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Rethinking political settlements in the Middle East and North Africa

How trading accountability for stability benefits elites and fails populations

Research paper Published 20 September 2023 ISBN: 978 1 78413 565 2 DOI: 10.55317/9781784135652

A large red-coloured plume of smoke rises into a blue sky above tall buildings and a telecommunications mast after an explosion.

In their attempts to reach political settlements among rival elites in the Middle East and elsewhere, international policymakers have repeatedly prioritized ‘stability’ over accountability. The resulting settlements (or ‘elite bargains’) have instead created and perpetuated political systems that benefit those elites at the expense of citizens. Many citizens in affected countries now protest against, and demand an end to, the very settlements that were meant to solve the problem of violence.

Focusing on the examples of Iraq, Lebanon and Libya, this research paper shows that, while these ‘elite bargains’ have successfully reduced direct violence, they have overlooked structural forms of violence and failed to improve – and, in some cases, worsened – corruption and human development scores. The paper proposes a revised, inclusive approach to political settlements centred on increasing accountability and addressing the harms caused by violence in all its forms.

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About the authors

Renad Mansour is a senior research fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House and the project director of the institute’s Iraq Initiative. He is also a senior research fellow at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, and a research fellow at the Cambridge Security Initiative based at the University of Cambridge. Renad was previously a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he taught the international relations of the Middle East. From 2013, he held positions as lecturer of international studies and supervisor at the Faculty of Politics, also at the University of Cambridge. He is the co-author of Once Upon a Time in Iraq, published by BBC Books/Penguin (2020) to accompany the critically acclaimed BBC series.

Tim Eaton is a senior research fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, where he focuses on the political economy of the Libyan conflict. He is the author of multiple reports for Chatham House, including an in-depth analysis of the development of armed groups in Libya since 2014. Prior to joining the institute, Tim worked for BBC Media Action, the BBC’s international development charity, on projects in Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Tunisia, and helped to set up and manage the BBC’s Libya bureau in 2013–14.

Lina Khatib is the director of the SOAS Middle East Institute and MBI Al Jaber chair in Middle East Studies, as well as professor of practice at the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS University of London. Prior to this, she served as director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, where she is now an associate fellow, and before that was director of the Carnegie Middle East Center at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She also cofounded and led the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and was a senior associate at the Arab Reform Initiative. She has published several books and is a frequent writer and commentator on current affairs in the Middle East.

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