Understanding power, culture and institutional change: an alternative approach to political settlements analysis

Abstract

New approaches to theorising the politics of development have moved beyond institutionalist analysis. Khan (2010; 2017), Chang (2011) and others insightfully argue that it is the power relations producing institutions that are responsible for development outcomes. Khan (2010) developed this theory into a 'Political Settlements Analysis' (PSA) framework, which has become prominent in development theory and policy. This thesis argues that while Khan's framework is insightful, it is constrained by its materialist and conflictual political economy conceptualisation of power. Others (e.g., Lavers and Hickey, 2016; Behuria, Buur and Gray, 2017; Kelsall et al., 2022) helpfully developed PSA's attention to ideas and to the relative inclusivity of a political settlement but none have systematically critiqued the concept of power underpinning PSA. Drawing on the influential work of Sum and Jessop (2013), Fraser (2003; 2009) and others, this thesis proposes a cultural political economy approach to PSA, which considers how cultural power interacts with political and economic power to shape the processes resulting in institutional change. Rebalancing PSA's focus on conflict, a CPE approach examines how power relations can be collaborative and productive as well as conflictual or zero-sum. By integrating this approach to power into PSA, this thesis offers researchers a new framework through which they can examine how actors mobilise politically to change the rules that accord rights and recognition and distribute resources. This allows a more 'inclusive' (c.f., Jessop and Sum, 2006, p. 157) analysis of institutional change that identifies a wider range of causal mechanisms and so allows more intervention points for development policy to be uncovered. The proposed framework is applied to two case studies to test its empirical relevance and comparative explanatory power. The first 'strong test' case study (c.f. Eckstein, 1975) concerns the outlawing of gold mining in El Salvador in 2017. The second 'weak test' case study concerned the ethno-political Madhesi movement in Nepal that achieved greater rights by contesting Nepal's 2015 Constitution. The case studies involved a process tracing methodology in which the causal chains leading to the respective institutional changes were traced using qualitative data. The case studies show that shifts in the rules governing resources and upholding rights are not a reflection of material and political sources of power and interests alone. Rather, the cases show how group identities form around shared beliefs and visions, as well as material motivations, and that ideas become powerful narratives shaping how actors interpret their interests. Where PSA studies how actors compete for control of rents and resources, a CPE approach to PSA allows analysis of how actors collaborate as well as compete to challenge the rules allocating rights and status as well as resources.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Thomas Lavers (Supervisor) & Samuel Hickey (Supervisor)