Companies operating in complex environments require a rigorous understanding of the economic, political, social and conflict dynamics of which they become part. Such insight helps them navigate substantial risks and challenges, grow their business even in unexpected places, work more effectively with local, national and international actors, and make meaningful contributions to stability and development. This book combines expert analysis, company case stories, and re ections from more than 100 business leaders. Drawing on a vast repository of knowledge and experience, it poses essential questions to better understand a particular complex environment and lead the company within it. It concretely demonstrates how leaders can help their companies meet their full range of goals – technical, nancial, legal, reputation and social – by addressing the questions set out in this book. It is an invaluable resource for corporate practitioners and others concerned with company operations in complex environments.

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.

This article draws together and discusses the key practical lessons of this Special Issue as a means to revisit ‘urban peace’ as a policy framework. It positions responses to illicit economies within a broader socio-economic agenda for which the notion of ‘urban peace’ acts as an umbrella for expanding the toolbox for dealing with illicit economies and as a signpost for the direction of policies to achieve greater levels of negative and positive peace. The agenda prioritizes the expansion of economic opportunities in informal economies as a critical strategic objective to manage the pressures within rapidly growing cities and to ensure peaceful urban politics in turbulent times. The article starts by charting the current mainstream responses to illicit economies before discussing the lessons of alternatives to law and order approaches of different case studies. It highlights multidimensional approaches and strong coordination mechanisms, as well as the potential of platform models as governance mechanisms for programmes to transform illicit economies. The article also underlines how illicit economies create their own non-state forms of order in which violence has a functional purpose. Building on a political economy perspective, the article proposes pragmatic peacebuilding and urban political settlements as a means to regulate and transform illicit economies. In the face of major systemic shifts happening over the next decade, the article underlines the need for a more fundamental rethink about how cities should address the multitude of challenges they are facing.

nternational lawyers and political economists look at exits from armed conflict from different perspectives. From a legal perspective, the role of law has been to provide a framework to regulate the use of force and to articulate a common vision of the pathways towards constitutional democracies. In the post-Cold War period, the UN and other international actors hoped to end armed conflict through peace agreements, peacekeeping, statebuilding and peacebuilding – summarised as creating a ‘liberal peace’. But armed conflicts have become internal and complex – and there has been widespread recognition that the ‘liberal peace’ has not, and cannot, deliver. From a political economy perspective, the process of forming political settlements gives some explanation: law is less relevant than the reordering of partisan interests of power holders. This questions the viability of attempts to build a ‘liberal peace’. The insights of political economy are thus a reality check to inform the search for viable alternatives to prevent or exit violent conflict.

The Special Issue proposes 'urban peace' as a way of thinking about policy responses to the dynamics of crime, violence, and exclusion that are associated with illicit economies. This approach builds on the notions of connectedness, proximity and trust between individuals, different segments of society, and divided urban spaces. It stands in contrast to the emphasis on separation, distance, and enmity associated with securitized, zero-tolerance, or counter-terror approaches. The notion of 'urban peace' also emphasises that more pragmatic approaches are necessary to provide leadership on reducing violence and exclusion and on expanding economic opportunities in cities.

Abstract The political economy of violent conflict is a body of literature that investigates how economic issues and interests shape the dynamics associated to violent conflict after the Cold War. The literature covers an area of research focusing on civil wars—the predominant type of conflict in the 1990s and early 2000s—and an area of research focusing on other types of violent conflict within states, such as permanent emergencies, criminal violence, and political violence associated to turbulent transitions. The first area involves four themes that have come to characterize discussions on the political economy of civil wars, including research on the role of greed and grievance in conflict onset, on economic interests in civil wars, on the nature of conflict economies, and on conflict financing. The second area responds to the evolution of violent conflict beyond the categories of “interstate” or “civil” war and shows how political economy research adapted to new types of violent conflict within states as it moved beyond the “post-Cold War” era. Overall, the literature on the political economy of violence conflict emphasizes the role of informal systems behind power, profits and violence, and the economic interests and functions of violence underlying to violent conflict. It has also become a conceptual laboratory for scholars who after years of field research tried to make sense of the realities of authoritarian, violent or war-affected countries. By extending the boundaries of the literature beyond the study of civil wars after the Cold War, political economy research can serve as an important analytical lens to better understand the constantly evolving nature of violent conflict and to inform sober judgment on the possible policy responses to them.

