Nepali troubled transition: Some broader patterns

The end of the CA has amplified Nepal’s political uncertainties. The question that looms large is whether Nepal’s political parties will continue to work together to deliver a constitution that regularizes democratic process or whether they will drift further apart and endanger the gains already achieved. My paper argues that the basic dynamics underlying Nepal’s current political transformations remains unchanged. Cooperation among Nepal’s political parties has been the most crucial factor in this transformation. Interparty cooperation among Nepal’s political parties and the critical role of Nepal’s neighbors are the two linchpins of this dynamics. How will these internal and external factors impact Nepali politics in the new context of CA dissolution? In the following sections, I identify five broader patterns that have set the contours of Nepal’s current political transition and then I follow up with brief explanations of the same

Understanding Nepal’s Madhesi movement and its future trajectory

How definitive is the success of the Madhesi movement and how does one explain its course? What was the nature of the Madhesi uprising? Has there been a real shift in the attitude of Nepali elites toward the Madhesi issues? Are the Madhesi issues likely to be resolved peacefully? Many such questions about the Madhesi movement remain still unanswered. During my field study in Nepal in July-August 2010, I posed some of these questions to numerous Madhesi politicians, civil society leaders and ordinary citizens. My paper combines my field study observations with scholarly research to examine the dynamics of Madhesi movement

India’s role in Nepal’s political transition and the peace process: help or hindrance?

The election of Maoist leader Baburam Bhattrai as Nepal’s Prime Minister on August 29 ,2011 marked a clear deviation from India’s recent policy of rallying anti Maoist forces to keep Nepal’s Maoists from returning to power. Bhattrai was elected with the support of the Terai or plain region parties which represent Nepal’s Madhesi population. Most Madhesi parties, since their rise into national prominence in 2007, were known to have calibrated their moves with India. The formation of Mr. Bhattarai’s government raises many questions. Does the return of Maoist led government in Kathmandu signal a real shift in New Delhi’s policy towards Nepal’s major political actors? Is the formation of Maoist- Madhesi coalition a sign of India’s waning influence on the principals of Nepali politics? Have Nepal’s traditional political parties, the Nepali Congress (NC), and the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-UML), lost India’s confidence in their ability to achieve a breakthrough with the Maoists in completing the peace process or to effectively encounter the Maoist challenge? This paper examines these questions in order to understand if recent developments in Nepal signal a fundamental recalibration of India-Nepal relations and how India’s policies in Nepal have helped or hindered Nepal’s peace process

Veto Players in Post-Conflict DDR Programs: Evidence from Nepal and the DRC

Under what conditions are Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programs successfully implemented following intrastate conflict? Previous research is dominated by under-theorized case studies that lack the ability to detect the precise factors and mechanisms that lead to successful DDR. In this article, we draw on game theory and ask how the number of veto players, their policy distance, and their internal cohesion impact DDR implementation. Using empirical evidence from Nepal and the Democratic Republic of Congo, we show that the number of veto players, rather than their distance and cohesion, explains the (lack of) implementation of DDR

Nepal’s democratic transition and the rule of law: Will the judiciary stay on probation?

My paper answers some questions by drawing on more than twenty interviews conducted during a two-week long field work in Kathmandu in December 2007 with the members of Nepal’s legal community (lawyers, judges, judicial officials, and politicians) on their perception of the past, present and future role of judiciary