Paper short abstract:

Conducting a QCA of six selected countries (and 64 country-periods), using data from our "ESID Political Settlements Survey", this paper studies whether the relative size, strength and social composition of the leader's support coalition affect a country's development trajectory.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to explore whether there are relationships between political settlement types and countries' development experiences. In particular, does the relative size, strength and social composition of the leader's support coalition affect a country's willingness and ability to implement inclusive growth or social policies, and to what extent is this mediated or affected by other variables such as economic ideologies or systemic threats? To approach this goal, it conducts a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of six selected countries (and 64 country-periods), using data from our "ESID Political Settlements Survey". The six countries - Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka - were selected since all are medium-sized, predominantly agricultural, resource 'poor', coastal, former British colonies, thus enabling us to hold these potential explanations constant in the QCA while leveraging variation in other factors. Allowing for equifinality, QCA analysis is particularly powerful as a first tool to identify parallel potential pathways that can explain developmental success and other outcomes of interest in developing countries. It hereby provides important guidance for future analyses.