Land reform is once again on the development policy agenda in a number of countries in southern countries. Like the 1960s/70s land reform initiatives, current land reform initiatives are presented as a solution to economic growth, sustainable land management and poverty reduction. In Malawi, it is currently seen as an opportunity to address land access, distribution, management and efficiency challenges. However, land reform is a contested process and has contested outcomes. One view sees land reform as achieving economic efficiency objectives while the other view sees it as way of instituting good land governance and reducing access inequalities. Land reform is also seen as caught in the interests of actors involved in the land reform process leading to crafting of tenure arrangements that potentially result in asymmetrical benefits. The underlying argument is that land reform is riddled with divided interests and objectives. Malawi has embarked on an ambitious project of reforming its land administration systems. This paper is set out to understand the outcomes of land reform in Malawi through political economy lenses. The particular questions answered in study are; what are the nature and interests of the actors involved in land reform process; what are the major anticipated individual, group and national benefits from current land reform; what are the proposed land administration changes and their justification in the new land policy; how has individual and institutional motives and interests affected the outcomes of new land policy; and what are the prospects for economic growth and development within the new land policy. This study largely used qualitative methodologies because of the nature of issues understudy. The findings of this study demonstrate that the land reform in Malawi is caught in competing objectives between the state and private sector on one hand and local communities on the other. The land reform process in Malawi can, therefore, be better be described as “butterfly policy making initiatives”, which having promised something new at one stage, matures to carbon copy of the mother policy.