Malawi's Political Settlement: Crafting Poverty and Peace, 1994–2014

Since 1994, Malawi's elite have constructed their political settlement in a way that has generally benefited them as a whole and individually. They have established a social contract with the population that mostly maintains enough services to sustain social conciliation, have created a workable though less‐than‐democratic governance arrangement and have done all of this while not establishing a policy environment conducive to national economic development. The paper analyses four ‘critical junctures’ between 1994 and 2014, which are key to Malawi's current political settlement. At each of these, institutions were laid down that have affected political and economic governance.