To what degree and why are traditional institutions persistent? Following up the literature on the long-term effects of precolonial institutions in Africa, we investigate whether and where today's traditional institutions mirror their precolonial predecessors. We do so by linking data on contemporary traditional institutions of African ethnic groups with Murdock's historical Ethnographic Atlas. We find a robust association between past and present levels of institutional complexity, differentiating between institutions’ political centralization and functional differentiation. However, this persistence originates almost exclusively from former British colonies governed with more reliance on precolonial institutions than other colonies, in particular French ones. These findings contribute to research on the development and effects of traditional institutions, highlighting the need to account for varying persistence of traditional institutions.

In 1996, the Madagascan state enacted Law 96-025 (the GELOSE Law), which transferred the management of certain renewable natural resources to local populations by means of negotiated contracts. This legal strategy was innovative in many ways, namely by prescribing the use of Dina, a local traditional convention, in management-transfer contracts. By using Dina, the state claimed to reconcile the “legal” with the “legitimate” and to favour a sustainable management of these resources. This article focuses on the conditions of legitimacy of environmental norms in a pluralistic legal context marked by globalization. The use of Dina has not in fact contributed to an increased legitimacy of environmental norms, thanks to significant differences between its use and local regulatory procedures, insufficient governmental coordination in the implementation of Law 96-025, and a lack of resonance of sustainable development.