and the MAA (Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad). MNLA militants and other coalition members claim to be secular and hence opposed to Iyad Ag Aghaly, yet there are clear signs that many of them are Ag Aghaly’s allies. Most coalition members are Ifoghas from Kidal who belonged to Ansar Dine from 2011 to 2014, but left the group to join forces with the MNLA and create the HCUA (and later the CMA). Within the CMA, the HCUA is more influential than the MNLA. Local observers take this as an indication that the CMA operates in the shadow of Iyad Ag Aghaly. For the same reason, French military forces stopped cooperating with the CMA in Kidal. Iyad Ag Aghaly’s group Ansar Dine (not to be confounded with the group ‘Ansar Dine’ led by Shaykh Cherif Haidara14) has mounted deadly Mouvement pour le Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest. Al Qaida du Maghreb Islamique. 10 Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat). 11 Regardless of their contrasting political agendas, Muslim militants and Tuareg separatists all downplay the ethnic connotation of their struggle and the racial and social status specificity of their agenda. A notable example is the Ansar Dine du Nord group, which draws on the dominant Tuareg clan of Kidal, the Kel Adagh, and their families of free-born, racially ‘white’ clients (Schulz 2016). 12 Souleymane Diallo, personal communication, April 2016. 13 Souleymane Diallo, personal communication, February 2020. 14 ‘Ansar Dine’ (from Arabic, Ansar-Ud-Deen, ‘those who help religion’), refers to the companions of the Prophet Mohammad (Reichmuth 1996). Used for those who support and propagate Islam, it mirrors Muslim activists’ claim to ‘return’ to the original teachings 8 9

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attacks on Malian military and French and UN peacekeeping forces in the north-east, thus posing a formidable challenge to the sovereignty and power monopoly of the Malian state.15 Ag Aghaly presents his rule as being founded on ‘shari’a law’, without, however, spelling out the textual foundations of this politico-theocratic order (Schulz 2012). He was excluded from the Algiers Peace negotiation process, and the US administration lists him as one of the most searched terrorists. In video recordings intercepted by Malian security forces, Ag Aghaly has repeatedly exhorted followers to ‘wage jihad’ against Muslims from the south whom he denounces not to be proper Muslims.16 Accordingly, from the point of view of the central government, Ag Aghaly remains a considerable threat to national integrity and security. In contrast, many residents of the Kidal area feel that Ansar Dine has established a situation of security and social justice they have never experienced before (Schulz and Diallo 2016; Sandor and Campana 2019). Another redoubtable figurehead of armed Muslim resistance to the Malian state is Amadou Koufa who, in February 2020, was listed by the UN security council as an executive of AQMI.17 Amadou Koufa initially joined Iyad Ag Aghaly in his effort to establish military control over the country’s northern territories in 2012 and 2013. In 2015, Koufa took the political stage as a military leader when he declared himself Emir of the Macina Liberation Front, subsequently transformed into the regional chapter of GSIM18 in central Mali. Koufa has remained a close ally of Ag Aghaly. As a Fulbe native from central Mali, he enjoys considerable support among young rural men from the area. of Islam (Schulz 2003b, 2010). In national public discourse (on media located mostly in the urban south), the militant group Ansar Dine is often referred to as ‘Ansar Dine du Nord’ to distinguish it from the group of Shaykh Cherif Haidara. The two groups have very different agendas. Whereas Ag Aghaly’s armed group fights for an alternative, i.e. theocratic political order, Shaykh Cherif Haidara strongly denounces the use of violence and calls for an Islamic moral transformation of society while supporting the existing political system and secular constitution (Schulz 2006, 2012: ch. 6; Lecocq et al. 2013). 15 See for instance, Felix Nkambeh Tih, ‘Militant group claims attack on UN peacekeepers’, AA news broadcasting system, 20 May 2016, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/ militant-group-claims-attack-on-un-peacekeepers-in-mali/575698 (accessed 5 May 2020) 16 See ‘Mali: alerte sécuritaire après l’arrestation d’un proche d’Iyad ag Ghali’, RFI, 11 July 2015, www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20150711-mali-alerte-securitaire-arrestation-procheiyad-ag-ghali-ansar-dine-jihadiste-attaq (accessed 12 May 2020). 17 See https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/amadou-koufa (accessed 10 May 2020). 18 Groupe de Soutien à l’Islam et aux Musulmans or Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) (‘Group for the support of Islam and Muslims’).

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The threat posed by Ag Aghaly and by Amadou Koufa to national security has forced the government to recognize them as power players in the national political field. This became evident in February 2020, when President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who for years had vocally refused any dialogue with ‘northern terrorists’, acknowledged in an interview with Jeune Afrique that the government had established contact with the two leaders. The political positioning of those who militate for Islamic renewal in southern Mali is very different, as are the means they employ. Muslim activists who intervene in public debate in Bamako and the urban south challenge the legitimacy of the government. Yet only some of these Muslim activist groups attack foundational elements of the constitution by calling for the establishment of ‘a Malian version of laïcité’ that would respect the ‘genuinely religious nature of Malian society’.19 Thus, in contrast with the armed groups that militate for an Islamic reordering of society in the northern and central regions, Muslim activists in southern Mali do not articulate a discourse of separate political belonging but justify their involvement in politics as a matter of Malian citizenship and ‘patriotism’. Muslim opinion leaders such as Shaykh Cherif Haidara, Mahamoud Dicko, and Moussa Bah claim that, in their role of ‘concerned patriotic citizens’ and observant Muslims, they are the nation.20 Their political interventions are motivated by the effort to work through the institutions of the state. They thereby draw on a longer history of Muslim alliance with, and beneficial treatment and co-optation by, the state that structured relations between favoured religious leaders and the colonial state, and that gained new momentum under President Moussa Traoré. In 1985, in an effort to reconcile warring Muslim factions and to channel international da’wa funds that were then pouring into the country, President Traoré created a national Muslim umbrella organization, AMUPI.21 By granting special privileges to Muslim interest groups represented in AMUPI, Traoré’s government at once co-opted leaders who represented the traditional ulema, and contained the influence of more radically minded Muslim activists whose political visions drew inspiration from Salafi–Sunni reformist

Interview with Moussa Boubacar Bah, president of the activist group Mouvement Sabati, July 2015 (Schulz and Diallo 2016). 20 This claim disregards the existence of a Christian minority (about 4 per cent of the population) and of those who view themselves as Muslims yet also engage in practices denounced by Muslim activists as ‘un-Islamic’. 21 Association Malienne pour l’Unité et le Progrès de l’Islam. 19

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thought.22 Popular parlance refers to the latter group as ‘Wahhabi’, a denomination they vehemently reject, calling themselves instead Ahl al-Sunna. To this group, the new civil liberties granted after President Traoré’s ouster created new opportunities to militate for a political order based on what they refer to as the ‘shari’a’, a political programme that earned them the name intégristes.Yet at that time, they formed a political minority and were prevented from creating a religious political party. Over the 2000s, under the vocal leadership of imam Mahamoud Dicko, the intégristes steadily expanded their influence within the national Muslim organization AMUPI and in public arenas. Intégristes articulated more radical positions on the regulation of domestic and public order than moderate ulema members of AMUPI, who continued to accommodate governmental policy. In 2002, President Konaré made another attempt to contain the political influence of the quarrelling Muslim factions. He initiated a new Muslim umbrella organization, the Haut Conseil Islamique du Mali (HCIM), that was to include moderate AMUPI representatives as well as intégristes (with Mahamoud Dicko as a prominent representative). At first, the moderate Thierno Hady Boubacar Thiam was nominated président du conseil, while the function of vice-president went to Shaykh Cherif Haidara, the charismatic leader of the Ansar Dine group who had, for years, vocally criticized both factions.23 Since then, in spite of persistent tensions between Haidara and his long-standing opponent, the imam Mahamoud Dicko, the HCIM’s mobilizing potential has grown steadily.This trend has shown most forcefully in the controversy around the family law reform project, initiated by Konaré’s government in 1999 with the substantial support of Western donor organizations.The law reform aimed to eliminate inconsistencies between the Family Code (Code de Mariage et de Tutelle), the CPCCS (Code de Travail, in full ‘Code de procédure civile, commerciale et sociale’), and the constitution.24 Set up as a public deliberation process that allowed members of civil society, including religious groups, to participate in the drafting of the new code, the law reform project escalated into a struggle over influence between

President Traoré granted Muslims extra time on national media and imposed measures that catered to their interests, such as the closing of bars during the month of Ramadan. 23 Mahamoud Dicko became president of HCIM in 2008 and, after his re-election in 2014, stayed in office until April 2019. 24 The inconsistencies, a legacy of French colonial administration, revealed the coexistence of conflicting customary, Islamic, and state legal orders (Schulz 2003a; Rodet n.d.). 22

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secularist-minded state officials and women’s rights activists on one side, and Muslim activists on the other. A key point of conflict was the efforts by lawmakers to align regulations regarding marriage and inheritance with the constitutionally enshrined legal equality of women. Underneath these obvious controversial issues, however, was another stake: the extent of state control over the regulation of family matters, as opposed to the patriarchal prerogatives of Muslim religious experts and family elders (Schulz 2012: ch. 1; Diallo and Schulz forthc.). The Malian parliament approved a new family law in August 2009 that was subsequently withdrawn after Mahamoud Dicko, then the president of HCIM, mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to take to the street in the capital Bamako and protest against it. The public outcry prompted a revision of the family code, which was adopted in 2011 and signed into law by President Touré in February 2012. In May 2018, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights ruled that the 2012 Family Law violates international human rights standards and ordered the Malian state to revise the law to conform to these standards.25 This means that the tug-of-war between Muslim interest groups and the Malian state over the control of family matters is not over yet. Efforts by President Konaré and President Touré to neutralize the influence of Muslim activists through integration, interference, and co-optation have cut both ways. They put quarrelling Muslim factions into a situation in which their competing interests and strategies tended to cancel each other out. Yet as intimated in the introductory anecdote, there are reasons to suspect that in the long run, Konaré’s and Touré’s co-optation strategy backfired insofar as it lent institutional support to more radically minded Muslim activists who, under Mahamoud Dicko’s leadership, openly challenge key principles of the secular constitution. At the same time, the governmental policy of accommodation-cum-co-optation indirectly nurtured the The court ruled that the 2012 Family Code conflicted with the state obligation to establish a minimum age of marriage for girls, women’s right to consent to marriage, the right to inheritance, and the state obligation to eliminate harmful social and cultural practices for women, girls, and children born out of wedlock.These obligations are set in three human rights treaties to which Mali is a party: the Maputo Protocol (Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa), the Children’s Charter (African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child), and the CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women). The case was brought to the AfCHPR by the Malian women’s rights organization APDF (Association Pour le Progrès et la Défense des Droit des Femmes Maliennes) and the IHRDA (Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa). 25

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appeal of more moderate religious leaders such as Shaykh Cherif Haidara, whose provocative pronouncements target politicians as well as opponents from the Muslim religious field.26 It remains to be seen which one of these contending trends will eventually prevail.

The transformation of the field of Muslim debate in southern Mali since 2012 The political turmoil prompted by President Amadou Toumani Touré’s ouster broadened Muslim activists’ spaces for political intervention, yet also reinforced tensions and political differences among them. Thus, paradoxically, the ‘emergent Islamic consensus’ has been accompanied by a ‘growing cacophony’ within the field of Muslim activism (see Brown 2011: 110). For decades, the intégristes’ call for the ‘shari’a’ had remained relatively vague and ‘plastic’ (Brown 2011: 116), as they refrained from specifying what political and legal measures this would imply. This changed in 2013, when armed Muslim groups occupied the country’s north and implemented ‘shari’a’ measures (see Lecocq et al. 2013; Schulz 2016). Their politico-religious project prompted Mahamoud Dicko and his supporters to adopt a more assertive political agenda in the national arena and to publicly endorse the ‘shari’a’ as a blueprint for political and social reform. Other Muslim leaders, in contrast, feel compelled to present themselves as ‘moderate’ defenders of the right path and of Malian laïcité, and to mark expressly their critical distance from the ‘jihadi Salafists’ in northern and central Mali, and their southern supporters, most notably Mahamoud Dicko. Shaykh Cherif Haidara is a prominent example of the tendency to articulate one’s own standpoint more explicitly. His sermons now spell out in more detail what he considers proper religious practice, which sometimes leads to a reformulation of earlier teachings. That the promotion of a theocratic order by armed Muslim groups has changed the parameters of Muslim debate is also illustrated by the now widespread use of the term ‘Sufi’ as a substitute for a ‘tolerant, local Islam’ that condones religious diversity. Whereas in the 1990s, the term was practically absent from Muslim public discourse, it gradually emerged as a salient term over the 2000s. Appalled by the destruction of mausolea at the hands of Muslim militants in Timbuktu

E.g. Boubacar Sangaré, ‘Mali, le “Krach” National’, 9 January 2016, Mondafrique, www.mondafrique.com/le-mali-vu-d-en-bas/mali-le-krach-national/ (accessed 9 September 2020, translation DES). 26

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Figure 5. Poster announcing a religious event at Shaykh Cherif Haidara’s native village (source: DES)

in May 2012, several religious leaders, notably Shaykh Cherif Haidara, Shaykh Soufi Bilal and Soufi Adama, responded to what they labelled ‘radical’ northern ‘jihadis’ by presenting themselves as spiritual guides and representatives of Sufi groups and of local, inclusionary religious traditions (see Bourdarias 2008; Olivier 2014; Holder 2018: 237–9). 27 The Hassane Kanambaye, ‘Mali: Groupement des Leaders Spirituels du Mali (GLSM): Cherif Ousmane Madani Haïdara dévoile ses ambitions’, 8 May 2015, Mondafrique, www.maliweb.net/societe/groupement-des-leaders-spirituels-du-mali-glsm27

