1. SOME NEW CONVENTIONS ABOUT SOLOMON ISLANDS GOVERNMENT Political settlements, pacts and capabilities David Craig

2. 1. Reversing the ‘Retreat of the State’ – Solution = expanding capacity and good governance outwards – Focus on deficits and capacity building – Finding the political will: focus on actors 2. Working with a fraught political settlement and post intervention ‘Re-ordering of Political Capability’ – Focus on actual political-economic elites, their pacts and $$, and how these transform into institutional capabilities/ political settlements EXISTING AND NEW CONVENTIONS ABOUT GOVERNMENT AND INSTITUTIONS IN SOLOMON ISLANDS

3. Political settlements/ Khan: Elite power, pacts, institutions – Coalescing/ enrolling political and economic power to invest rents in political authority and institutional capability for security/ development Slater: Provisioning vs protection pacts and institutional outcomes: unsustainable provisioning, fragmentation/ militarisation vs insecure elites ordering power via formal institutions for security/ development Tilly: ‘clientage’ payments bridging economic/ political divides Mann: ‘grasp and reach’ capability of institutions – grasping power/ rents centrally, and reaching out to constituencies SOME NEW CONCEPTS

4. Dispersed constituencies, central political pacts focussed on provisioning Urban primacy (without political representation), centralised rents Weak party/ pact enrolment/ grasp: limited protection/ policy commitments, dissolution of governments through confidence votes Weak reach: enormous problems in provisioning, and expressing political agency/ electoral claiming through government machineries LOGIC 1 FRAGMENTED GEOPOLITICS AND THE PRIMACY OF PROVISIONING

5. Problems of elite cohesion, protection and concessionary provision Clientage, security and elite –provisioning in a fragmented trading economy One dimensional / short term cash transactions across ethnic divides AND Monetisation of elite political economic pacts, driven by fragmented concessionaires: timber/ trading/ gambling Institutionalised in the Two stage electoral process / ‘Club for Staying in Government Forever’ LOGIC 2 ETHNIC CLEAVAGES AND THE MONETISATION OF POLITICAL- ECONOMIC PACTS

6. Co-production pacts: massive international commitment to security, justice, health and education, public finance – Political agency/ enrolment/ accountability corroded in mainstream public provision Vertical layering of capabilities/ rents into institutions to provision and enrol political support: Constituency Development Funds – Corrosive raiding of budgets for new layered capabilities – Pre-empts effective intergovernmental transfer system formation LOGIC 3 SIG/ DONOR PACTS CO-PRODUCTION AND INSTITUTIONAL LAYERING

7. Slater’s provisioning outcomes: Fragmentation/ policing/ militarisation/ crisis prone – Security and basic services guarantee – Weak policy agency/ accountability – Unsustainable provisioning/ raiding But with durable layering and specific settlements – Co-production and cdfs – Different settlements by locality/ island states/ Honiara/ sector? What else might be transformational? Consolidations – political consolidation: Local (stv), Honiara (urban development and representation) – Political economy: consolidating mining rents, with intergovernmental transfer system (PNG) – Consolidated pathways: Education plus regional labour market integration – Consolidated regional commitment (Barbara ‘co- ownership’ of long term security/ development) FUTURE TRAJECTORIES