Political settlements and pacts now feature prominentlyin donor narratives about transitions from conflict andinstitutional fragility to peace and prosperity (Hickey2013). Ten years after the Regional Assistance Missionto Solomon Islands (RAMSI) intervention, politicalsettlement analysis offers fresh perspective on corequestions: Are governing arrangements in SolomonIslands stable and sustainable? Where might they beineffective and vulnerable?

Important questions have been raised about theconceptual and policy utility of the concept of politicalsettlements (Dressel and Dinnen 2014). This In Briefconsiders how a political settlement view could usefullyinform more effective approaches to democraticgovernance programming in Melanesia (specificallyin Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands wheredemocracy programming has been most significant),by supporting a more sophisticated understanding ofpolitics and democracy which opens up alternative entrypoints for donor engagement.

The ‘political settlement’ concept has been around fora long time, but like any smart virus it has morphedalong the way to suit its various hosts. It appeared firstand has its widest currency in the international relationsand peace literature, where it describes a negotiatedsettlement to conflict which spells out how power isto be distributed and managed in the post-conflictstate.1 Its next relevant incarnation, for the purposesof this paper, was in the mid-1990s in the writing ofMushtaq Khan, who used the concept to challenge theexplanations offered by new institutional economics forstate failure in developing countries (Khan 1995). Don’tjust focus on the institutions, he argues, but look to thepolitical settlement.