Explaining institutional change in Nepal and El Salvador: a cultural political economy approach to political settlements analysis

Understanding progressive institutional change continues to be a central debate in development studies. This paper traces the processes leading to two such cases: constitutional change in Nepal, which resulted in greater recognition and rights, and the outlawing of metal mining in El Salvador, which redistributed access to resources. To understand these contrasting cases of institutional change, this paper proposes and demonstrates the value of a cultural political economy perspective. Building on Khan’s (2010) influential ‘political settlements’ approach to institutional analysis, this paper offers a revised analytical framework. The proposed framework begins with Khan’s premise that societal power relations underpin how institutions function. However, departing from Khan’s structural, materialist conception of power, the paper offers a more balanced analysis of ideational as well as material sources of power. Applying the framework to the two cases demonstrates how political organisations form around shared beliefs and cultural identities as well as material interests to pursue institutional changes in rights and status, not just material gain. The cases demonstrate how a cultural political economy approach to power can identify a fuller range of the causal mechanisms generating institutional change than a materialist conception of power.