In lieu of a post today, I’m linking to this piece I published on Friday with the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage. The piece discusses patterns in jihadist violence during Mali’s July-August presidential elections.
Your feedback is welcome as always!
Sahel Blog
Covering Politics and Religion in the Sahel and Nigeria
Sahel Blog 
The general consensus (as you correctly point out in your article) seems to be that after the election, not much has changed on the political horizon and the precarious status quo is not a situation anyone south of Ségou is proud of but exactly what the different Islamist (and Touareg) groups want, so they can go about their smuggling businesses.
Yeah. I’m working on another paper trying to tease out who benefits from the status quo and how.