Mali, a poor country in the West African Sahel region, has been at war since 2012. What began as an uprising in its sparsely developed northern half has spread to the rest of the country and enveloped large parts of neighbouring countries. Several outside militaries and a UN peace-keeping mission have been deployed to the country, making the Malian government dependent on outside support to maintain territorial control. This thesis analyses speeches delivered in 2012-2023 by Malian state representatives at the United Nations General Debate and United Nations Security Council. Narrative method and theory are used to identify strategic narratives in these speeches, i.e., narratives employed by an actor in international affairs to gain a favourable outcome for that actor. These narratives are identified and contextualised to understand what Mali’s ultimate strategic objectives with deploying them could be. They are put in the context of already existing master narratives, dominant stories told about the country and the region. The thesis identifies two major strategic narratives, one covering 2012-2020, when Mali portrays itself as a democratic country under assault from terrorists, it latches on to dominant narratives on fears of state collapse and the Sahel region as a front line in the war on terror, ultimately seeking to portray its civil war as a matter that should concern the entire world. In late 2020, the military takes control in Mali and a new strategic narrative is employed at the UN. The military regime breaks ties with France, the old colonial master, and employs a narrative that casts Mali as a post-colonial victim of a nefarious French plot to subjugate the Malian state.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-217928 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Johansson, Anders |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för ekonomisk historia och internationella relationer |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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