Alternative Typologies of Social Orders and Political Settlements
Alternative Typologies of Social Orders and Political Settlements
This chapter summarizes several approaches to categorizing social orders and political settlements on the basis of elemental political and institutional characteristics. A political settlement is a mutual understanding, held among parties with power, that they will primarily rely on politics rather than violence to resolve disputes. Discussion opens with a one-dimensional mapping of social orders, based on institutional strength and access—ranging from a chaos order through three types of limited-access orders to an open-access order. Societies can move in either direction. Next, a two-dimensional approach shows four combinations of institutional strength and competitive or dominant political settlements. A third approach offers three typologies. The first relates political settlements to institutional strength. The second denotes alternative distributions of power between included and excluded groups, and such distributions within included groups. The third addresses business power and capabilities.
Keywords: political settlements, social orders, open access, institutional strength, dominant, competitive, distribution of power
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