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politico-religious project of Muslim militants in northern and central Mali has thus changed the conditions and terms of national Muslim debate, leading to the reconfiguration of an earlier Muslim ‘discourse about ignorance and truth’ (Brenner 1993b). The categories of ‘local Islam’ and ‘Sufi Muslims’, used as instantiations of a traditional, peaceful Islamic tradition, have gained greater currency in public discourse. Labels such as ‘jihadist’ and ‘Salafists’ (salafisiw) have been newly coined and, together with the term ‘people of the Sunna’ (sunnamogow), applied to the intégristes and to those who endorse the implementation of the ‘shari’a’ in northern and central Mali.28 Although the defendants of ‘local Islam’ who are most prominently represented by Shaykh Cherif Haidara distance themselves from what is commonly referred to as the ‘Salafism’ of the intégristes (represented by Mahamoud Dicko) and Muslim militant groups in the northern and central regions, they, too, refer to the ‘symbolic language of Islam’ (Eickelman 2000) to mobilize popular support. They proclaim that in the present situation of political instability and politicians’ lack of credibility, only a return to the values of Islam may save the political community. But rather than calling into question the secular constitution, they took President Keita’s government to task for his inability to guarantee public order and security. Cherif Haidara, for instance, repeatedly warned the president that ‘religious leaders’ would respond to his continued disregard of Muslim interests by prompting his removal and replacing him with a candidate of their own choosing.29 Haidara’s warnings caused an uproar in the national press and may have cost him his popularity among secularist-minded journalists and other intellectuals who once acclaimed him for his vocal criticism of AMUPI members and, more recently, of the endorsement of ‘shari’a’ by Mahamoud Dicko and other HCIM representatives. Nevertheless, his statements highlight an undeniable development, one that was intimated by the journalists cited in the Introduction. The political challenge posed by the Islamic renewal movement has grown to cherif-ousmane-madani-haidara-devoile-ses-ambitions-952982.html (accessed 9 September 2020, translation DES). 28 The term sunamogow, literally, ‘people of the Sunna’ (Arabic, Ahl al-Sunna) existed before but was mostly used as a self-referential term by the intégristes, that is, those supporting an alignment of the political system and constitution with Islamic law. By calling themselves sunamogow, intégristes claimed that other Muslims do not follow the sunna, the example set by the Prophet Muhammad, and are therefore not proper Muslims. 29 Cherif Haidara was already a vocal critic of President Touré, denouncing him for his ‘lack of patriotism’ and complicity in a trans-border drug and smuggling economy in the north that boosted transnational Muslim political networks.

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such a point that it might not only influence the outcome of political elections but it could also prompt a radical political cataclysm and pave the way for a regime that draws its justificatory basis from Islamic regulations. Wariness about this development surged among secularist-minded intellectuals and members of the Christian minority already in August of 2013, when the government de transition, installed after the coup d’état, ceded to the pressure of HCIM and created a Ministry of Religious Affairs.30 Although the ministry nominally administers matters for the country’s different religious communities, it is perceived by Christians and Muslims as ‘the ministry of Muslims’. That the creation of the ministry is a sign of the growing influence of Muslim activists was directly confirmed by the general secretary of HCIM who, in a private conversation in August 2015, maintained that the ministry’s very existence was ‘proof of our growing power and a means to achieve legislative change. Look at the reform of the family law. It was our doing that the draft was not signed (into law) until it had been revised according to our demands.’31 The apprehensions of secularist-minded intellectuals have persisted since President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was sworn into office in September 2013, in response to repeated indications that Muslim interest groups continued to receive special consideration under Keita’s presidency. On the face of it, President Keita resisted overt attempts to implicate him in politico-religious patronage ties (Schulz and Diallo 2016).32 For years, Keita flatly rejected any negotiation with ‘blood-spilling’ northern jihadists, thus asserting his steadfastness to withstand the pressure of intégristes who, under Mahamoud Dicko’s leadership, called for a dialogue with ‘our Muslim brethren’ from the north. At the same time, President Keita repeatedly acknowledged the enormous political weight of populist religious leaders such as Cherif Haidara, for instance when he responded in early 2015 to Haidara’s public warnings by granting him an audience at the presidential palace (L’indicateur du Renouveau 2016).With this strategy of careening between favouritism and critical distance, the government sought to preserve some state leverage in

L’Independent, ‘Création d’un ministère chargé des Affaires religieuses et du Culte: Ça glisse tout doucement et dangereusement’, 23 August 2012, Maliweb, www.maliweb. net/contributions/creation-dun-ministere-charge-des-affaires-religieuses-et-du-culteca-glisse-tout-doucement-et-dangereusement-87381.html (accessed 8 September 2020, translation DES). 31 Interview with M. Diamoutani, Bamako, 10 August 2015. 32 This was illustrated, for instance, by the cooling relations between President Keita and the Muslim organization Mouvement Sabati after Keita had been sworn into office. 30

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steering religious debate and shaping relations among different Muslim factions, and in deciding on the extent to which ‘Islamic values’ are translated into policy making and into the regulation of collective and family life. Governmental policy since the 2012 coup has therefore simultaneously divided, inspired, and fortified the challenge that Muslim interest groups pose to the current political order (Schulz 2016). After President Keita’s fall from power in 2020, it has remained unclear whether his efforts to contain the influence of Muslim pressure groups by simultaneously accommodating and co-opting Muslim interests will bear out in the long run. Malians witnessed a remarkable indication of the growing influence of intégristes on governmental politics when, in February 2020, President Keita announced in an interview with Jeune Afrique what many observers in Mali had been suspecting for some time: the government had initiated negotiations with the figureheads of northern Muslim militancy, Iyad Ag Aghaly and Amadou Koufa, thus revoking the president’s earlier pointblank refusal of dialogue.

Aspiring to a decent Muslim life: religious networks of patronage and support In the preceding chapters of this book, I argued that to understand the process by which people come to recognize a political order as legitimate, scholars need to pay sustained attention to the economic, social, and material conditions shaping people’s everyday lives, perceptions, and expectations, that together form their ‘horizon of experience’ (Negt and Kluge 1993). Against the backdrop of this horizon of experience, people assess whether they consider a political order and its representatives legitimate and compare a government’s performance and legitimacy with that of an alternative political order, such as the politico-religious order invoked by Muslim activists in present-day Mali. Put differently, for people to assess the legitimacy of any political order means that they must consider, among other things, the opportunities for material and economic success and well-being it grants them. The following discussion draws on this perspective to argue that the challenge mounted by the Islamic renewal movement to the political order in Mali derives importantly from its potential to offer followers a material and emotional security that is no longer granted by the state. Muslim activism rests on an institutional infrastructure of mutual support that incurs greater significance under the present conditions of penury and widespread unemployment. By combining opportunities for material and moral improvement, the Islamic

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renewal movement generates a credibility that politicians and state officials never accrued, or that they have lost in recent decades. Thus, while in an immediate sense, the opportunities are social and material in nature, they also further a sense of moral orientation and security. In contrast with politicians, whose ‘self-interested’ schemes many people bemoan (see Chapter 1), Muslim leaders not only address people’s concerns and worries but also offer them practical remedies. Muslim leaders operate through networks of religious patronage and mutual support that organize followers in urban neighbourhoods, in structures that operate parallel to the state yet also connect them with influential individuals who facilitate access to state institutions and formal politics.Thus, contrary to the rhetoric of Islamic opposition to governmental politics employed by most leaders, their patronage networks do not operate fully outside the state but thrive on various points of articulation between state and society (Schulz 2010, 2012: ch. 5). This is illustrated by the Ansar Dine group which, founded by Shaykh Cherif Haidara, has for years operated as a highly successful and far-reaching religious network in and beyond Mali (Schulz 2006; Bourdarias 2009; Holder 2012).33 Starting in the late 1980s as a small group of Haidara’s followers, Ansar Dine has grown into an international organization (FADI34) that integrates rural residents as well as Malian expatriates in more than fifteen countries into a highly efficient hierarchical operational structure. Since the political destabilization following the 2012 coup d’état, Ansar Dine has further expanded its political significance and support basis. Ansar Dine illustrates that Muslim religious patronage networks are most successful if they simultaneously operate outside and in articulation with state institutions. Ansar Dine owes its financial autonomy to the savings of its members, the Ansars (as they refer to themselves35), and to donations from wealthy sponsors favourable to Haidara’s cause.Yet the group’s public standing is also the result of the lenient treatment that its leader Haidara has received from the governments under Presidents Alpha Konaré, Amadou Toumani Touré, and Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. There are indications that the

For detailed accounts of Cherif Haidara’s educational background and subsequent career as a preacher with notable media skills, and his embattled position within the Muslim religious field, see Schulz (2003b, 2012, ch.6; Holder 2012: 14). 34 The Fédération Ansar Dine International, founded in 2004, comprises Malian migrants dispersed all over the West African diaspora, Europe (notably, France, Italy, and Spain) and the US. 35 Haidara’s followers also often use the Bamanakan translation of the Arabic Ansarud-Deen, Ala dèmè bagaw (‘helpers of God’, Schulz 2006). 33

Figure 6. (Left) A newly built mosque at the headquarter of Shaykh Haidara’s group Ansar Dine in Bamako-Bankoni (source: DES)

Figure 7. (Below) Sign of Shaykh Haidara’s travel agency Cherifla that, among other offers, sells ‘pilgrimage travel packages’ for the annual hajj to Mecca (source: DES)

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governments of President Touré and President Keita, in particular, sought to bolster Haidara and his Ansar Dine group because they found their programme of moral reform less threatening than the more radical political agenda of Haidara’s Muslim opponents, such as Mahamoud Dicko.36 Thus, as illustrated by the long-standing antagonism between Mahamoud Dicko and Cherif Haidara, enmity and competition between Muslim leaders are fuelled by government support. Access to state institutions is still key to defining one’s position within the Muslim religious field. A major factor of Ansar Dine’s attraction has been its ability to deliver services that the state has failed to provide (Davis 2002; Schulz 2006, 2012, chs 4, 6; Bourdarias 2009, 2014).This function is illustrated by the evolution of the neighbourhood Bamako-Bankoni, in which Haidara established his headquarters. Until the mid-1990s, Bankoni was a squatters’ settlement located on the outskirts of the capital Bamako. Since then, it has grown into a prospering neighbourhood with paved roads, several Muslim schools (sing., medersa), a formidable Friday mosque (since 2011), and a sprawling complex of residential buildings inhabited by Cherif Haidara’s family, some of his closest followers, and students-in-residence. Although this material infrastructure was financed mainly by Ansars, it benefits all local residents.37 One notable example is the well-equipped health centre with its own ambulance (a rarity in public hospitals, where patients’ families often have to pay for the fuel before an ambulance may be used). Another example is the local bakery which, built by the group’s Bamako chapter and run by an Ansar woman, hires unemployed youth and sells bread at less than the regular price to all Bankoni residents. Ansar Dine also creates opportunities to make a living with limited means, in the name of Muslim welfare and compassion, for instance by offering start-up grants for economic ventures. Other examples are Cherif Haidara’s travel agency Cherifla, which offers a pilgrimage travel package at an affordable price, and the financial and logistical support offered to Malian refugees in Niger and Burkina Faso in late 2012. For many years, Ansar Dine has also run its own radio station and television channel. In 2000 and in 2011 (i.e. under the presidencies of Konaré and Touré), Shaykh Cherif Haidara proudly showed me invitations from international donor agencies to attend workshops aiming to promote ‘tolerant’ strands of Islam in Mali. See also below the comment by an official of the Ministry of Interior Affairs. 37 Ansar Dine members are proud of their financial self-sufficiency.They make monthly contributions and fund special projects of infrastructural development (Davis 2002: 141–3; Schulz 2012, ch.6). 36

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While the Ansar Dine organizational structure centres on its leader Cherif Haidara and operates through urban neighbourhood groups, it also extends into remote rural areas, where it attracts mainly young men who aspire to leave the countryside and to make a better life in town. For them, as well as for so many unemployed youths in town, Ansar Dine commercial networks offer a way out of their dilemma and a stepping stone for material improvement and a life in decency. The multi-faceted support and opportunities offered by religious networks such as Ansar Dine grant their leaders great credibility and a moral authority that ‘selfish’ politicians lack. This point was brought home to me in a conversation with Ousmane, a young man in his mid-thirties who, after finishing his education in Bamako, had initially returned to his village in the area of Bankass (near Mopti), for lack of business opportunities in Bamako. After failed efforts to run a small village shop, Ousmane found employment through his Ansar Dine connections. When I met him as an employee at Haidara’s travel agency in January 2014, he explained to me why in his eyes, Haidara was ‘the only credible leader we Malians have today’: Haidara not only tells us to act as a proper Muslim but … helps us to actually live a decent life. Haidara has taught me to stand on my own feet and not to wait for other people’s support. This is why I believe in him. Haidara does not do politiki, he does not give me something because he expects me to return his favors, as these politicians do, who only think of their own advantage. Haidara is different. He understands our, the poor people’s, worries.

Ousmane’s observation that Haidara refrains from politiki can be read on two levels. It alludes to Haidara’s reticence to take direct political influence, for instance by keeping out of the law reform controversy in 2009 and refusing to advise his followers on their vote during presidential campaigns. On another level, Ousmane’s statement reaffirms the importance of personal credibility and integrity that, as we saw in Chapter 1, informed farmers’ assessments of the legitimacy of political leaders. By contrasting Haidara’s empathy with ‘poor people’ to the wheeling and dealing of politicians, Ousmane defines political legitimacy as a matter of moral authority. He also favourably contrasts Haidara’s insistence on individual responsibility, which strikingly echoes a neoliberal ‘do it yourself ’ ideology, with a political situation ruled by selfishness, moral irresponsibility, and disregard for others’ material worries. By insisting that Islamic renewal affords moral and material improvement, Ousmane characterizes Islam as a more credible and compelling source of a legitimate moral-political order. Although political

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mobilization might not be Haidara’s prime motivation, Haidara’s capacity to mobilize followers as voters and to influence their voting decisions poses a formidable challenge to politicians.38 In this respect, Haidara resembles other Muslim leaders, who act as patrons of religious networks.

