ABSTRACT
The case of Malawi demonstrates variation in inclusiveness between regimes and is an example of why democratisation and political decentralisation do not always develop in tandem. Malawi has been classified in most indexes over the last couple of decades as a minimalist democracy, yet the process of institutionalising subnational elections has been interrupted. There has been no stability in the conduct of subnational elections as local elections have at the time of writing (2017) been held only twice, in 2000 and 2014. At the beginning of the chapter, we hypothesize that the manipulation strategy used by the national governments had equalled that of creating institutional gaps. By analysing the recent developments in Malawi within the area of political decentralisation along the standard of representative subnational governments developed in a previous chapter, this chapter shows that even if elected local assemblies were reintroduced in 2014, the scope and size of elected representatives are small. Malawi is a case where one could say that the process of institutionalizing subnational elections has failed. It fails, however, in a very different way to the Ethiopian case. While subnational governments in Ethiopia get a low score on indexes, this is because of the dominant position of the ruling party. When Malawi gets a low score on indexes, this is because important institutional features of representative subnational governments are lacking.
