What we talk about when we talk about Political Settlements: Towards Inclusive and Open Political Settlements in an Era of Disillusionment
Abstract
A discourse on the importance of understanding political settlements has achieved some salience in development academic and policy discussions. As a concept, however, the term political settlements can be (and has been) criticised: as lacking in clarity; as failing to do any real intellectual analytical work; and for being difficult to translate into practical strategies for change. This article reviews political settlement literature, and argues that 鈥榩olitical settlement鈥� as an analytical concept has many of the flaws suggested, but that the central project of trying to understand the extent to which stopping violent conflict depends on powerful elites reaching deals on cooperation, and the ways in which such deals enable or limit projects of attempted transformation remains an important one. The article suggests that political settlement discourse has similarity with discourses emerging in other fields, all of which are attempting to respond to an 鈥榚ra of disillusionment鈥� in which moves towards democratisation or peace as an 鈥榚nd point鈥� of history, are now understand to have remained elusive despite sustained international intervention. The article suggests six critical research gaps which provide a focus for bringing work across the fields of development and conflict resolution together.
Citation
Bell, C. What we talk about when we talk about Political Settlements: Towards Inclusive and Open Political Settlements in an Era of Disillusionment. PSRP, Edinburgh, UK (2015) 29 pp.
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