Pathways to Change Baseline Study to Identify Theories of Change on Political Settlements and Confidence Building By Molly Elgin-Cossart, Bruce Jones, and Jane Esberg July 31, 2012 This is one part of a two-part preliminary study. It is designed to excavate, through interviews with development field staff, perspectives and story lines on how international actors (especially development actors) can influence the degree of inclusiveness of political settlements. This is an interim step to a longer-term, more comprehensive study to assess the causal relationship between donor programming and political settlements. The purpose of this initial study is to narrow the field of inquiry by providing ‘theories of change’ that can then be tested. A cognate study, more conceptually oriented, focuses on political settlements (defined below) that follow violence or episodes or imminent threatened violence, to provide an exegesis of the argument that ‘inclusive enough’ settlements matter to stability and thus development in fragile states. That study is designed to help establish a research agenda that could test and refine that proposition. Prepared with support from the UK Department for International Development, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Carnegie Corporation. 1 Preface ........................................................................................................................... 3 Background: Why an emphasis on inclusive political settlements? ........................... 4 Research approach ........................................................................................................ 6 Evidence from Cases ................................................................................................... 10 The strategic environment ................................................................................................ 10 ELITE ATTITUDES .................................................................................................................... 10 EXTERNAL LEVERAGE ........................................................................................................... 11 EXTERNAL COHERENCE ........................................................................................................ 12 Storylines/Theories of change.......................................................................................... 13 Unintended and Negative Consequences ....................................................................... 25 Unanswered Questions: A Research and Knowledge Agenda on Political Settlements ................................................................................................................... 28 Case Studies................................................................................................................. 37 Nepal .................................................................................................................................. 37 Lebanon .............................................................................................................................. 54 Kenya .................................................................................................................................. 75 Somalia ............................................................................................................................... 91 Rwanda ............................................................................................................................. 104 Burma/Myanmar ............................................................................................................. 123 Annexes ..................................................................................................................... 146 Annex 1: Applying the WDR 2011 Framework to Lebanon: Report on Phase 1 ................. 146 Annex 2: ODA& WGI Indicators ...................................................................................... 235 2 Preface No low-income fragile or conflict-affected state has achieved a single Millennium Development Goal. Given that a large percentage of the world’s poor live in such states, it is increasingly central to the development agenda to better understand conditions that enable stable development after episodes of violence. One argument (World Development Report 2011) is that in fragile and violent situations, a period of confidence-building and the development of an inclusive political settlement (or more precisely, an “inclusive enough” political settlement) must precede longer-term institutional change. Indeed, mounting empirical evidence points to inclusive political institutions as central to stable development.1 This study aims to provide preliminary evidence on how international actors (and especially development actors) influence the extent to which political settlements that follow episodes of violence (or threatened imminent violence) are sufficiently inclusive to allow for stable growth and development. To purpose of this study is to help translate the WDR into practice and inform policy making through the following objectives: (i) to capture a set of practitioner experiences with political settlements; (ii) to explore theories of change about the ways in which international actors can influence political settlements; (iii) to inform the design of a longer-term research program; (iv) to offer initial, limited policy-relevant conclusions for donor governments to begin to operationalize the concepts of political settlements. These objectives are purposefully limited, as this study is not intended to be comprehensive; its findings are meant to provide inputs to a longer-term research program. This study forms part of CIC’s work program on Securing Development, and is one element of CIC’s multi-year engagement with DfID, the OECD, the World Bank, and others to build the evidence base on how insecurity intersects with human and economic development processes in fragile states. 1 See Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, and Barry R. Weingast, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (Cambridge University Press 2009); Conflict, Security and Development: World Development Report 2011 (World Bank 2011); Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail (Crown Business 2012). 3 Background: Why an emphasis on inclusive political settlements? Fragile states, which many development agencies have now made a priority for their work, pose unique developmental challenge. Among these are weak political institutions and legacies of conflict. Many fragile states are now caught in cycles of repeated violence, causing them to lag significantly behind other countries on many development indicators. Yet some have escaped this pattern of recurring war and have moved onto a more stable trajectory – Mozambique and Nicaragua are but two examples. Others, like Ethiopia and Rwanda, are at an earlier stage of post-conflict development, and the question of whether they will be able to maintain the political stability necessary for continued development success is a vital one. For all of the literature on the causes of war, there is a paucity of research literature on successful recovery. We know less than we should about the ingredients of a successful exit from fragility. In its examination of fragile states, Conflict, Security and Development: World Development Report 2011 found that one important ingredient in successful exit was an ‘inclusive enough’ political settlement. The purpose of this paper is to unpack and elucidate that claim, and propose a research agenda that can test and refine it. But what, exactly, is a political settlement? There are two quite distinct ways of thinking about political settlements. One approach is oriented towards informal, long-running dynamics between political actors, especially elites. Another is focused on specific, often formal renegotiations of political arrangements – through power-sharing deals, constitutional conferences, peace agreements and the like. Each approach has its merits in substantive terms, and our approach balances them – focusing on discrete events that punctuate longer-running processes. We share with other scholars a focus on arrangements between elites, but emphasize that these should not be viewed as separate from the broader state/society relations in which elites are embedded. The study is designed to inquire into field team’s application of the concept of political settlement in their work. The donor agency that has done most to define the concept and educate its teams around the notion is DfID, and for that reason we adopt, for the purposes of this study, DfID’s definition of political settlements: “the expression of a common understanding, usually forged between elites, about how power is organised and exercised.”2 (In the adjacent study on the research literature, we explore variants to this approach.) How strong is the empirical evidence for these arguments? First, there is a growing body of statebuilding literature that points towards inclusion as a source of legitimacy or stability.3 In addition to these studies, a wider body of literature on elite-pacting supports the notion that agreements among elites are important for 2 Building Peaceful States and Societies: a DFID Practice Paper (2010). 3 Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (Cornell University Press 2004); Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States: a Framework for