This book has explored the development of political culture and nationalism in Malawi during the colonial and early postcolonial period. While it would be a gross oversimplification to attribute all elements of Malawi's politics today to these developments, there are some undeniable connections. First, the development of anticolonial politics involved people in an engagement between the local and the national to produce a particular type of populism rooted in the championing of local causes and linking these (sometimes erroneously) to a larger political project, specifically the end of federation and the attainment of self-government and independence. Once these things were achieved, once the political kingdom was assured, all else would follow. One of the conditionalities for decolonization was the holding of elections, but this really happened only once, in 1961, given the overwhelming monopoly of political power by the MCP. The government it formed inherited all the problems of the colonial state and its structure, which was anything but democratic.

On the other hand, the MCP government's legitimacy cannot be questioned, even if it increasingly turned to violence and intimidation to quell opposition. Its success lay in its historical development. The NAC and then the MCP had been able to forge alliances between traditional and modern elites and the masses, first by squaring “tradition” with indirect rule and later through a formal alliance of Congress and chiefs in the Supreme Council.