Claiming authority in a shifting field of religious debate In contemporary Mali, the call for Islamic renewal enjoys broad appeal because it generates an institutional and material infrastructure that fills the void left by a state incapable of securing material prosperity and a life in dignity for large parts of the population.Yet surely, the appeal of Islamic renewal is also closely tied to the capacity of individual leaders to build their authority as articulators of ‘the right path’. As evidenced by Shaykh Cherif Haidara’s expanding following since the 1990s, Muslim leaders establish their authority through their capacity to ‘provide’ and through public argument and performance. In Chapter 4, I introduced an analytical scheme addressing the different dimensions that play into the potential of cultural forms of expression to perform the state’s capacity to integrate and contain difference. The same scheme can be employed to understand how religious leaders such as Haidara claim authority, how listeners confer it on him, and how in this process argumentative, performative, and aesthetic features intertwine. For religious leaders to claim authority in a heterogeneous religious field requires a double move. They need to mount a challenge to the political system and individual politicians; they also need to establish their authority vis-à-vis competitors in the broader field of Muslim activism and debate (Schulz and Hinsch 2014b). As intimated by Ousmane, when claiming moral authority with the wider public, Haidara’s main argumentative strategy has been to assert that his deeds make him more credible than any politician. I will show below that Haidara’s claim to moral pre-eminence has become even more prominent since 2012, as a corollary to the political turmoil and threat of national disintegration that has haunted the country since then. For now, my analysis centres on how Haidara establishes his authority vis-à-vis his Muslim opponents.

Bourdarias similarly maintains that Haidara draws much of his credibility and authority from organizing structures of mutual support for Ansar Dine members and other needy urbanites (2009: 6–7; 2014). 38

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In his public, often mass-mediated interventions, Cherif Haidara claims authority credentials and competences that establish him as someone who offers simultaneously authoritative religious interpretation and moral and spiritual guidance. His arguments are mostly directed at his Muslim opponents in Bamako, whose shifting alliances with Mali’s various governments Haidara has derided for a long time. More recently, die-hard supporters of a ‘shari’a order’ within the Haut Conseil Islamique, such as its president Mahamoud Dicko, have become the main targets of Haidara’s public criticism, such as when Haidara denounced their open support for the northern Muslim militants and their urging of the government to enter into negotiation with them.39 As a counterpoint to what he decried as his opponents’ radical, Salafist viewpoints, Haidara has taken care to spell out his own view of proper Islam. This shows that the arrival of Muslim militants in the north has also affected the terms of religious controversy in Bamako. The political strengthening of more radical Muslim activist viewpoints puts religious leaders such as Cherif Haidara under greater pressure to garner public support and to adjust their argumentative strategies accordingly. In his earlier sermons, delivered in the 1990s and 2000s, Haidara presented himself as an articulator of the sunna, that is, of proper Muslim practice emulating the example of the prophet Muhammad. At that time, doctrinal argument and discussion of the specificities of ritual were largely absent (Schulz 2006). Most sermons centred on proper moral behaviour outside the ritual sphere, in so vague a fashion that everyone, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, could feel included in the community of proper believers to which Haidara appealed.40 At that time, Haidara also made a name for himself by criticizing religious leaders for drawing material benefit from the hierarchical relations between themselves and ordinary believers.41 As a corollary to his attack on traditional religious hierarchies, he presented himself as an easily available, open-minded, and easy-going person. Accordingly, followers and bystanders praised him for his ‘sobriety’ and modesty, which made him stand out from the motley group of religious leaders. Aïssatou Diallo, ‘Mahamoud Dicko: The dialogue with the jihadists must hold’. The Africa Report, 24 March 2020, https://www.theafricareport.com/24932/Mahamouddicko-the-dialogue-with-the-jihadists-must-hold/ (accessed 7 May 2020). 40 Haidara went as far as claiming that some Christians’ comportment made them ‘better Muslims’ rather than ‘hypocritical Muslims’. His malleable vision of ‘tolerant’ Islam echoes colonial constructions of an inclusive, syncretistic ‘African Islam’, in contradistinction to an allegedly radical, foreign ‘Arab Islam’ (Harrison 1988; Brenner 2001; Soares 2005). 41 Haidara scathingly criticized religious leaders for their moral hypocrisy and political opportunism, a criticism that also targeted Moussa Traoré’s government. 39

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Haidara also used to stress the accessibility, transparency, and rationality of Islamic scriptures and regulations, and the possibility that any believer could address God directly. This argument implied a significant departure from conventional understandings related to local mystical traditions of Islam, based on a hierarchical organization of knowledge and an assumption that ordinary believers need the spiritual intercession of those initiated into a spiritual path (tariqa) and their leaders, the sheikhs. In sermons delivered since 2012, Shaykh Haidara has mounted a three-fold challenge to northern Muslim militant groups and to his Muslim opponents in the national arena who, like the imam Mahamoud Dicko, more or less overtly endorse the political agenda of northern Muslim militants. Even more than before, Haidara stresses independent judgement and believers’ capacity to freely interact and ‘converse’ with God. And he continues to challenge the prerogatives of religious specialists and their textual authority, by arguing that believers are allowed to converse with God in whatever language they like. God understands all languages. They [the ulema] should let us use our own language [u ka to anw kan do mè; anw mako tè arabu kan na]. We do not practice the religion of the Arabs. Rather, we practice the religion of God who has sent us the language Arabic and also the prophet Muhammad. We do not need any language other than our own one. No language in this universe is comparable to Bamanakan [wa bamanankan nionkon tè ye] [roaring applause].

This argument holds a particular appeal for the many believers who never accessed religious (Arabophone) education. A second way in which Haidara positions himself in the religious field is to portray himself as a paragon of religious tolerance. He has declared repeatedly and with great verve that in a multi-religious nation such as Mali, no Christian should be forced to convert to Islam.42 These statements are a direct challenge to his opponents from the Haut Conseil Islamique who since the creation of a Ministry of Religious Affairs have sought to appropriate it for their interests, declaring Mali to be a ‘Muslim nation’, an argument that disregards the presence of Christians and other religious minorities.43 Abdoulaye Diakité,‘Cherif Ousmane Madani Haidara, Guide d’ançar Dine:“Le Prophète n’a jamais contraint un people à l’Islam”’, L’indicateur du Renouveau, 26 February 2013, http://maliactu.net/cherif-ousmane-madani-haidara-guide-dancar-dine-le-prophete-najamais-contraint-un-peuple-a-lislam (accessed 9 September 2020, translation DES). 43 The same argument, that Malian ‘tradition’ and ‘culture’ were essentially Islamic, was made by Mahamoud Dicko and other AMUPI representatives during the 2000 family 42

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Third, whereas before, Haidara was reluctant to delineate his position in ritual and doctrinal argument, he is now a vocal defender of Sufi-related ritual practice, listing dhikr (Bamanakan, zikiri), the celebration of the Mawlud, and saint veneration as typical features of a ‘local’, ‘tolerant’ Islamic tradition. Haidara also puts these practices on a par with proper moral behaviour outside the ritual domain and in the political sphere, such as in the following 2012 Mawlud sermon in which he hinted at political corruption: worship, fasting, alms-giving, pilgrimage: Islam is more than that. The Prophet told us to engage in … [these obligations of worship]. But he also requested something that I told you before and that is the reason for our unpopularity: Who is the person who aspires to his neighbor’s wife? Who is the person who kills, cheats and embezzles funds that belong to our fatherland?44. Those who go to the mosque yet who make others suffer … will end up in hell. Nothing can change it … Even the prophets have been sent to us to show us proper comportment.

As part of his new argumentative strategy, Haidara integrates novel terms and labels into long-standing ‘Muslim discourse about truth and ignorance’ (Brenner 1993a), labels that reiterate the contrast between ‘rightful believers’ and ‘those who are not proper Muslims’. A notable example is the earlier mentioned neologism ‘Salafists’ (Bamanakan, salafisiw) which demonstrates the influence of transnational reformist Muslim thought, yet also hints at the influence of international media coverage of the ‘global war on terror’ on national debate. The now widely circulating term ‘people of the sunna’ (sunamogow) similarly serves critics to denounce the foreign origins and rigidity of the ‘shari’a’ political order. Finally, the terms ‘Sufi’ and ‘spiritual leadership’, which until the 2000s were sparsely employed in national and local religious debate, are now widely used to demarcate an – allegedly coherent – set of ‘traditional’ religious practices and understandings.45 Haidara uses all these terms to present himself as the bulwark against the theocratic order promoted by northern Muslim militants and by his Muslim opponents in national public debate in Bamako. In 2012 and 2013, he law reform debate, and by Moussa Bah, the president of the Mouvement Sabati, during an interview in July 2015. 44 The remark alludes to President Keita’s alleged spending of millions of public money to purchase an aeroplane for his presidential travels. 45 For a discussion of the popularization of Sufi identity since the 2000s, see Bourdarias (2008, 2009), Soares (2010), Prud’homme (2014), and Olivier and Djebbari (2014).

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vehemently denounced the destruction of monuments and objects associated with Sufi-related religious practices by armed Muslim militants, calling them ‘non-believers’ (kafirs), ‘those who do not know the Qur’an’ and who introduced the ‘religion of the Satan’, which went against all values and conventions of tolerant Malian ‘Sufi Islam’. Along with Haidara, members of the ulema partake in the reformulation of ‘Malian Islam’ as a counterpoint to the ‘foreign’, ‘radical’ and ‘culturally alien’ Islam promoted by supporters of the ‘shari’a’. In 2012, several religious leaders declared themselves defenders of Malian ‘Sufi Islam’ and joined forces to found the Group of Spiritual leaders of Mali (GLSM46), with the express aim of representing a more moderate and inclusive ‘Malian’ Islam.47 Indicative of this surprising realignment of positions is that, in an unexpected appeasement of earlier animosities between them and Cherif Haidara, they appointed Haidara as president of the organization. Haidara’s efforts to define his own position within the religious field in more substantive terms suggests that in times of political turmoil and exacerbated religious controversy, the argumentative component of a religious leader’s self-presentation gains in importance. As suggested by the journalist’s remark cited in the introduction to this chapter, in such situations, which are experienced as moral, not merely political crises, for religious leaders to offer substantive arguments about their own leadership capacities may become decisive to their success among followers and bystanders. Even if these leaders address urban audiences, they specify their own leadership qualifications by referring to criteria that echo those articulated by farmers in the Kita hinterlands to assess the legitimacy of politicians, state institutions, and regulations. The convergence of criteria for evaluating political and religious leadership, and the fact that the criteria are shared among urban and rural populations, is illustrated by the ways in which Sekou (whom we know from Chapter 1) explained to me how he assessed politicians’ abilities to provide guidance. In these times of political uncertainty, we need someone to tell us the way out of (the state of) moral disarray. Politiki people cannot help us. Look at them, they are lost themselves and no one trusts them. We need someone who tells us clearly where to go and who convinces us with the force of his words, and who shows us through his deeds that Islam is the solution. Groupement des Leaders Spirituels du Mali. Their contrast between a ‘local’, ‘tolerant’ Islam and radical ‘Salafists’ echoes the distinction of French colonial administrators between a malleable and inclusive ‘African Islam’ and its radical ‘Arab’ counterpart (Harrison 1988; Brenner 2001). 46

47

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True political leadership, Sekou suggests, can be offered only by someone with political expertise and moral credentials, whose mind is set on the reform of society in line with Islamic prescripts. Sekou also stresses his desire to be convinced by qualities that go beyond a leader’s argumentative appeal.

Generating authority through mass spectacle and aesthetic appeal Haidara has been named the ‘superstar of sermonizing’ (superstar de la prêche) in the Malian press.48 The nickname suggests that there is a special appeal to Haidara’s public appearances, and hence that his teachings alone do not explain why his followers find him so convincing. Therefore, an analysis of texts and doctrinal debate, one that limits itself to propositional content, cannot fully explain the authority that followers attribute to Haidara and that makes him such a formidable challenge to the credibility and legitimacy of the current political leadership. For this reason, the following discussion takes up the analytical distinction between the argumentative, choreographic, and aesthetic-sensory dimensions of the authorization processes introduced in the preceding chapter to examine the temporal and spatial arrangements and aesthetic qualities of Haidara’s self-presentation. At the Ansar Dine headquarters in Bamako-Bankoni, Haidara regularly grants his followers and other solicitors the opportunity to meet him personally, request his support or advice, and receive his blessings. The spatial set-up of these encounters, such as the arrangement of seats in which Haidara, his son, and close confidants are placed during these audiences, are a visible performance of his claims to be easily accessible to the poor and needy. He confirms this claim by other non-discursive means, such as the interactive media formats adopted by Haidara to circulate his teachings on the Ansar Dine private radio station (La voix du citoyen) and television channel (Cherifla Télévision).49 Similar to the Q and A format of talk radio, Haidara audibly and visibly displays his responsiveness, by answering to listeners’ requests for religious instruction and moral advice in a soft-spoken, low-key Boubacar Sangaré, ‘Mali, le “Krach” National’, Mondafrique, 8 January 2016, www. mondafrique.com/le-mali-vu-d-en-bas/mali-le-krach-national/ (accessed 9 September 2020). 49 The radio station FM Citizen Voice has been in operation since 2008; Cherifla Télévision started to broadcast in January 2015 and is now internationally accessible via Canal +. The media network’s French names at once invoke national citizenship and reflect the organization’s transnational orientation. 48

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conversational tone that contrasts with the often self-important demeanour of other ulema (Schulz 2006). Haidara’s performance of modesty allows him to abstain from an explicit critique of conventional religious hierarchy and simultaneously to assert his own position of spiritual leadership, vis-à-vis both other religious leaders and politicians. He presents himself as someone whose personal qualities make him attract followers and hence is capable of mobilizing mass support. Followers and bystanders acutely pick up on this point, when they highlight Haidara’s ‘sober’ rejection of religious status hierarchies. As Sidi, a man in his mid-thirties who runs a small shop in a neighbourhood adjacent to Bamako-Bankoni, put it, Haidara is not like other ulema, who thrive on the donations and respect of uneducated Muslims, and who do not live up to the behavior they demand from others. Haidara has never done such a thing. He says that being a proper Muslim is more than following the obligations of worship. He is not after [material] advantage and he is very sober. His modest outfit, his living arrangements, his self-effacing interactions with those desirous to meet him, his sober advice, all of this makes him more likeable and convincing than other ulema. This is how he convinces people to follow him and embark on the path that will lead to paradise.50

Haidara’s non-argumentative assertion of accessibility and leadership also comes out in the choreography of his highly publicized and massmediated visits to followers in the sub-region and in the Parisian diaspora, as well as during the annual celebration of the Mawlud, when thousands of Ansars, as well as bystanders, gather in Bamako’s largest stadium. The sheer number of participants in this mass spectacle of religious devotion, arranged around the pedestal on which Haidara and his entourage are seated, leave an overwhelming, visible, and audible impression on those who partake in the event, either by attending it or by watching its audio-visual rendition. The mere multi-sensory experience of Haidara’s mass support fosters feelings of awe and approval, and serves as compelling, non-discursive proof of Haidara’s capacity to attract followers. It fosters the conviction (based on an implicit circular reasoning) that whoever has such a mobilizing power must have something to say. Paralinguistic features add to the sensory appeal of Haidara’s public self-presentation. He borrows expressions and gestures from the talk of ‘ordinary folks’, and characterizes personalities and situations with great acumen and through the artful modelling of tone, pitch and melody of voice.

