Why culture matters

A revised approach to political settlements analysis and institutional change

The rules (or institutions) that govern how we distribute resources and uphold rights are important for development outcomes. In this seminar I trace the processes leading to two cases of significant institutional change: the rewriting of Nepal’s constitution, which resulted in more inclusive rights and recognition, and the outlawing of metal mining in El Salvador, which redistributed access to resources. To understand how these contrasting cases came about, I propose a cultural political economy perspective. Offering a revised version of Mushtaq Khan’s influential ‘political settlements analysis’, I argue that understanding institutional change requires analysis of cultural as well as political and economic sources of power. Applying my approach to the two cases, I show how political organisations form around shared beliefs and cultural identities as well as material interests to pursue institutional changes in rights and status, not just material gain. Adopting this cultural political economy approach allows a greater range of the causal mechanisms generating institutional change to be identified. 

Bio: Dr Clare Cummings is a lecturer in the politics of development at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. Her research examines how power relations and institutions interact within and across political boundaries to shape development outcomes. Her doctoral project revised the popular 'political settlements' framework from a cultural political economy perspective to show how cultural as well as political and economic sources of power influence processes of institutional reform. Clare is now applying a cultural political economy approach to processes of transnational litigation in the extractives sector. Her research examines how transnational coalitions draw on different sources of power to use domestic and transnational institutions to contest harms caused by mining corporations operating in the Global South.