A Transitional Success Story: The Nepali Experience with Power-sharing (original) (raw)

Post-Conflict Power Sharing: The Case of Nepal

A 10-year civil war between the Government of Nepal and Communist Party of NepalMaoist formally ended in 2006 with an April ceasefire followed by a November peace agreement. In the post-conflict transitional period, Nepal turned to power sharing as a way to bring all sides of the conflict together, reduce the likelihood of a return to violence, and stabilize the country to create a favorable atmosphere for representative elections. The institutionalization of power-sharing as a means to address the problem of who will decide on the country’s present and future had at least one successful outcome, as Nepal held direct elections for the first time in its history on April 10th, 2008. Power sharing had two distinct phases: formal arrangements during the 18 months between the peace agreement and elections, and a more informal set of agreed-upon principles to complete unfinished reforms after elections. Unresolved issues include integration of the Maoist Army into the Nepal Army, composition of a National Security Council and human rights. Although the first phase of power sharing accomplished some key objectives, it also encouraged political stagnation and gave ‘old guard’ politicians an excuse to stay in power even after election results proved that citizens wanted otherwise. These power sharing arrangements should now be allowed to die with dignity. Continued delay of much-needed reforms will erode political progress made since the end of conflict, encouraging partisan spats and undermining faith in the new Constituent Assembly legislature. Further, new ‘power sharing’ ideas being floated by politicians and the press, including power dividing and decentralization to address the rise of ethnic politics, may irreversibly fracture the country in the name of keeping the peace.

Does Revolution Work? Evidence from Nepal’s People’s War

2020

Author(s): Bhusal, Bhishma; Callen, Michael; Gulzar, Saad; Pande, Rohini; Prillaman, Soledad A; Singhania, Deepak | Abstract: In 2015, after a decade-long conflict and nine years of negotiation, Nepal promulgated a constitution that replaced its 240-year-old monarchy by a federal republic. The subsequent 2017 local elections ushered more than 30,000 first-time politicians into office. Using a census of 3.68 million Nepalis (2.56 million of whom are of voting age) covering eleven districts, party nomination lists and party candidate selection committee surveys, electoral data and information on conflict incidence, we document that castes that were historically excluded from political representation achieved representation without a significant representation-ability trade-off: improved social representation among politicians is accompanied by positive selection on education and income. Triangulating across multiple data sources, we show that the entry of the revolutionary Maoist grou...

From Insurgency to Democracy: The Challenges of Peace and Democracy-Building in Nepal

International Political Science Review, 2009

The failure of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes spurred a global surge in democratization in the 1980s. However, efforts at democratization have been challenged by path-dependent institutional and political variables that can inhibit the growth of western-style democratic pluralism. Nepal is no exception to this experience. When the king sidelined the political parties in an attempt to revive the absolute monarchy in February 2005, the political parties and the Maoist guerrillas resisted this move and forced the king to revive the dissolved House of Representatives. Subsequently, parliament proclaimed Nepal to be a federal democratic republic, ending the 240-year-old Hindu monarchy. Today, there is both optimism and pessimism regarding the ongoing peace and democracy-building project in Nepal: optimism because there is a consensus, albeit vague, on building political and economic institutions that will transform Nepali society for the better; pessimism because the due process ...

Contentious Politics in Democratizing Nepal

2007

Nepal witnessed an explosion of contentious activities, both violent and non-violent, after the restoration of democracy in 1990. Why did the democratic years witness so many collective public protests? Did those activities promote or hinder the democratization process, which had, ironically, provided space for them? Often the Nepali state and the fledgling democracy appeared to be overwhelmed by those activities. Can the fundamental democratic rights to dissent, mobilize and protest work against new democracies? The contentious activities ranged from the identity and gender movements, numerous public protests and strikes, and the Maoist rebellion. What were the causes and consequences of these activities? The aim of this volume is to understand these collective struggles and their relationship to democratization in Nepal. Did the Maoist insurgency increase people’s power or undermine it? Did the frequent strikes and close downs of markets and roads facilitate the mobilization of pe...

Maoists, Marxist-Leninists and Nepal's fragile coalition-building democracy

Birkbeck Politics Blog, 2023

You may know that Nepal is home to the world's highest mountains and glaciers. Less well-known are the electoral politics of Nepal. These are characterised by fraught coalition building and party leaders ferociously bickering over prime ministerial job-shares. This against a backdrop of domestic Marxist and nationalist factionalism and uneasy coexistence with Nepal's two giant neighbours, India and China. The constitution of Nepal's federal republic was agreed only in 2015; a legacy of a royal bloodbath and the negotiated end of a decade-long Maoist insurrection in 2006. In November 2022 over 10 million Nepalese voted in the republic's second legislative poll. Here Birkbeck Politics' research student Sanju Gurung maps the latest twist of coalitions and compromises between Marxist and Nationalist factions and their feuding leaders.

High expectations, deep disappointment: politics, state and society in Nepal after 1990

Himalayan 'People's War': Nepal's Maoist Rebellion. …, 2004

The Maoist movement has been gaining momentum in Nepal since 1996, and in early 2002 nobody could deny its saliency or its far-reaching impact upon peoples' lives there. 1 Indeed, the Maoist movement had been setting the political agenda to a very large extent for some years, and it remained uncertain how a satisfactory settlement could be reached when the political stakeholders' positions and aims clashed so severely. Inside and outside Nepal, many different views, perspectives and positions have been taken on the Maoists' goals and their impact upon Nepal's future development and well-being. Obviously, visions of where Nepali society is heading and how to get there differ significantly, according to political allegiance.

The Nepalese Peace Process: Faster Changes, Slower Progress

2014

The ongoing structural reform process in Nepal is the outcome of over one decade of negotiations among the former ruling Monarch, Nepali political parties and the Maoist movement, under the impetus of civil society mobilisation for change – with demands ranging from power, rights and dignity for people at the community level. This paper analyses the ways in which the peace process, which put an end to the armed conflict in Nepal in 2006, has sought to address popular demands for inclusive democracy. It does so by reviewing the various cycles of negotiation, codification and materialisation of political reforms since the People’s Movement of 2006, the Comprehensive Peace Accord and the (first and second) Constituent Assemblies. It focuses in particular on one area of reform that has been widely debated among political and civil society sectors, namely, state restructuring through power decentralisation. Overall, the paper develops the arguments that although there is a widespread con...