50

Conversation with Sidi Konaté, Bamako, June 2015.

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Exclaimations, such as bilahi (‘I swear by God’), give temporal and melodic structure to his argument, highlight specific points, and add a humorous tinge to his lectures, greeted with roaring laughter and applause. Listeners also stress his extraordinary capacity to seamlessly and effortlessly weave into his lectures onomatopoeic expressions, puns, and proverbs. Haidara’s rhetorical mastery, a skill highly appreciated in Malian society, is summarized by followers and fans when they cite the ‘witty’, ‘pointed’, and ‘irresistible’ nature of Haidara’s language as proof of his truthfulness. Listeners thus posit a close connection between the form and content of his speech, a perception that is reflected in Haidara’s old-standing nickname, Wulibali Haidara, ‘Haidara (who speaks) the undeniable truth’.51 Clearly, Haidara meets his listeners’ expectation that he will persuade them by his arguments, aesthetic appeal, and sensory presence’. At first sight, followers’ expectations that a religious leader should excel through special personal qualities seems to contradict their (earlier mentioned) appreciation of Haidara’s critique of religious privilege. But their interactions with Haidara show that to them, there is no contradiction between their resentment of conventional religious hierarchies on one side and their continued belief in the validity of spiritual intercession and guidance on the other (Schulz 2012: ch. 7). For instance, many gestures and acts of devotion displayed by Haidara’s supporters in personal interactions with him demonstrate their deep conviction that Haidara’s position as a spiritual leader (dine nyema or dine nyemògò) is based on special divine blessings (baraka). To many of them, these blessings materialize in his voice (Schulz 2015a) and may also be transmitted through touch (Schulz 2008). For this reason, Ansars eagerly seek exposure to his presence and voice, for instance, by touching him or objects that have come into contact with him. Tumultuous scenes result from these efforts to partake in their leader’s blessings, during face-to-face and mass-mediated encounters with Chérif Haidara. These scenes thus present multi-sensory performances of Cherif Haidara’s authority. Because Haidara’s special appeal operates on an attraction between him and his followers, and is described by them as a matter of his extraordinary personal qualities, there are strong reasons to interpret his leadership as an instance of charismatic authority in the Weberian sense (1922, §10). Yet Haidara’s authority is not based merely on personal charisma that unfolds Haidara hails from a village near Segu, the home area of what is commonly considered the ‘purest’ and most authentic version of Bamanakan (bamanan djèlen, bamanan lakika), the lingua franca of southern Mali (Schulz 2006). 51

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during immediate and mass-mediated interactions. As I argued earlier in this chapter, Haidara’s authority is importantly grounded in the opportunities for material self-sufficiency and moral improvement he offers, outside and beyond his interactions with believers. Haidara’s authority is bolstered through the argumentative, sensory-aesthetic, and performative dimensions of his self-presentation and his capacity to procure material and social support. This perspective can be extended to other religious leaders as well, even if they do not master the skills of mass-mediated spectacle to the same extent as Haidara does. In their case, too, the different dimensions of selfpresentation and social intervention and networking need to be considered to explain how and to what degree they establish their authority as religious leaders or become opinion leaders in the broader political arena.

Challenging the government’s legitimacy The preceding discussion centred on Shaykh Cherif Haidara to illustrate how different, argumentative, aesthetic, and choreographic-performative dimensions unfold in the course of the authorization process in which religious leaders are attributed authority. I argued that in times of political turmoil such as the present situation in Mali, a leader’s substantive argument plays a significant, yet far from exclusive role in convincing listeners and spectators, followers and bystanders, of his legitimate leadership. The following analysis continues to centre on Cherif Haidara in his role as a key protagonist in the challenge mounted by Muslim activists to the government in the urban south, to show how religious authority credentials gain in political weight under conditions of social and political uncertainty such as in Mali after the 2012 coup d’état. Against the backdrop of a longstanding situation of legitimacy deficiency, religious discourse and authority credentials have become one resource for articulating a challenge to the government, its key representatives, or even the political order in general. Shaykh Cherif Haidara has often maintained that he keeps out of politics, and many of his supporters and fans have cited his aloofness from politics as the main proof of his credibility. However, it is evident that by the very assertion of ‘not meddling with politiki’,52 Haidara does take a political stance. Many of the public statements he made over the years of his rising fame have entailed a subtle critique of individual politicians and of the political system. Haidara’s positioning vis-à-vis state politics became even more ambivalent 52

Ne tè politiki kè, literally ‘I do not do politics’.

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over the years of Keita’s presidency. On the one hand, Haidara has continued with his criticism of the system of multiparty democracy, arguing that it only serves politicians’ self-centred dealings and therefore holds little legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary people. He persistently invokes an Islamic moral renewal of society as the solution to the current political and moral malaise, and stresses the all-encompassing, ordering power of Islam by claiming its universal validity and applicability to a wide range of social situations, moral dilemmas and political problems. Haidara thus presents a ‘tolerant Islam’ as a blueprint for a more equitable treatment of people, social justice and collective prosperity. On the other hand, Haidara has asserted a decidedly political role, by presenting himself as someone whose moral leadership qualities makes him a credible contender of the government. In his sermons, he often spells out how his moral guidance qualifies him to lead people to a greater extent than ‘political leaders’, because his guidance extends beyond the realm of politics. He makes these claims to moral leadership in indirect terms, by using his public statements to demonstrate leadership qualities, by showing his emotional stability, equanimity, and reserve in his jocular responses to critics. This demeanour conforms to a behavioural code associated with high social status groups. Haidara is famed for his humorous responses to the scathing criticism of Mahamoud Dicko and other Muslim detractors. His humour turns his sermons into public entertainment and serves his supporters as further proof of his disciplined moral stance. Followers and fans frequently cite Haidara’s ‘reserve’ as an indication of his superiority over ‘bickering politicians’ and over Muslim preachers whose sermons entail outspoken and personal attacks on Muslim enemies (a form of criticism that is widely considered as ‘gross’ and ‘insulting’). That listeners establish a close connection between Haidara’s rhetorical skills and leadership qualities also becomes evident when they approvingly comment on Haidara’s ‘laid-back’ attitude to Mahamoud Dicko and other Muslim opponents. In sermons delivered since 2012, Haidara has challenged politicians in more substantial argumentative terms by bemoaning their mediocrity and moral laxness and holding them accountable to conventional standards of legitimacy, such as credibility, truthfulness, and the capacity to provide for the poor and needy. On other occasions, Haidara criticized politicians for their lack of patriotic responsibility and willingness to protect the country, a charge that deeply resonates with the fears many Malians harbour about what they consider a threat to national territorial integrity posed by Muslim militant groups in northern and central Mali. And he repeatedly cited himself as a counterexample, as someone capable and ready to protect the weak and powerless, and to alleviate the situation of the destitute and needy:

188   Political Legitimacy in Postcolonial Mali We have told the populations of Kidal, Timbuktu, Gao, and of other towns of the North that we are in this together. We will share with them the suffering they are undergoing at present. Mohamed Bah, the President of the Association of Young Muslims of Mali [Union des Jeunes Musulmans du Mali, UJMA], paid me a visit the other day to tell me about the measures they have taken on behalf of the northern populations. I appreciate the idea that we get organized to help those who suffer today in the North. I have not much, I have contributed one million. But there is another brother, Ba Simpara, who has also given one million. That’s why I inform Mohamed Bah to stop by and pick up our contribution of two million as soon as possible. The money is at their disposal to help the northern populations who suffer today.53

This self-portrayal mirrors the perception of his followers who stress his qualifications of ‘owning the truth’ (tinyetigiya), of speaking the undeniable truth (wulibali) and of readily providing ‘help’ (dèmè). Followers’ approving remarks on Haidara’s criticism of ‘irresponsible politicians’ show that they are particularly compelled by his ‘compassion’ (hinè) with ordinary men and women, whose worries and struggles he claims to share. Haidara’s claims to commonality often take the form of seemingly innocent, joking asides, such as in the following passage from a sermon delivered during the 2012 Mawlud celebration: You [the Ansar] built a mosque – I do not use it as a sleeping place. You built a health station – I do not sleep there. It is the poor people who go there to get cured. But one thing I can tell you [Haidara bends his head, smiles, and lowers his voice], I myself go there often to get cured [audience responds with roaring laughter and applause] (aw ye misiri djò, ne tè si misiri kònò. Aw ye dokotoroso jò, ne tè si dokkotoroso kònò. Fantaw bè tile ka fura kè ye. Nka, n’ka kan k’aw fo, ko ne yère bè to ka fura kè fana).54

Haidara’s side remark in this passage is typical in that it draws on a seemingly harmless contrast between Haidara as someone who relies on the low-cost service provided at a neighbourhood clinic, and politicians who have lost touch with realities on the ground and who, because they used their office for personal enrichment, care little about ordinary people’s daily worries. The roaring applause with which the remark was greeted demonstrates that listeners caught its message: a punch directed at prominent politicians such Sermon, ‘Haidara à la grande mosquée de Bamako’, 14 April 2012 (tape recording in the author’s possession, translation DES). 54 Sermon at Ansar Dine Mawlud celebration, January 2012, translation DES. 53

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as President Keita, who generally seek medical treatment abroad. Given that conventional cultural standards for proper public speech strongly discourage open and personalized criticism (Schulz 1998; see Irvine 1979, 1989), the playful, indirect, and non-confrontational nature of Haidara’s criticism makes it fly particularly well with listeners. This does not prevent their appreciating Haidara’s more explicit critique of the governments in place since 2012, whose ability to provide order, security and guidance he has questioned repeatedly. In 2013, for instance, he scathingly criticized the transitional government for its lack of perseverance vis-à-vis northern ‘Salafists’ and for failing to care for the refugee populations in border regions of Mauritania, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Already then, Haidara invoked Islamic solidarity and brotherly love as the cornerstones of a superior political ethics and challenged the governmental discourse of patriotic concern as mere rhetoric. In subsequent, highly publicized sermons, such as the one presented during the January 2016 Mawlud celebrations, Haidara targeted Ibrahim Keita’s presidency even more overtly, contrasting the president’s feebleness with his and other Muslim leaders’ political sway. In an hours-long (and widely debated) interview broadcast on local radio, Haidara reprimanded President Keita for condoning political corruption: I am not angry at IBK, but at the ways in which this country is run. People who are serious and who build something are no longer popular in Mali. Those who corrupt people, the corrupted, and those who steal public funds are rewarded.

Haidara then cautioned Keita of his and other Muslim leaders’ influence on public opinion: Everywhere where he goes, IBK stresses that he owes his election to the Muslims. So how can he ignore those who put him into office. … If those in power do not take care, Muslims will take over power. We will make sure that no one becomes president of the republic if he does not garner the support of us imams. I swear by the name of God that we will do this if the authorities do not take care. To avoid that we will get to this point, it is necessary that we respect each other.55

This statement and like-minded comments made by Haidara in recent years are no empty warnings. They point to a great irony involved in the Abdoulaye Koné, ‘Ayant vaincu l’état d’urgence le prêcheur Haidara promet un imam à la tête du Mali’, Procès-verbal, newspaper, 1 May 2016, www.proces-verbal.com/ author/a-kone/page/6/ (accessed 8 September 2020, translation DES). 55

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present situation of governmental legitimacy deficiency. Political leaders not only need to make amends with influential religious leaders to make up for their legitimacy deficiency. Squeezed between the Scylla of lacking legitimacy in the eyes of the population, and the Charybdis of more radically minded Muslim contenders for political power, those in power depend on the mobilizing appeal and authority credentials of religious leaders to increase their own credibility. They need to publicly demonstrate their support of moderate leaders such as Haidara so as to sideline other, more radically minded Muslim contenders and their constituencies. The same point was made by an official from the Ministry of Interior Affairs in December 2016: We have a dramatic situation in which the religious people (les religieux) can put the government under pressure. But the state is lucky because Haidara is around. … Haidara has greater financial power, social legitimacy and supporters than all the people of the Haut Conseil Islamique taken together. … This is what IBK [i.e. President Keita] understood. He needs to cozy up to Haidara to counterbalance Dicko. … The state has an interest in supporting Haidara so that they can contain Dicko and his folks … who support a theocratic order like Islamists in the north. … Any president will have to do the same so that the country does not fall into the hands of the Salafists led by Dicko.56

This statement summarizes a dramatic reversal of an earlier balance of powers between a secular-minded government and Muslim interest groups. To stay in control of the political situation, President Keita’s government needs to make a greater effort to contain the political influence of Muslim activist groups. The legitimacy vacuum left by his presidency is such that the government’s survival depends on the political strength of politically moderate Muslim leaders such as Haidara. The credentials of religious authority, in other words, are not just a source of competition and challenge among Muslim opinion leaders. They are the very means by which political leaders can presently secure their own legitimacy, by entering into strategic alliances with those Muslims who most aptly articulate them without questioning the secular foundations of the political order.

