Blessings CHINSINGA The Interface between Tradition and Modernity The Struggle for Political Space at the Local Level in Malawi

Summary: This article seeks to demonstrate how traditional leaders have strategically exploited the decentralization policy reforms to reassert themselves as a dominant force in grassroots politics in Malawi. This assessment is situated within the context of the debate about the relevance of traditional leadership institutions or alternatively culture in the twin processes of democratisation and decentralisation. While one side of the debate dismisses them as sheer obstacles, the other side argues that they are a resource that can be tapped into in order to effectively domesticate the reforms, since traditional leaders embody values and virtues of political accountability, transparency and probity. The underlying argument of this article is that while research findings demonstrate that traditional leaders have indeed the potential to play a midwife role in the efforts to domesticate and customize the reforms to the exigencies of local conditions, their ill material circumstances render them overwhelmingly easy targets for politicians bent on satisfying their own strategic political considerations