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Military parade in Mali: understanding Malian politics through spectacle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2021

Alioune Sow
Alioune Sow*
Affiliation:
Centre for African Studies and Languages, Literatures & Cultures, University of Florida, 301 Pugh Hall, PO Box 115565, Gainesville, FL32611-5565, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This essay argues that the Independence Day's military parade in Mali has become a strategic site to negotiate fragile military and civil relations, and a repository to promote social change through the military experience. Drawing on field observations of the parade of the 50th anniversary of Independence in Bamako and the literature on political transitions, this essay demonstrates that military parades constitute meaningful sites for alternative engagements with democratic transitions. It examines the tactics and mechanisms deployed by the Malian national army to negotiate past human rights violations and authoritarian practices, as well as to seek the army's rehabilitation following the collapse of the military regime. By analysing military parades as a form and practice consolidating the ‘social contract’ between the army and the public after the political transition, this article contributes to the scholarship on transition and the study of military parades within the African continent.

Keywords

Malimilitary paradespolitical transitionnational armyrehabilitationmilitary civil relations
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 219 - 235
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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