Interview by Souleymane Diallo with Daniel Thera, conseiller technique at the Ministry of the Interior, December 2016. 56

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Conclusion ‘Have the political leaders discredited themselves to a point where they lack a vision of how to convince voters and … put their fate in the hands of religious leaders?’ With this question, journalist Youssouf Sissoko set out to interrogate Mali’s political malaise prior to the 2018 presidential elections.57 The author then went on to note, Today, in a situation of cooled relations with his supporters and a performance ranging lower than what the majority of Malians had expected from him, IBK is worrying a lot about his reelection. As regards his arch-contender, Soumaila Cissé, he seems to take over from IBK, courting in turn the religious leaders. … Similar to other opinion leaders, those who represent Muslim religion also make their calculations about the direction of the [political] wind and [how] to act accordingly. Thus, inasmuch as political actors need to have a vision and a program that take into consideration the preoccupations of all Malians, religious leaders similarly need to take a distance from the area of political games so that they don’t suffer from the same judgment as their ‘teammates’.

Islamic renewal in contemporary Mali has gained such broad support that those who assume a leadership position in the name of Islam yield considerable advantage over politicians, not the least because their criticism of politiki, framed in the idiom of moral renewal and public order, targets directly the legitimacy vacuum left by multiparty democracy and by politicians associated with it. President Keita, his government, and the political system more generally, have suffered from a legitimacy deficiency on two grounds. First, as we saw in Chapters 1 and 3, the procedures and rationale of political decision making and of multiparty competition lack a (social) anchoring in what broad segments of the population consider adequate ways of doing politics. Second, as suggested by farmers’ frequent complains about politicians’ greed and selfishness, there is a widespread sense that existing criteria of political legitimacy are not realized. Under such circumstances, recognition of political legitimacy of the government is widely withheld.

Youssouf Sissoko: ‘Candidats courtisent leaders religieux: Mahamoud Dicko, le Cherif de Nioro et Ousmane Madani Haidara peuvent-ils faire gagner la présidentielle’? Infosepte, published on Maliactu, 19 March 2018, https://maliactu.net/mali-candidats-courtisentleaders-religieux-Mahamoud-dicko-le-cherif-de-nioro-et-ousmane-madani-haidarapeuvent-ils-faire-gagner-la-presidentielle/ (accessed 19 May 2020, translation DES). 57

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Religious opinion leaders such as Shaykh Haidara and Mahamoud Dicko can challenge the legitimacy of the government, or of the political order more generally, precisely because their own capacities to govern, to secure order, and to ‘provide’ have not been put to test. They have not yet been in a situation to live up to the criteria of political legitimacy that, implicitly or explicitly, they take as a measuring rod to decry the legitimacy deficiency of the government and president. Paradoxically, religious leaders’ potential to challenge the political order, and to present themselves as saviours from the current political mess, critically depends on their distance from political leaders, lest they risk losing their credibility. This point was stressed by the journalist Sissoko in the excerpt quoted above. Recent ups and downs in the political biographies of both imam Mahamoud Dicko and Shaykh Cherif Haidara further illustrate this point. Imam Mahamoud Dicko, once the leading representative of the intégristes camp within the AMUPI and since 2008 president of the Haut Conseil Islamique, had been a critic of governmental policy under President Touré and President Keita, particularly taking issue with what he decried as their refusal to endorse Islamic values through legislation (e.g. Diallo and Schulz forthc.). In April 2019, Mahamoud Dicko stood down after eleven years of presiding over the HCIM and, in September 2019, publicly announced the creation of an independent Coordination of Movements, Associations and Sympathizers (CMAS58). This move was widely interpreted as an effort by Mahamoud Dicko to strengthen his public standing and to regain the credibility he had lost because of his close association with Keita’s government. If this was indeed Dicko’s intention, it seems that his efforts paid off. After quitting his function at the HCIM, he became a vocal critic of political mismanagement and won new supporters when he denounced President Keita’s ‘weakness’ in giving in to political pressure from France and other Western powers not to negotiate with the leaders of armed Muslim resistance. On national and international media, Dicko is now widely considered a ‘new political force to be reckoned with’.59 In the meantime, Shaykh Cherif Haidara’s political stardom has lost some of its brilliancy, as a corollary to his competitor Dicko’s rise in influence. Haidara’s appointment as new president of the Haut Conseil Islamique cost ‘Coordination des Mouvements, Associations et Sympathisants de l’imam Mahamoud Dicko.’ 59 E.g. Menas Associates: ‘Mahamoud Dicko: Mali’s new political force to be reckoned with’, 19 September 2019, https://www.menas.co.uk/blog/Mahamoud-dicko-malipolitical-force/ (accessed 20 May 2020). 58

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him much of his former credibility among fans who appreciated his fearless criticism of Mali’s successive democratic governments and of politiki people more generally. During informal conversations among peers and friends in April and May 2020, these and other critics noted Haidara’s rare presence in public debate and interpreted it as proof of his undue rapprochement with Keita’s government. But the Ansars, Haidara’s followers, vehemently rejected these allegations as unfounded and masterminded by Haidara’s age-old detractors, the intégristes faction of the Haut Conseil Islamique. Regardless of which allegations and interpretations will be confirmed in the future, they are all based on the same assumption: legitimate moral leadership can thrive only outside of the present political system. The seesaw of Dicko’s and Haidara’s changing public standing illustrates that a religious leader’s credibility is an immediate function of his detachment from politics – or at least of his mise en scène of critical detachment. Whoever emerges as the – temporary – winner from the competitive field of Muslim controversy in Mali needs to prove persistently his critical distance from politiki.

Conclusion: In Pursuit of Legitimacy This study of the nature and dynamics of political legitimacy in Mali started out as a critique of existing accounts of legitimacy: of accounts that discuss political legitimacy mainly with reference to institutions and procedures of constitutionalism and democracy (e.g. Bratton et al. 2002; Wing 2008), even if they acknowledge the potential interference of conventional, shared normative standards for assessing rightful rule (e.g. Bleck 2015); of anthropological studies that either privilege cultural and performative aspects of legitimation or posit the ‘state effect’ as the result of an ensemble of rules, ‘discourses and practices of power’ (Aretxaga 2003: 398; see Mitchell 1991; Trouillot 2001: 129), without, however, examining how this form of governmentality actually operates and hence becomes effective; of investigations that centre on the ‘logic’ or ‘practical norms’ of political practice in Africa (de Herdt and Olivier de Sardan 2015); and finally, of accounts that either assume that certain legal and institutional conditions prove the existence of a legitimate political order (e.g. Weissbrod 1981) or altogether dismiss the relevance of ‘legitimacy’ to analyses of postcolonial politics. As illustrated throughout this book, rather than discount the relevance of the concept of legitimacy to analyses of contemporary politics, in Africa and elsewhere, scholars would gain much from acknowledging that the concept allows us, indeed compels us, to address anew how understandings and the conferral or withdrawal of political legitimacy emerge in the actual encounter between those who hold formal positions of power and those who submit to their governance. Empirically, the focus on actual engagements and situated assessments allows us to understand the history of postcolonial Mali, particularly of the post-democratization period since the 1991, not as one of simple failure or a loss in widely anchored legitimacy, nor as evidence of a continued patrimonial logic, allegedly unfettered by people’s ongoing experiences with and adjustments to state actors, procedures, and institutions. Rather, what has emerged from the analysis is a history of extreme instability and volatility of procedures and institutions that, although nominally – that is,

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from the (normative) point of view of liberal political theory – are meant to confer legitimacy on the political system and office holders, do not live up to this promise.This is so partly because of their short-lived and unstable nature and also because they coexist uneasily with conventional rules of how power should be accessed and exercised. People’s strong propensity for person-centred assessments of a government’s legitimacy is at once a cause for and further contributes to the volatile, unstable (often unpredictable) legitimacy of contemporary formal political institutions and procedures. These person-centred assessments are in line with long-standing conventions of judging powerful people’s capacities to ensure order and security and to display these capacities publicly. Mali’s postcolonial history is therefore one of both radical departures and continuity: of radical departures with regard to political institutions, procedures and individual representatives; and of considerable continuity with respect to conceptions of legitimate order and power exercise and to how people mobilize them in concrete practices of assessment. Conceptually, a focus on actual processes and practices of conferring, questioning, and refusing legitimacy centres attention on actors and on the changing, hence dynamic, and often precarious nature of legitimacy in postcolonial polities. Zoning in on practices also allows for a more systematic and comprehensive consideration of the non-argumentative and argumentative dimensions of these claims and contestations, as well as of the institutional and material conditions that inform actors’ horizons of experience, mould their perceptions, and hence affect the stability and nature of political legitimacy. Therefore, taking Mali as an empirical case study for investigating the workings and multi-dimensional nature of political legitimacy is not a ‘yes–no’ exercise in ascertaining the existence or absence of legitimacy in Malian political history. Nor did the book aim at a comprehensive account of legitimacy and its workings in Mali. Instead, the book asked in what domains of daily experience and of encounters with political power did assessments of legitimacy come into play and to what effect. To that end, different chapters of the book focused on select features and dynamics of political legitimacy, while returning repeatedly to Beetham’s multi-dimensional conception of legitimacy as an analytical starting point. What emerged from this empirical account is that, pace recent attempts to theorize the workings of state power while ignoring or dismissing the relevance of legitimacy, the ‘legitimacy’ of specific institutions and politicians is of major concern to people’s engagements with the political as well as the social fabric of everyday life. In the context of this empirical study, this

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becomes evident, for instance, when rural populations assess the advances allegedly brought about by liberal political reforms and democratic elections (Chapter 1), or when they take stock, and occasionally take advantage, of newly created local structures of political participation (Chapter 3). What emerged from both chapters is that farmers in this comparatively accessible rural zone of southern Mali have gradually become accustomed to the institutions of the state and its interference with domestic and subsistence economies. Along the way, the formal bureaucratic procedures and legalrational rules have gained wider recognition and hence, objectivity, even if their force and reach are circumscribed by the ongoing validity and occasional strengthening, of the conventional criteria of legitimate power. Questions of political legitimacy, Chapters 2 and 4 demonstrated, also come to the fore, among other forms, in explicit declarations of emotional attachment and belonging during state-orchestrated cultural spectacles, when the nation-state’s claim to serve as a primary reference for political belonging and emotional identification is staged through the mise en scène of the twin notions of ‘local’ and ‘national culture’. The legitimacy of the state political order also constituted a reference point, albeit more implicitly, in the ambivalent reception of jeli praise during earlier phases of state-orchestrated cultural performances. Chapter 2 illustrated that the claims, aesthetics, and rituals of radio-mediated jeli praise appealed to listeners from the Kita hinterlands, in spite of and beyond its widely agreed venal nature. Even to regional audiences who disagreed with these official celebrations of national culture and the nation-state, the rightfulness of these claims constituted the main bone of contention and reason for disagreement and dissent. Political legitimacy remained in question and unstable, yet it continued to form an important concern. Perhaps the most striking evidence for the persistent analytical relevance of ‘legitimacy’ lies in developments furthering the present political instability in Mali, developments condensed, most notably, in the challenge mounted since the 1990s by Muslim activists who claim that Islam offers an alternative framework for constructing political community. Chapter 5 showed that legitimacy becomes a key issue, for the political leadership and for urban and rural populations that evaluate its performance, in a situation in which the ordering power of the nation-state and of its institutions and representatives is deeply questioned, and ‘religion’ is invoked as an alternative source of political and moral order and social stability. Addressing the degree and seriousness of this challenge as a matter of legitimacy(rather than, as it is sometimes done, as a seemingly irrationally grounded, fundamentalist backlash to Western modernity) allows scholars to recognize the analogous

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process by which religious leaders and politicians establish their authority and seek to validate their constructions of political and moral community in Mali. This insight applies to the dynamics beyond sub-Saharan Africa. Leaders who claim leadership in the name of religious-moral renewal and spiritual guidance also lay claim to credentials that in part complement, in part directly compete with those of politicians. In both cases, attention to the argumentative and non-argumentative dimensions of legitimacy claims is of paramount importance. In Mali, it is not only jeli praise, or any other kind of musical and rhetorical performance, that may work most effectively in generating acceptance in indirect ways, that is, not by providing explicit justification but by fostering identification and agreement with a political or socio-moral order. This insight clearly moves us beyond a Weberian account of the distinct sources on which authority and political legitimacy may be founded. Whereas Weber paid tribute to non-argumentative dimensions of legitimation only insofar as he identified personal ‘charisma’ as a source of authority, Chapters 2, 4 and 5 illustrated that sensory and aesthetic elements play into all assertions and attributions of legitimacy, even if the relative weight of these different dimensions may vary and change over time (Schulz 2015b). Whether statesman or politician (as in Chapters 1 and 3), ‘spiritual guide’ (Chapter 5) or faama that is, a ‘man of means’ (Chapter 2); in each case of these leadership figures, political standing or legitimacy is asserted, attributed, and performed at different argumentative and non-argumentative levels. The argumentative, the aesthetic, and the choreographic-ritual dimensions of these assertions need to be understood in their intertwining. For this, an analytical perspective is required that allows us to account for the complex, multi-layered nature of legitimation processes, while simultaneously considering the material conditions and social dynamics that inform people’s engagements and perceptions (Chapters 4, 5). As spelled out in the Introduction to this book, a major shortcoming of Weber’s belief-centred approach to legitimacy is that it gives little consideration to conditions of legitimacy that exist and persist relatively independently of people’s subjective attitudes and sometimes vacillating convictions. The key question that followed from this insight was this: how do rules and criteria that confer political legitimacy (that is, the first dimension identified by Beetham) acquire a measure of stability, permanence, and existence on their own, and hence gain a certain independence from the beliefs, preferences, and sensibilities of individual actors? Several chapters proposed preliminary answers to this question. Chapters 1 and 3 illuminated how farmers’ historical experiences with, or learning from, encounters with the state resulted in a sedimented matrix of

