Throughout Africa, neotraditional chieftaincy institutions (“traditional authorities,” “traditional rulers”) have become remarkably important in recent decades. When most African states became independent, around 1960, most observers regarded chieftaincy as an obsolete matter and hardly could have imagined its expansion decades later. The administrative chief in Africa had constituted an core element of colonial rule; he would be replaced—or so it was assumed— by government institutions of the modern nation state. By the 1990s, however, “traditional” chieftaincy institutions had (re)appeared and were gaining increasing political relevance in most African states—at the same time as many countries underwent democratization processes.

In certain countries and areas, this development appears to result from the weakness of the state in Africa. In northern Mali, for example, chiefs took over “parastatal” functionality as mediators and power brokers between local society and international agencies, largely circumventing the institutions of the existing nation-state (Klute and Trotha 2000). However, this explanation remains incomplete, as it does not account for the fact that chieftaincy institutions gained relevance even in African societies with comparatively strong states. The most notable example is postapartheid South Africa which, in its 1994 Constitution, guaranteed chiefs a role in politics. Not only did South Africa create a House of Chiefs, but also chiefs have become important actors in the rural areas, in the midst of ongoing debates about their role, especially with regard to the lack of democratic legitimacy inherent in the institution of chieftaincy (Kessel and Oomen 1997; Oomen 2000; see also Keulder 1998).

In today's Africa, chiefs are obviously relevant actors in local political arenas, and they are relevant in ways that are, to some degree, independent of the character of the particular nation-state. Even though a chief usually depends on recognition by the state, he is not the mere creation of the latter—if it were that simple, there would be no reason why he should be any more effective than any other local-level governmental or administrative institution. In reality, the chieftaincy institution is strongly shaped by the local context. Everywhere in Africa, chiefs form an interface between the local community—especially, but not exclusively in rural areas—and its wider context, among them the nation-state, other groups within a national society, and even international actors.