Paper short abstract:

This article aims to (1) provide a clearer conceptual distinction between the ‘configuration of power’ and the ‘set of institutions’ that distribute sources of power. (2) to compare three leading political settlement typologies in regards to their conceptual clarity and empirical operationalisation.

Paper long abstract:

Political settlement analysis promises to explain divergent development pathways of countries where other paradigms have failed, but it has yet to consolidate a unified understanding of its core concept and overcome doubts whether it can be used for rigorous empirical research. This article compares three examples of political settlement analysis application and examines the merits and weaknesses of the typologies and empirical operationalisation offered by them. It finds important progress in recent scholarship but concludes that more is needed to clarify dimensions of settlements and avoid that measurement efforts inadvertently resort to outcomes of interest as proxy indicators, rendering empirical falsification of causal claims impossible. To promote this cause this paper provides a clearer distinction between the concepts of 'configuration of power' and the ensuing 'set of institutions' that distribute sources of power.