Paper long abstract:

The paper explores the recent state recognition of traditional authority in post-war Mozambique, introduced with Decree 15/2000, and asks what this implies for the position of traditional leaders or chiefs in the former rural war zones and opposition strongholds of Sussundenga District. Decree 15/2000 recognises traditional leaders as community authorities, who are envisaged as representing, giving voice to, and catering to the needs of rural constituencies. At the same time it delegates to community authorities a long list of key state functions: policing, taxation, population registration, enforcement of justice, land allocation, and rural development. In fulfilling these tasks, community authorities are envisaged as assistants of local state institutions and as the concrete entry points for the governance of rural territories and the distribution of development provisions.

The paper argues that the double-role of community representatives and state assistants situates chiefs in an ambiguous position between state demands and local community interests, which are often conflicting in the former war-zones. State recognition increases chiefs’ scope of power through not only the symbolic regalia of the state, but also the organizational capacity and police and military power that, despite much talk of weak states, are considerable in Mozambique. But state recognition can also decrease chiefs’ status because of the deeply political nature of state and development provisions. Attempts to impose reified notions of traditional authority and to politically instrumentalize chiefs to serve ruling party interests run the risk of distancing chiefs from the communities they formally represent. This suggests that the longer chiefs are able to steer the contentious terrain between Frelimo-state requirements and their local constituencies’ preoccupations and needs, the more powerful they may become. Not all chiefs are capable of doing so, and the mediating work of chiefs also generate conflicts.