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expertise from which to draw for assessments of the political status quo and for devising strategies for future encounters with state officials. Notably, the reminiscences of older farmers about the governments of President Keita and President Traoré analysed in Chapter 1 demonstrated that criteria for evaluating legitimacy are not entirely random or culturally variable; nor do they all have the same importance and longevity. Seen from the vantage point of older farmers from the Kita rural hinterlands, the first decades of post-independence Mali were characterized by a situation in which ‘legality’ or ‘rule conformity’ (in Beetham’s sense) as the first dimension of legitimacy was largely absent. Farmers neither expected politicians to act according to the rules nominally set by the state political order, nor did they consider these rules relevant to their own lives. As it transpired from the reminiscences of farmers, under such circumstances, a political system’s or a leader’s legitimacy depends first and foremost on the ability to ‘provide’, that is, to grant material security.This is not just an empirical but a conceptual point: granting material security and well-being constitutes a basic criterion that is of primary import to assessments of legitimacy, above and beyond culturally variable, normative conceptions of legitimate rule. Another insight from Chapters 1 and 3 is the genuinely social nature of the generation and conferral of legitimacy. Assessing the legitimacy of a political system implies not just social actors’ considerations of how it affects their own lives, as Beetham would have it: he discusses legitimacy in terms of a one-to-one relationship between those in power and subordinate groups. Rather, for the governed to assess the legitimacy of a political system or an individual officeholder, involves a consideration of how the political system shapes and regulates relations between them, and whether the resulting social and political dynamics are beneficial to themselves and others. A conceptual framework of the dimensions of legitimacy requires consideration of the social dynamics that affect actual judgements of legitimacy, dynamics that occur within a heterogeneously composed, evaluating audience. Chapters 1 and 3 highlighted the degree in which my hosts and interlocutors, regardless of the generation to which they belonged and of differences in educational background, constantly draw on each other’s experiences, assessments, and judgements that, in spite of contradictions and disagreement (see Chapter 4), form a shared pool of meanings and sensibilities that transcends and outlives individual considerations and convictions. As illustrated in Chapters 1 and 2, this shared, inter- and trans-subjective horizon of experience and judgement does not exist in a timeless, ahistorical setting. It is predicated on, and informs in turn, historically determinate material and social conditions, and normative regulations and expectations.

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Actors’ shared horizon of historical experience and practice, while informing their individual attitudes and subjective, contingent assessments of political legitimacy, has a trans-individual and trans-generational span and significance. It transpires in social institutions and conventions, the validity of which extend far beyond individual belief and contingent judgements. In this sense, we can speak of the attribution and genesis of legitimacy as a genuinely social process. I want to end this conclusion by giving the last word to one of my interlocutors, Bakary, whom readers know from Chapter 1. When I visited him in July 2015 and asked him how he felt about the present political situation, he made his point in his usual succinct manner: You know the adage ‘there are days for a man when he can buy himself a horse. There are days when he is sitting in the saddle of a horse. And there are days when he will walk next to it while others are sitting in the saddle.’ The capacity to rule over others (fanga) never stays the same. It always changes and you never know who will sit in the saddle tomorrow. But one thing you can be certain of: those who judge you while you are sitting in the saddle, they are always many and they come to agree or to dissent while discussing with each other.

Postscript: ‘Rest in peace, democracy’? As I brought this book manuscript to completion, the seismic reverberations of the coronavirus pandemic started to hit Africa’s already seriously strained domestic economies. Within months, in August 2020, Mali was to experience another upheaval, with a coup forcing the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. The implications of this latest turn of events are too early to predict, even if one could clearly see it coming during the preceding months. The social, economic, and political crisis surrounding the coronavirus only accentuated long-standing fissions and tensions within the Malian body politic, with regard to people’s apprehensions about the political system’s brittle legitimacy, and also in the precarious power balance both between Keita’s government and religious opinion leaders and within the highly divided field of Muslim activism. When the government imposed curfew measures in late March and multiplied its efforts to stage, discursively and materially, the state’s capacity to provide the infrastructure necessary for the containment of Covid-19, responses oscillated between evasion, disapproval, verbal humour, and open resistance.1 As people’s resentment of governmental efforts to contain the spread of the virus grew over the weeks, their responses put into relief a seething general discontent with President Keita’s government. The tense political and economic situation was compounded by the uproar following the highly contested ruling of Mali’s Constitutional Court on 30 April that reversed the results of the second turn of legislative elections held on19 April.2 The Court ruling increased the forty-three seats See ‘Coronavirus: les Maliens divisés sur le respect des mesures barrières’, Le Wagadu, 30 April 2020, https://www.maliweb.net/sante/coronavirus-les-maliens-divises-sur-lerespect-des-mesures-barrieres-2871230.html (accessed 15 May 2020). 2 Because of high levels of insecurity and the persistent threat of armed Muslim militants in northern and central Mali, legislative elections did not take place in many rural communes in these regions but were held only in the main towns, such as Kidal, Menaka, Tessalit, Bourem Ansongo, Timbuktu, Bandiagara, Djenné, Koro, Douentza, and Bankass. Souleymane Diallo, personal communication, May 2020. 1

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in the National Assembly won by the ruling RPM party in several urban areas3 according to the results published by the Ministry of Interior, to fifty-four seats. The report in the newspaper Le Guindo in response to the court decision, whose title translates as ‘Constitutional Court: Rest in peace, democracy’, mirrored the exasperation felt by many observers.4 Yet national media response was divided, with a majority of voices expressing indignation, cynicism, and undiluted fury, and a few isolated voices defending the court ruling.5 In the streets of Bamako and towns where electoral results had also been affected by the court ruling, violent protests erupted, with angry youth playing a leading role in venting frustration about both the court ruling and the Covid-19-related lockdown measures. Banners reading ‘die of coronavirus or die of hunger?’ reflected the dilemma felt by many, a dilemma that fuelled the rising protest against the stay-at-home orders and the call for ending them. Protests spread to Kayes and other towns, mirroring the prevalent mood of ‘being fed up’ (‘ras le bol’6) with the rampant culture of corruption endorsed by President Keita and his RPM government, which in its ‘greed’7 to stay in power, had used executive privilege to cajole the judiciary into falsifying electoral results.8 The protests, scheduled at night times when the curfew restrictions applied, involved the mounting of roadblocks and burning of tyres, culminating in violent, even The areas in question were the Communes I, V and VI in Bamako, as well as Bougouni, Kati, and Sikasso. 4 ‘Ici repose la démocratie, paix à son âme’, Le Guindo, 5 May 2020. 5 See Aboubacar Traoré, ‘L’Arrêt de la Court constitutionnelle: entre passion et droit, un feuilleton électoral s’achève’, L’Essor, 7 May 2020, http://malijet.com/a_la_une_du_ mali/242671-arr%C3%AAt-de-la-cour-constitutionnelle-entre-passion-et-droit%2Cun-fe.html (accessed 15 May 2020). 6 Tamba Camara, ‘Couvre-feu à Bamako: les contestations se multiplient’, 7 May 2020, https://www.maliweb.net/societe/couvre-feu-a-bamako-les-contestations-semultiplient-2872599.html (accessed 15 May 2020). 7 Still, some observers surmised that the public protest was funded by oppositional parties and mirrored Malians’ ‘greed for money’, rather than a critical political stance. See ‘Suite à la vague de violence qui a envahi le pays, le Pr Issa N’Diaye a réagi: “Tant que l’appât du gain facile restera la base de la philosophie du citoyen malien ordinaire, rien de bon ne se fera dans le pays”, dixit Pr Issa N’Diaye’, Mali Demain, Bamada. Net, 7 May 2020, http://bamada.net/suite-a-la-vague-de-violence-qui-a-envahi-lepays-le-pr-issa-ndiaye-a-reagi-tant-que-lappat-du-gain-facile-restera-la-base-de-laphilosophie-du-citoyen-malien-ordinaire (accessed 15 May 2020). 8 See ‘Contribution: Annulation des voix d’électeurs: La Cour Constitutionnelle a-t-elle fait son devoir?’, Arc en Ciel par Maliweb, 4 May 2020, https://www.maliweb. net/contributions/contribution-annulation-des-voix-delecteurs-la-cour-constitutionnelle-a-t-elle-fait-son-devoir-2871934.html (accessed 15 May 2020). 3

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deadly altercations with police officers,9 and police cars being set alight. By choosing these targets, angry protesters aimed at those actors who, since the imposition of curfew measures in late March, had come to be viewed as paradigmatic agents of state corruption. After all, Malian police and security forces, while charged with ensuring public order and security during the nightly curfew hours, instead extorted penalties and bribes from ordinary people, who, in the shadow of the night, had sneaked out of their homes, making desperate attempts to earn some money to feed their families. That police officers extracted money from people already struggling to make ends meet under dire economic circumstances, and that officers could do so without impunity, only added to urbanites’ sense of ‘exhaustion’10 and of ‘having been wronged’ by the serving government. To portray Malians’ political malaise through the exclaimer ‘we have been wronged’, an’w tòròla, is very telling. After all, the term tòrò, ‘wrong’ refers to a feeling of fatigue, yet also conveys one’s moral indignation about a government that breaks any rule of morally upright comportment. ‘We have been wronged’ thus characterizes the situation leading up to the August 2020 military coup as one in which the government lacks legitimacy, and in which key tenets of the political system, notably free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law, have revealed themselves to be empty promises. The political caricature ‘Malian elections explained in three pictures’ from March 202011 pointedly portrays widespread exasperation with an electoral system used as a scheme by those in power to maintain their prerogatives. State officials (in the comic recognizable by the outfit) ask ordinary folk for their support in times of need (e.g. elections), to pull themselves out of a morass, but drive off once they have been put back in charge without recompensing those who have helped them. The comic After a police officer had opened fire on and killed a young man who resisted his orders in Kayes on 12 May, bloody altercations between angry mobs and police forces cost two more lives. See ‘Kayes en ébullition suite à l’assassinat d’un jeune par un policier: malgré les excuses des autorités, les manifestants n’abdiquent pas’, Bamada.net, 14 May 2020, http://bamada.net/kayes-en-ebullition-suite-a-lassassinat-dun-jeune-parun-policier-malgre-les-excuses-des-autorites-les-manifestants-nabdiquent-pas (accessed 15 May 2020). 10 an’w sègèna de, ‘we are really exhausted’, Souleymane Diallo, personal communication, May 2020. 11 Caricature: ‘Les élections au Mali expliquées en 3 images’, 19 March 2020, https:// malijet.com/photos/caricature-du-jour/240630-les-elections-au-mali-expliquees-en3-images.html (accessed 20 May 2020). 9

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8. Caricature: ‘Les élections au Mali expliquées en 3 images’, 19 March 2020

thus mirrors prevalent views of politiki people as being guided exclusively by selfishness, avarice, and a greed for power. People’s frustration about the negative effects of Covid-19-related governmental injunctions has intertwined with their deepening disappointment with a political system that, by opening its doors to immoral and incompetent political leaders, suffers from a lack of legitimacy. On 25 March, just a day before curfew measures came into effect throughout the country, the main opposition leader, Soumaila Cissé, was abducted near Sarafere, Timbuktu region, while touring the area during his electoral campaign.12 This event, together with the continuing of deadly attacks launched against Malian military and UN peacekeeping troops in Mali’s northern and central regions,13 sharply illustrated the on-going security crisis Courrier International, ‘Insécurité au Sahel. Le principal opposant malien, Soumaila Cissé, enlevé dans le nord du pays’, 26 March 2020, https://www.courrierinternational. com/revue-de-presse/insecurite-au-sahel-le-principal-opposant-malien-soumaila-cisseenleve-dans-le-nord (accessed 15 May 2020). 13 The most recent attack to date (15 May 2020) occurred near Aguelhok, Kidal region on 10 May 2020, when three soldiers from the UN peacekeeping troops were killed 12

Postscript: ‘Rest in peace, democracy’?    205

shaking these regions. The events reinforced widespread perceptions of the government’s inability and lack of vision to find a viable and permanent solution to the security crisis, and to perform the state’s sovereign role in providing order, protection, and justice. The threat of Muslim insurgence impinges on the realization of key principles and procedures of multiparty democracy, for instance by inhibiting the organization of legislative elections throughout the entire country (see above). Moreover, Muslim insurgent activity continues to rub into people’s faces Mali’s impaired sovereignty, manifest, among other things, in its heavy dependence on the presence and logistical and financial support of international military forces, a presence that many observers in Mali view with great ambivalence. The persistent threat posed by armed Muslim militant groups in northern and central Mali has only added to a widespread and profound sense of political and moral disarray. In this situation of political and moral malaise, aggravated by the repercussions of the coronavirus epidemic, the appeal of Muslim opinion leaders, most notably of imam Mahamoud Dicko and preacher Shaykh Cherif Haidara, has continued to grow. Mahamoud Dicko especially has capitalized on the new freedoms afforded by quitting his former function as President of the Haut Conseil Islamique in April 2019. In September 2019, he announced the creation of a new organization, CMAS,14 which flaunted its explicitly political ambitions by presenting itself as a network of patriotic Muslims who share Mahamoud Dicko’s concerns about governmental mismanagement.Tellingly, the organization highlights as the first of its four political goals the promotion of ‘good governance’.15 As illustrated by a series of interviews given to the international press since September 2019, Mahamoud Dicko has used his new political limelight to portray himself as a serious contender to President IBK’s government and as a promoter of a ‘Malian laïcité’ more attuned to what he described as ‘traditional’ (Muslim) values. CMAS has thus come to resemble a party centred on a religious leader’s political programme, in a country where religious parties have not been admitted since the introduction of multiparty democracy in 1991. What has made Dicko’s political challenge so formidable since September 2019 is his enormous mobilizing potential, a potential illustrated by CMAS’s broad support base. by an improvised road bomb. 14 La coordination des Mouvements, Associations et Sympathisants de l’imam Mahamoud Dicko. 15 The sign in front of CMAS’s headquarters in Maniambougou, Bamako, reads: ‘Promouvoir la bonne gouvernance, la paix, la réconciliation, le vivre ensemble’ (‘Promote good governance, peace, reconciliation, and living together’).

