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This chapter develops a conceptual framework for understanding the politics of extractive industry governance. Building from the work of Karl, Ross, Watts, and others, and their efforts to understand the political drivers and consequences of the resource curse, the chapter proposes an approach that also engages with political settlements theory, addressing the political implications of the materiality of natural resources and the politics of ideas surrounding resource governance. The chapter then introduces a programme of cross-country, comparative research designed to address the relationships among political settlements, extractive industry, and patterns of development; describes the questions that guided this research; and presents the methods used.

Bolivia’s natural resources have served as a ‘mechanism of trade’ mobilized by competing interest groups to build coalitions, create political pacts, and negotiate political settlements in which dominant actors attempt to win over those resistant to a particular vision of development and/or governance. These pacts and settlements are revisited constantly, reflecting the weak and fragmented power of the central state and of the elite and persistent tensions between national and subnational elites. Ideas about, and modes of, natural resource governance have been central to periods of instability and stability, and to significant periods of political rupture. The period since 2006 has been characterized by a stable settlement involving an alliance between the presidency, his dominant party, and national social movements. This settlement is sustained through bargains with parts of the economic elite and subnational actors with holding power, as well as through ideas of resource nationalism and state-led developmentalism.

This chapter synthesizes findings from Bolivia, Ghana, Peru, and Zambia. It concludes that political settlements influence the relationships between resource-dependent economies and patterns of social inclusion. However, neither authoritarian, dominant leader forms of politics, nor competitive democratic politics has fostered significant economic diversification or reduced levels of resource dependence. The extractive economy does, however, influence the dynamics of national political settlements. The rents that resource extraction makes possible, and the high cost of engaging in extractive industries, induce asymmetries and create incentives for political exclusion. Colonial and post-colonial histories of resource extraction give political valence to ideas that have helped mobilize actors who have challenged relations of power and institutional arrangements. The materiality of subsoil resources has direct implications for subnational forms of holding power that can influence resource access and control. Mineral and hydrocarbon economies bring both transnational and local political actors into the constitution of national political settlements.

This chapter consolidates findings from the country cases to offer insight into the politics of education reform. It argues that the education sector presents different resources and incentives to political elites, and as such, the political settlement has a direct bearing on the potential for, and delivery of, reforms. At a national level, political dominance can enable elites to overcome vested interests, but may prevent the emergence of coalitions for learning reforms. More competitive polities are more vulnerable to short-termism and vested interests. At the local level, an absence of political dominance combined with decentralisation can lead to innovative solutions to educational challenges. The strategic implications of the analysis presented include that learning reforms should be closely aligned to the dynamics of the political settlement, and underscore the importance of coalition building. Analysis should be sensitive to the sub-national political dynamics, and recognize the value of ‘best-fit’ local solutions.

Political settlement frameworks are gender blind. This chapter interrogates this assertion by analysing selected country case studies of the gendered nature of political processes and identifying what contextual and structural factors promote gender-inclusive development policies and outcomes. These factors include: elite support for a gender equity agenda; ability of the women’s movement to contain oppositional elite or non-elite groups; transnational discourse and actors creating space for the gender equity agenda; presence of male allies and ‘femocrats’ within the state apparatus; and policy coalitions exerting pressure on the state. The political opportunity structure and the history of how women’s political entitlement was established influence the dynamics between these factors. The chapter concludes that a political settlement framework benefits from using a gender lens to allow for exploration of the role played by (gendered) ideas, (gender) ideology, informal relations, policy coalitions, and bottom-up strategies in how settlements are reached and sustained.

This chapter sets out the deals and development framework, a conceptual framework which offers a new way to analyse growth. The framework focuses on analysing the political settlement within a country and the rent space, i.e. which individuals receive the returns to assets and how. The processes of how deals are made between economic and political elites are discussed, and open or closed and ordered or disordered deals distinguished. The framework highlights the interconnectedness of these three ‘variables’ and shows how changes in either the political settlement, rent space or deals space affect growth rates and the structural transformation within a country.

This introduction brings together the main conceptual and empirical insights from this collection. Our findings suggest that new approaches to understanding the politics of development, including work on ‘limited access orders’ and ‘political settlements’, offer powerful insights into certain elements of this puzzle, particularly through a focus on the underlying forms of power relations that shape elite behaviour and institutional performance. However, these approaches need to be supplemented by broader and more critical forms of political theory to grasp how the politics of development is shaped by ideas as well as incentives, popular as well as elite forms of agency, transnational as well as national factors, and in dynamic as well as more structural ways. A broad conceptual framework is proposed that captures these concerns and suggests a basis for future research into the politics of inclusive development.

Politics is increasingly recognized to shape education outcomes in the global South, but there is little agreement on which forms of politics really matter, or how to conceptualize or investigate them. This chapter outlines the main approaches and findings from the existing literature, before setting out a new framework for analysis, organized around the ‘domains of power’ framework. This brings together analysis of the overall organization of power within the society (the political settlement) with political analysis of the education sector (or policy domain). The chapter sets out the methodological approach that was deployed to undertake the research presented in this volume, explaining the comparative case study methodology and the focus on power relations, the role of ideas, the significance of the sector within the ordering of power, policy coalitions and legacies of past policies, and elite commitment and state capacity to deliver education quality reforms.

This chapter shows how elite political settlements over time have influenced economic growth in Bangladesh. More concretely, the chapter focuses on the analysis of economic, institutional, and political economy conditions behind structural breaks in economic growth, phases of growth acceleration, and transitions in growth regimes in Bangladesh. This involves analysis of the pattern of structural change in the economy, mapping of the rent generation and rent allocations process in different sectors, discussions on the institutional space (i.e. delineation of the nature of formal and informal institutions that tend to affect a firm’s behaviour), and analysis of the deals environment of the business. The chapter also explores the incentives and ideology/vision of the political, state, and economic elites, the nature of state–business relations, and the influence of de facto growth coalitions to explain the dynamics of current trends and future prospects for growth in Bangladesh.

This chapter explores the extent to which political settlements interacting with the rents space affect the nature of the deals space and consequently help explain economic growth in Ghana. The discussions are centred around four break points and therefore five growth episodes for Ghana: pre-1966, 1966–74, 1974–83, 1983–2001, and 2001–14. First, there are signs that the post-2001 period has been more ordered and open than the first twenty-five years after independence. Second, the political settlement has also changed somewhat over the years, from a dominant to a more competitive type. However, it is argued that political patronage remains rife. Third, the chapter finds that the interplay of political settlements and rent space has been important in shaping the nature of the deals space in Ghana. Finally, it highlights two types of positive and negative feedback loop relating to these variables over the years.