Paper short abstract:

This paper will explore how civil society organisations have interfaced with the state in Malawi in their effort to shape mining laws. It will interrogate the dynamics of new forms of leadership challenging the authoritarian state and offer new leadership alternative.

Paper long abstract:

Since the 2000s, Malawi has witnessed unprecedented levels of investment into the mining sector. This development has attracted a lot of civil society organisations (CSOs) activism around environmental justice. Celebrated by the public as representing the "other" alternative leadership in the governance of the extractives, CSOs have actively been involved in the review of the 1981 Mines and Mineral Act, which was promulgated by Parliament in December 2018. The extractive industry, however, is anchored in complex local and international economic and political structures that generates contentious interests and agendas. Through the concept of governmentality, this article explores CSOs-state power struggles during the review of the 1981 Mines and Minerals Act. It is based on semi-structured interviews with government bureaucrats, CSOs leaders, local communities, political leaders and private mining companies. The article highlights how CSOs have not only shaped legislative change around their interests, but have also institutionalised marginalisation of the local communities they claim to empower. This is so as existing political and economic structures have fashioned survival-compromises between CSOs and the state. Contrary to the belief that new forms of leadership represent potential resistance to populist leadership, this paper highlights how the existing formal political space constrains achievement of certain goals. Thus, the article signals how, existing structures are not only confronted but also embed and institutionalise emerging leadership into an existing hegemony.