Our objective is to advance the understanding of the nexus between business environment reform (BER) and conflict, fragility, and underdevelopment. We examine the evidence and the lessons of BER in fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS), based on the experience of four African countries (Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Ethiopia) that have or are transitioning from a fragile environment to greater stability and more sustained economic growth. We use a qualitative case study approach that draws on several data sources to inform its analysis, including one-on-one interviews, roundtable focus groups, and an analysis of documents, reports, and data. A total of 83 respondents participated in our research. We develop a systems approach rather than a transactional approach to recognize the complex network of interconnected and interacting business interests, agendas, and systems in FCAS. We argue that BER has the greatest potential to advance achievement of sustainable development when it is attentive to three objectives at the same time: stimulating broad-based economic growth, expanding economic opportunity in formal and informal markets, and addressing drivers of conflict and fragility. The implications for international businesses entering or operating in FCAS are substantial and may require atypical capabilities.

By emphasizing that the confluence of urban safety and peacebuilding practice can result from the practical need to solve problems in specific places, this chapter explores the options for achieving safer and more inclusive cities. It shows how both urban safety and peacebuilding professions can look back at a long record of driving participatory processes and working within contentious political economies. The degree of local agency for change indicates the existence of spaces that frame and provide oxygen to transformative processes aiming to reduce violence or build peace in cities. These spaces exist in different shapes or forms, but there is much expertise on how to create and maintain them as a means to drive negotiated change. This operational focus brings into the fold a series of unconventional actors, processes, and ways of working that evolve from the alignment of partisan interests on the pathways for peace. By garnering know-how about working politically, urban safety and peacebuilding professionals have much to contribute to the coproduction of safer and inclusive cities.

Large-scale investments in fragile states - in Latin America, Africa, the former Soviet Union and Asia - become magnets for conflict, which undermines business, development and security.International policy responds with regulation, state-building and institutional reform, with poor and often perverse results. Caught up in old ways of thinking about conflict and fragility, and an age-old fight over whether multinational corporations are good or bad for peaceful development, it leaves business-related conflicts in fragile states to multiply and fester.Surveying a new strategic landscape of business and conflict, Brian Ganson and Achim Wennmann conclude that neither company shareholders nor advocates for peaceful development need, or should, accept the growing cost of business-related conflict in fragile states. Drawing on decades of experience from mainstream conflict prevention and violence reduction efforts, as well as promising company practice, they show that even acute conflict is manageable when dealt with pragmatically, locally and on its own terms.The analysis and conclusions of this Adelphi book will interest policymakers, business leaders and community advocates alike - all those hoping to mitigate today's conflicts while helping to reduce fragility and build a firmer foundation for inclusive development.

Kenyan business was important in mitigating episodes of election violence in 2007-2008 and 2013. This article finds that this role was motivated by the ethical and moral commitments of key business leaders to further peace in times of violence; and by interests in preventing future economic loss. However, by adopting a lens that situates business roles in violence prevention and peace-building within Kenya's conflict systems and political economy, the article finds a paradox: this lens confirms the Kenyan 'success story' with respect to specific violent episodes; but it also reveals a much more limited role for business in transforming the underlying sources of conflict; especially when these are congruent with key business fundamentals connected to land ownership, property rights, export-oriented production or services, or a 'limited' access order. Overall, the article highlights that business should leverage its comparative advantages within broader multi-stakeholder coalitions, especially in terms of its ability to influence political leaders, entry-points for informal dialogue to diffuse crises and capital to support peace-building initiatives.

Large-scale investments in fragile states - in Latin America, Africa, the former Soviet Union and Asia - become magnets for conflict, which undermines business, development and security. International policy responds with regulation, state-building and institutional reform, with poor and often perverse results. Caught up in old ways of thinking about conflict and fragility, and an age-old fight over whether multinational corporations are good or bad for peaceful development, it leaves business-related conflicts in fragile states to multiply and fester. Surveying a new strategic landscape of business and conflict, Brian Ganson and Achim Wennmann conclude that neither company shareholders nor advocates for peaceful development need, or should, accept the growing cost of business-related conflict in fragile states. Drawing on decades of experience from mainstream conflict prevention and violence reduction efforts, as well as promising company practice, they show that even acute conflict is manageable when dealt with pragmatically, locally and on its own terms. The analysis and conclusions of this Adelphi book will interest policymakers, business leaders and community advocates alike - all those hoping to mitigate today's conflicts while helping to reduce fragility and build a firmer foundation for inclusive development.

Large-scale investments in fragile states - in Latin America, Africa, the former Soviet Union and Asia - become magnets for conflict, which undermines business, development and security.