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Political settlements and pacts now feature prominently in donor narratives about transitions from conflict and institutional fragility to peace and prosperity (Hickey 2013). Ten years after the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) intervention, political settlement analysis offers fresh perspective on core questions: Are governing arrangements in Solomon Islands stable and sustainable? Where might they be ineffective and vulnerable? Following Khan,‘political settlement’describes the underlying or emerging ‘social order based on political compromises between powerful groups in society that sets the context for institutional and other policies… more precisely [it is] a combination of power and institutions that is mutually compatible and also sustainable in terms of economic and political viability’(2010: 4, our emphasis). Post-conflict political settlements, their compromises and combinations can develop out of ‘pacts’ between political and economic elites that, as they become institutionalised, provide a durable kind of stability and order (Craig and Porter in press). Two factors that determine the scope and depth of the settlement are the ‘grasp’and ‘reach’of the pacts and of the institutions that grow from them (Mann 1988).‘Grasp’refers to the ability of the pact to pull together powerful interests, often centrally, and then to clasp together the resources needed to govern via institutions: especially political power and economic rents.‘Reach’refers to the ability of central actors and institutions to project power and resources out to places where people live, including them in the settlement by delivering services, livelihoods and other …