Urban political settlements: a new lens for peacemaking in cities

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents the conceptual lens of the urban political settlement. We argue that ordering actors in cities and towns in contexts marked by conflict, violence, and fragile institutions can form urban political settlements independently from those actors at the national level, providing trajectories for stabilising cities. We discuss the shortcomings of the literature on political settlement analysis and its recent efforts to subsume political settlements at the city level to those at the national level. In response, we present the lens of the urban political settlement through its various components. First, we highlight the actors involved, and why they are required to have capacities to engage in order-making processes. Second, we advance the discussion by presenting the control spheres of cities under conditions of conflict, violence, and institutional fragility – territory, population, and the economy – and the control capacities of ordering actors – violence, financial, and institutional. Third, based on the presentation of the heuristic lens of the urban political settlement, we present a research agenda able to respond to contemporary pressures that cities are exposed to.