9. Sign outside the headquarter of imam Dicko’s organization CMAS in the Bamako neighbourhood of Magniambougou Faso Kanu (source: Souleymane Diallo, permission granted)

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Dicko continued to entreat the government to enter into negotiations with Iyad Ag Aghaly and Amadou Koufa to ‘unify Malians’ and put an end to violence in northern and central Mali. While openly confirming the two militant leaders’ programme of ‘introducing the shari’a’, Dicko showed himself equivocal about his own political agenda, claiming that ‘laïcité in Mali’ was not in danger, yet adding, somehow obliquely, that ‘in a country which is 98% Muslim, the Malian people themselves were sovereign arbiters of their own future’.16 Over the last twelve months of Keita’s presidency, Dicko became a vocal critic of President Keita’s performance. During the highly publicized launch of his CMAS organization at the Palais de la Culture in Bamako on 7 September, Dicko condemned the ‘plainly visible and endemic corruption’ and ‘catastrophic governance’ at the heart of President Keita’s government.17 Events surrounding this and other public interventions by Mahamoud Dicko since September 2019 have illustrated how seriously state officials take Dicko and his CMAS. The day before the public launch of CMAS, the Constitutional Court had issued a public warning that ‘political parties were not to endanger public order and security’ and that ‘no party’ was allowed to constitute itself on ‘ethnic, religious or linguistic grounds’. With his political comeback speech the next day, Dicko tenaciously ignored these warnings, a response that showed just how powerful and above the law Dicko considered himself at that point. And indeed, the months that followed confirmed Dicko’s assessment of his own political strength. Mahamoud Dicko was charged with defamation of the government and summoned by the public prosecutor of Commune V in Bamako on 3 March. The public summons caused a commotion at the court of Commune V of Bamako, as thousands of the imam’s followers assembled there in protest.The court hearing was postponed out of fear of the imam’s supporters, who threatened violent action.18 This trial of strength between imam Dicko and the public authorities further tipped the balance in Dicko’s favour, strengthening his hold over followers and ‘Mahamoud Dicko affirme que Iyad Ag Ghaly veut la charia’, Deutsche Welle, 19 February 2020, https://www.dw.com/fr/Mahamoud-dicko-affirme-que-iyad-ag-ghaly veut-la-charia/a-52429675 (accessed 15 May 2020). 17 Patrick Forestier, ‘Mali: Dicko, l’imam du people’, de plain-pied dans la politique’, Le Point Afrique, 12 September 2019, https://www.lepoint.fr/afrique/mali-dicko-l-imamdu-peuple-de-plain-pied-dans-la-politique-12-09-2019-2335275_3826.php# (accessed 13 May 2020). 18 ‘Imam Dicko’s hearing postponed due to commotion at court of Commune V of Bamako’, PANA, 4 March 2020, https://www.panapress.com/-imam-Dicko-s-hearingpostponed--a_630630833-lang2.html (accessed 19 May 2020). 16

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confirming his reputation as a strong, uncorruptible critic of the government. At a stroke, the postponement of the hearing provided another nail for the coffin of the political system’s legitimacy. As a corollary to the role of government critic assumed by imam Dicko since 2019, Shayk Cherif Haidara’s political stardom seems to have suffered from having taken on a formal political function. Since his election as the new president of the Haut Conseil Islamique in May 2019, Haidara showed restraint by limiting his public interventions to lectures on proper Muslim behaviour under Covid-19. As mentioned in Chapter 5, Haidara’s critics took his restraint as proof of his suspicious rapprochement with Keita’s government. Many Ansars, in contrast, praised Haidara’s ‘cool-minded’ handling of political disarray. During a HCI press conference on 8 May 2020, Haidara admonished the government for its unwillingness to discuss ‘matters of national import’ with him and washed his hands of any failure to establish peace with ‘people from the north’. Haidara’s announcement was interpreted by his Ansars as proof of his non-corruptibility vis-à-vis the government.19 President IBK immediately responded to Haidara’s rebuke, granting him a personal audience on 11 May, which was taken by Cherif Haidara’s enemies as another indication of his closeness to the government. Secularist-minded critics, on the other hand, interpreted the swiftness of President IBK’s response as yet another worrisome sign of ‘all the power that religious leaders have in our country’.20 On 18 August 2020, after weeks of violent confrontation with angry protesters in the streets of Bamako and other towns, President Keita was ousted by a group of soldiers from the Kati military base near Bamako, who justified their intervention as a ‘salvaging’ of the nation and, tellingly, as an attempt to restore ‘state authority’ and ‘real democracy’.21 Their newly constituted Comité National pour le Salut du Peuple swiftly announced the intention to oversee a transition to civilian rule ‘in due course’, and to hold transition talks with actors from civil society.22 At about the same time, Phone conversations with Ansar Dine members from San, 14–15 May, 2020. Togola, ‘Mali: le HCI a réussi à se faire accueillir par le président de la République’, La Pays/Maliactu, 12 May 2020, https://maliactu.net/mali-mali-le-hci-a-reussi-a-sefaire-accueillir-par-le-president-de-la-republique/ (accessed 20 May 2020). 21 Aljazeera, ‘Mali Coup leaders promise elections after Keita overthrow’, 20 August 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/mali-soldiers-promise-electionscoup-200819094832716.html (accessed 10 September 2020). 22 Aljazeera, ‘Coup makers launch new round of transition talks with Mali actors’, 10 September 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/coup-makers-launchtransition-talks-mali-actors-200910111412409.html (accessed 10 September 2020). 19

20

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Imam Mahamoud Dicko declared his intention to retreat from his role as opposition leader and to return to the mosque to ‘lead people in prayer’. But Dicko also cautioned the new military leaders that his retreat did not give them ‘carte blanche to do whatever they wish’.23 It remains to be seen what role imam Dicko and other religious leaders will play in the near future, and how strongly future political leaders will need to rely on them to maintain credibility and appeal. What we will certainly witness, however, is a continuation of the seesaw of competition and mutually beneficial contacts with public authorities, among Muslim opinion leaders whose public standing as spokesmen of an ‘Islamic alternative’ to the current political order depends directly on their demonstration of aloofness from the government.

France 24, ‘A meeting with Mahmoud Dicko, the imam who led the movement to oust Mali’s president’, 29 August 2020, https://www.france24.com/en/20200829i-have-no-ambition-to-be-president-of-mali-mahmoud-dicko-tells-france-24 (accessed 10 September 2020). 23

Glossary ala dèmè bagaw

literally, ‘helpers of God’, Bamanakan name for Shaykh Cherif Haidara’s group Ansar Dine

Ansar

short term used for members of Ansar Dine: those who support and propagate Islam

Ansar Dine

Name of two separate Muslim organizations in Mali (from Arabic, Ansar-Ud-Deen, ‘helpers of religion’), one led by Shaykh Cherif Haidara, with headquarters in Bamako, the other led by Iyad Ag Aghaly in Kidal

balafon

xylophone based on a series of gourd resonators played throughout the West African Sahel and Savanna zones

baraka

from Arabic, ‘blessing’; term for special spiritual force or blessing power from God that, as a manifestation of His continued presence and revelation, flows through objects, practices, and those close to God

da’wa

from Arabic, ‘invitation, call’; refers to any Muslim’s duty to exhort fellow Muslims to search for greater piety in their lives, and to encourage non-Muslims to embrace Islam

demokrasi

Bamanakan term for multiparty democracy

dine nyema

Bamanakan terms for ‘leader (nyema, nyemògò) of religion (dine)’; title used for religious or spiritual leaders such as Shaykh Cherif Haidara by his followers

faama

Bamanakan term for someone who is rich and powerful

fanga

Bamakan term for absolute power that today is projected onto precolonial forms of political organization

212  Glossary

griot French term for jeli Haut Conseil Islamique Muslim umbrella organization, created by President Konaré in 2002 to overcome factionalism within the national Muslim organization, AMUPI Imam

Islamic leadership position, person who leads congregational prayer

intégristes

French term for Muslims who militate for an alignment of the constitution with (what they refer to as) the ‘shari’a’

jeli

Bamanakan term for a category of socio-professional specialists (pl., jeliw) in the Mande-speaking societies of West Africa, in charge of oral and musical performance, transmission of historical knowledge, and political mediation. Jeliw, along with other groups of socio-professional specialists, the nyamakalaw, form an endogamous group who traditionally were not expected to intermarry with people of noble or free-born rank, who looked down on jeliw yet simultaneously depended on their services

nyamakalaw

socio-professional groups that specialize in particular occupations; among them are blacksmiths, potters, leatherworkers and jeliw (see above, jeli)

politiki

Bamanakan term for procedures, institutions, actors, and attitudes associated with nation-state politics

Salafi-Sunni, Salafist

Tradition within Sunni Islam. The Arabic term ‘Salaf ’, ‘predecessor’, refers to the first three generations of Muslims in early Islamic history. Today, ‘Salafi’ or ‘Salafist’ is often used to claim continuity with the Salafiyya reform movement of late nineteenth-century Egypt, with its emphasis on strict monotheism and rejection of practices such as venerating religious leaders, and other unlawful innovations (that is those that deviate from the example, rules and ritual practice set by the Prophet Muhammad).

sunamogow

Bamanakan translation of the Arabic ‘Ahl-AlSunna’, ‘those who follow the sunna’ that is, who

Glossary  213

adhere to body of social and legal practices and rules set by the Prophet Mohammad, and passed on in the Qur’an and Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad that have been transmitted through the history of the Muslim community). In public discourse in Mali, the term often refers to those who militate for a theocratic order based on the ‘shari’a’ tariqa

Arabic term for a spiritual order and tradition of Sufi Islam that centres on a set of spiritual exercises and mystical teachings laid down by the founder of the order, with the ultimate goal of achieving immediate, mystical experience of God and thus ultimate truth. The order’s spiritual leader, the shaykh, plays a crucial role in guiding followers of the order in their ritual and pious endeavours

tinyetigiya

Bamanakan for ‘holding/owning the truth’; used in a broader sense to denote ‘truthfulness’, ‘honesty’, ‘faithfulness’

wulibali

‘undeniable truth’ in Bamanakan, literally ‘something to which one cannot object’

ulema

plural form of the Arabic term alim, ‘scholar’, ‘a learned one’. The term refers to the group of Muslim scholars who are considered guardians and interpreters of Islamic law and theology

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Index administrative decentralization  5, 28, 65, 106–8, 114, 118, 129, 132, 134, 136, 139 see also decentralization Africa  31, 67, 75, 103, 104, 133, 195 African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights 168 Aghaly, Iyad Ag  164, 165, 166, 173, 205 Ahl al-Sunna  167 see also Wahhabi Algiers Peace negotiation  165 Alliance pour la Démocratie au Mali (ADEMA)  33, 64, 65 al-Qaida 164 Ambiguities of Domination (Wedeen)  8 Amin, Samir  51 n.27 Anderson, Benedict  16, 84 Ansar Dine  164, 165, 167, 174, 175, 176, 177, 183, 208 see also Ansars Ansars  174, 176, 184, 185, 193, 208 see also Ansar Dine Apter, Andrew  72, 94 argumentative legitimacy  18, 74, 33, 101, 150, 151, 155, 178–83, 187 see also non-argumentative legitimacy arme (song)  87 Arnoldi, Mary Jo  134 Arts et Culture  89 Arts et Métiers  76 Askew, Kelly  18, 19, 20, 72, 73, 94 Assad, President Hafiz al-  8, 132 see also Syria Association des Artistes Traditionnels  79 Association des Étudiants et Elèves du Mali (AEEM)  64 Association Malienne pour l’Unité et le Progrès de l’Islam (AMUPI)  166, 167, 171, 192 attitudes  2, 9, 10, 19, 102, 105, 110, 198 of farmers  25, 108, 116, 124 toward political legitimacy  15, 198, 200 toward political order  11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 28, 72, 73, 85, 94, 101, 132

toward social order  6, 7, 11 authentication (process)  144, 148, 149, 150, 151, 155 authority  3, 5, 31, 39, 51, 68, 69, 109, 122, 127, 129, 130, 136, 147, 183, 185, 186, 208 and legitimacy  13, 14, 30, 72, 108 local  115–21, 123, 124 religious  162, 177–80, 190, 198 respect of (lack of)  35, 48, 66, 116, 128 authorization (process)  14, 149, 183, 186 autochthony  109, 149, 155 Azawad (nation)  163 balafon  140, 210 Bamako, Mali  5, 24, 27, 111, 117, 130, 135, 146, 179, 181 politics of  23, 49, 50, 65, 66, 68, 142 protests from  35, 40, 57, 168, 202, 208 Bamako-Bankoni  176, 183 Bamanakan  23, 81, 82, 91, 136, 139 baraka  185, 210 Baudais, Virginie  14, 130 Bayart, Jean-François  39 Beetham, David  8, 28, 36, 60, 196, 199 cultural performances  71, 72, 73 expression of consent  10, 11, 12, 71, 72, 73, 85, 99, 101, 102 political legitimacy  10, 11, 12, 28, 31, 32, 49, 69 rule conformity  38, 45, 50 tripartite legitimacy (model)  11, 31, 101 bèn  95, 96, 152 Benjamin, Walter  98 Biennale Artistique (festival)  86, 135 see also festivals bikitigi  45, 46 see also biro holders biro holders  44, 46, 47 see also bikitigi Bourdieu, Pierre  19 Brazil 149 brigades de vigilance  48, 49

