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ABSTRACT
This article examines the effects of UN peacekeeping and international counterterrorism operations upon the possibilities of peace in Mali. Following the January 2013 French operation Serval, the international intervention was divided between two military missions: UN peacekeeping in Mali and French-led counterterrorism. The article explores what it means to distinguish between peacekeeping and counterterrorism for international conflict management and Malian conflict resolution dynamics. It is argued that the binaries of war and peace, and of intervention and sovereignty, are no longer opposites, but blurred into an emerging ‘new normal’ of permanent military intervention. The construction of a regional counterterrorism governance or militarisation is shown to circumvent the fundamental questions about Malian peace, state sovereignty, and nationhood. The article points to how the international ‘division of labour’ between peacekeeping and counterterrorism defines the possibilities of peace in Mali in relation to the perceived necessities of the ‘global war on terror’.
Acknowledgements
I want to first thank my friends and colleagues, Professor Jonathan Sears and Dr Adam Sandor, for reading and sharing their thoughts on this manuscript on multiple occasions. Thank you also to Professor Tony Chafer for his proof-reading help and most importantly for his support and friendship over the years. For their comments and encouragements, I also want to thank Florian Kühn, Geneviève Parent, and Cédric Jourde.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Bruno Charbonneau is Professor of Political Science at Laurentian University and Director of the Centre FrancoPaix. He specialises in the international politics of West African conflicts, international intervention, and France-Africa security and political relations. He is the author of France and the New Imperialism (Ashgate/Routledge), and coeditor of Peace Operations in the Francophone World (Routledge), Peacebuilding, Memory and Reconciliation (Routledge), and Locating Global Order (UBC Press).