Paper short abstract:

To gain analytical value, political settlements need to be conceptualised as complex social systems; as such they abstain the liberal external interventionism along the inclusive institutionalism paradigm, and open up to the 'local turn' in state- and peacebuilding.

Paper long abstract:

While political settlements research has not yet been able to develop a commonly agreed concept about scale and scope of the concept, there is widespread agreement about the notion of inclusive institutions. Such an agreement, however, resembles old practices of neoclassical institution building, and implies the severe risk of political settlements just becoming the reframing of well-known, worn-out paths of development interventions that already have been proven to fail. Aiming to challenge this view of inclusive institutionalism, this paper argues that political settlements are best understood as complex social systems. Such a perspective has severe consequences, as it rejects any linear causalities. Instead of thinking about how to design more inclusive institutions, working with political settlements has to utilise a self-reflective approach based on dialogical learning, and should focus on working on enabling conditions for the transformation of potentially violent conflict. In doing so, such an approach links up with the current 'local turn' in peacebuilding, and the respective ideas of 'peace formation' and 'sustaining peace'.