236  Index Bureau Politique National  48, 56 Calhoun, Craig  75, 80 Camara clan  23 Cameroon  109, 113, 155 cash crop  35, 51, 53, 59, 67, 68 see also cotton central government (Mali)  116, 165 Cercle de Bafoulabé  25, 119 Chaîne Deux (radio station)  135 Chatterjee, Partha  3 Christians  172, 180 Cissé, Soumaila  191, 204 Comaroff, Jean  133, 138 Comaroff, John L. (husband)  133, 138 Comité de Transition pour le Salut du Peuple 63 Comité Militaire de Libération Nationale (CMLN)  56, 57, 58, 87, 88, 99 Comité National de la Défense de la Révolution (CNDR)  56 Comité National pour le Salut du Peuple (CTSP)  63, 208 Constitutional Court  201, 202, 207 cooperatives  53, 54 Coordination des Mouvements de l’Azawad (CMA)  164 Coordination of Movements, Associations and Sympathizers (CMAS)  192, 205, 207 coronavirus  201, 204 see also Covid-19 Corrigan, Philip (Great Arch, The)  17, 72, 73 see also Sayer, Derek cotton  67, 68 see also cash crop coup d’état  2, 5, 33, 63, 86, 87, 163, 172, 173, 174, 186, 201, 203, 208 Covid-19  30, 202, 204, 208 see also coronavirus cultural patrimony  78 da’wa  162, 166, 210 Dagno, Bako  43 Dallol (television programme)  136 n.8 Damba, Fanta  89, 95, 99 de-legitimation (illegitimacy)  11 decentralization  4, 25, 66, 103, 105, 110, 112, 117, 119, 128, 131, 133, 161 post effect  109, 113, 121, 145 local effect  111, 115, 116, 124, 130 cultural effect  140, 144 see also administrative decentralization Dembaya kingdom  141, 142

democratization  15, 108, 109, 195 demokrasi  35, 63, 64, 68, 69, 208 see also multiparty democracy Diabaté, Kelemonzon  23 Diarra, Ami  87, 92, 93 Dicko, Mahamoud  160, 166–9, 171, 172, 176, 179, 180, 187, 190, 192, 193, 205–9 dine nyema  185, 210 disposition  9, 13, 14, 17, 25, 29, 32, 73, 100, 102, 105, 110, 111, 120, 123–31 Duga (song)  97, 88 n.20 École William Ponty (school)  77 Engel, Ulf  42, 104 see also Erdmann, Gero Ensemble Instrumental National  77, 79, 86, 88 Erdmann, Gero  42, 104 see also Engel, Ulf ethno-tourism 141 Europe  75, 133 expatriates 174 faama  59, 60, 61, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 97, 99, 198, 210 fanga  35, 39, 40, 57, 60, 63, 64, 65, 83, 96, 210 fantan 89 farmers  5, 25, 28, 36, 44, 47, 54, 61, 64–8, 111, 129, 197 and decentralization  103, 108, 112, 113, 116, 119, 128, 161 and jeli  83, 84, 86, 91, 94–100, 139 and political legitimacy  39, 50, 51, 69, 70, 177, 182, 191 and politiki  40, 41, 42, 45, 49, 63, 66 and President Traoré  56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62 and state authority  19, 20, 29, 52, 53, 73, 74, 117, 120, 121, 124, 130 see also older farmers Fédération Ansar Dine International (FADI) 174 Fédération du Mali  46 festivals  86, 134, 135, 141, 143, 148, 156, 157 Festival au Désert  141 Festival de la Jeunesse  77 Festival de Médine  141, 143 see also Biennale Artistique Foucault, Michel  3 France  51, 90, 192

Index  237 French colonial  23, 24, 43, 77, 78, 80, 142 French military forces  1, 164 Gao (region)  106, 141, 163 Geschiere, Peter  109, 113, 155 governmentality 3 Great Arch, The (Corrigan and Sayer)  72 Group of Spiritual leaders of Mali (GLSM) 182 Haidara, Shaykh Cherif Ousmane  160, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 174, 176–90, 192, 193, 205, 208 Haut Conseil Islamique du Mali (HCIM)  167, 171, 172, 179, 180, 190, 192, 193, 205, 208 hybridity 128 Ifoghas 164 illegitimacy (de-legitimation)  2, 11, 12, 28, 117, 120, 124, 128, 186, 190, 191, 192 imperialism 77 independence (Mali)  43, 46, 50, 51, 79, 81, 142, 162, 163, 199 institutional arrangement  6 intégristes  167, 169, 171, 172, 173, 192, 193, 210 Islam, (Islamic)  1, 43, 29, 159, 161, 162, 171, 177, 180, 182, 187, 191 197 see also Muslim jankokrasi 64 jeli  22, 23, 25, 33, 34, 43, 91, 92, 93, 94, 97, 210 jeli praise  23, 25, 34, 138, 139, 197, 198 jeli singers  22, 23, 138, 139, 144 Jeune Afrique (magazine)  166, 173 jihadists 172 Kankan (village)  121, 122, 123 Kayes, Mali  37, 142, 202 Keita, President Ibrahim Boubacar  1, 30, 189, 191, 201, 208 government of  159, 160, 161, 171, 192, 193, 199, 202 Muslim relations  166, 173, 176, 190, 207 presidency of  172, 187, 205 Keita, President Modibo  28, 46, 51, 55, 81, 82, 84, 100, 101, 134, 156

culture of  76, 77, 78, 79, 87, 93, 138, 147 government of  73, 74, 75 overthrow of  53, 56, 86 presidency of  58, 63, 66, 116, 121 Keita, Sunjata  82 Kidal, Mali  106, 107, 163, 164, 165 Kita hinterlands  5, 20, 24, 64, 67, 120, 130, 132 farmers  29, 36, 69, 83, 108, 119 media influence  91, 94, 98, 99, 100, 101, 197 Muslim influence  161, 162, 177 political legitimacy  28, 84, 199 Kita, Mali  21, 23–7, 33, 34, 42, 47, 50, 51, 57, 59, 62–9, 96, 113, 115 Koita, Ami  88 Konaré, President Alpha Oumar  33, 35, 40, 41, 64–7, 106, 134, 136, 139, 156, 161, 167, 168, 174 Konaté, Mamadou  46 Koufa, Amadou  165, 166, 173, 207 Kouyaté, Kandia  23, 88, 91 Kouyaté, Tata Bambo  87, 88, 94 legitimacy deficiency  2, 11, 12, 28, 117, 120, 124, 128, 186, 190, 191, 192 legitimation  2, 5, 13–19, 30, 32, 73, 74, 80, 104, 131-34, 197, 144, 148, 195, 198 Le Guindo (newspaper)  202 Leclerc-Olive, Michèle  106, 108, 109 liberalization  29, 55, 58, 59, 66, 67, 132-35, 143, 155, 157 Logo Sabusèrè (kingdom)  142 Macina Liberation Front  165 MacLean, Lauren  51 Malian federation  46 Maninkakan (language)  23, 77, 79, 81, 82, 136, 139 Mansakè (song) 92 Marxist  16, 76 mass media  22, 74, 83, 89, 93, 95 mass-mediated  9, 25, 74, 86, 92, 102, 137, 139, 150, 179, 185, 186 Mawlud (celebration)  181, 184, 188, 189 Mbembe, Achille  61 Médard, Jean-François  41 mediation  33, 74, 92, 148, 149, 150, 151 Meyer, Birgit  150, 151 milice populaire (organization) 49

238  Index military  1, 87, 163, 165, 204, 208 coups  33, 63, 203 Traoré, President Moussa  56–60, 85, 88, 94 Ministry of Culture  78, 140, 141 Ministry of Education  87 Ministry of Interior Affairs  190, 202 Ministry of Religious Affairs  172, 180 Ministry of Youth, Sports, Arts and Culture 87 Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA)  163, 164 Movement for Democracy  63, 65 Muhammad (prophet)  179, 210 multiparty democracy  25, 40, 109–14, 131, 204 and legitimacy  4, 5, 187, 191 and farmers  28, 29, 64, 65, 130 and decentralization  129, 132, 133, 134, 144, 156, 191 transition to  33, 42, 103, 205 see also demokrasi Musique du Terroir (television programme)  136, 144–8, 151, 153-57 Muslim  43, 46, 89, 162, 165, 174, 178, 181, 193, 205, 207 activists  166, 168, 169, 172, 186, 197, 201 militancy  1, 29, 161, 163, 164, 171, 179, 180, 182, 187, 192, 205 political influence  30, 160, 167, 173, 176, 189, 190, 208 see also Islam

Office des Produits Agricoles du Mali (OPAM) 54 older farmers  32, 33, 43, 46, 48, 55, 199 see also farmers Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre  104, 105 Opération Riz  58 Opérations de Développement Rural (ODR)  53, 58 Orchestre National  78 ORTM (national radio)  27, 135, 154

National Assembly  202 national culture  15, 18, 77, 78, 79, 90, 134, 136–40, 147, 149, 155, 156, 197 nationalism  16, 18, 44, 73, 74, 75, 76, 82, 84, 133, 220 national media  23, 88, 136, 137, 138, 144, 202 see also state media national radio  27, 33, 40, 78–81, 84, 86-90, 94, 95, 99, 100, 135, 136 see also state radio national television  90, 136, 137, 139, 144, 147, 148, 157 see also television non-argumentative legitimacy  30, 184, 196, 198 see also argumentative legitimacy nyamakala  22, 46, 48, 139, 210

quill holders  46 Qur’an  182, 210

Pacte National  107 Pan-Africanism 42 paramilitary 49 parliament (Malian)  168 Parti Progressiste Soudanais (PSP)  43, 44, 46 performances  11, 18, 20, 29, 38, 50, 56, 76, 78, 89, 93, 97, 134, 139, 141, 144, 150–6, 163, 198 cultural  19, 28, 71, 73, 74, 94, 131, 132, 137, 149, 197 Haidara, Shaykh Cherif Ousmane  178, 183, 184, 185 jeli  23, 81, 83, 84, 86, 92, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101, 138 political system (order)  56, 70, 104, 173 performative  11, 13, 19, 102, 178, 186, 195 Pitkin, Hanna  9 politiki  35, 39, 40–6, 49, 50, 57, 63, 66, 97, 113, 177, 191, 193, 204, 210 Politique de la Décentralisation  65, 106 postcolonial  63, 72, 73, 75, 76 privatization  65, 134, 137, 139

Radio Mali  81 Radio Soudan  76, 80 Rajagopal, Arvind  5 Rancière, Jacques  18 Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA) 43 Rassemblement Pour le Mali (RPM)  111 n.10, 112, 113, 126, 202 ressortissants  146, 147, 154 révolution active  49 Ribot, Jesse  114 rule conformity  10, 32, 45, 199 rural extension programmes  53

Index  239 Sacko, Mogontafe  86, 88 Saharan 1 Salafi-Sunni 210 Sama (song)  93 n.32, 94 Sayer, Derek (Great Arch, The)  17, 72, 73 see also Corrigan, Philip Schachter-Morgenthau, Ruth  43 Schatzberg, Michael  36, 39, 47, 50, 60 secular  160, 168, 172, 208 security forces  203 Senegal  77, 141 shari’a law  165, 169, 171, 179, 181, 182, 207 single-party rule  4, 5, 58, 61, 62, 75, 85, 89, 94, 113, 135, 144 Sissoko, Youssouf  191, 192 Skinner, Ryan  156 socialism 76 state commercialization  54 state fatherhood  36, 39, 47 state media  136 see also national media state political order  28, 124, 131, 133, 157, 163, 197, 199 state political system  29, 108, 124, 128, 129, 132 state radio  79, 80, 84, 90, 136, 144 see also national radio Steinmetz, George  16, 17 student revolt  59 sub-Saharan Africa  104, 106, 108, 198 sunamogow  171, 210 sunna  179, 181 Surakoroba (village)  33 Swahili 73 Syria  8, 10, 132 see also Assad, President Hafiz al-

Timbuktu, Mail  141, 169 Touncara clan  23 Touré, President Amadou Toumani  1, 5, 33, 63, 134, 156, 161, 168, 169, 174, 176, 192 Traoré, President Moussa  28, 56, 59, 60, 86, 88, 106, 139, 166, 167 coup of  33, 40, 103, 161 government of  57, 73, 74, 82, 134, 147, 199 jeli relations  89–94, 96, 99, 100, 101 presidency of  63, 116, 121, 146 single-party rule of  58, 62, 85, 144 Troupe National (Ballet)  77 Troupe Dramatique National  77 Tuareg clan  78, 79, 163, 164 Turino, Thomas  72

taarab music  18, 19 Tanzanian  18, 19, 73 Taratadon Janjon (song)  87 n.19 tariqa  180, 211 tata (structure)  141, 142 television  87, 99, 146, 154, 155, 176, 183 see also national television Therkildsen, Ole  105 Thiam, Thierno Hady Boubacar  167

Wahhabi 167 see also Ahl al-Sunna Warner, Michael  80 Weber, Max  6–10, 13, 14, 30, 31, 85, 104, 198 Wedeen, Lisa (Ambiguities of Domination)  8, 9, 10, 102, 132 Wing, Susanna  2, 130 Worby, Eric  74 World Bank  59

ulema (scholars)  166, 167, 180, 182, 184, 211 Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien (UDPM)  57, 61, 62, 63, 88, 89, 99 Union Soudanaise-Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (US-RDA)  43–6, 52, 57, 76–82, 86, 90, 93, 99, 156 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)  140, 141, 143 Urban, Greg  151 valorization of culture  29, 141, 143, 156, 157 Van de Port, Mattijs  149, 150, 155 Von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet  124