Governance and sustainable local development are mutually reinforcing. Local governance is a key site of political participation, authority of resource management and development. The ‘discourse’ of inclusion and participation in local governance in Nepal emerged following the 1990 democratic politics and heightened during the post-conflict governance (period after the Peace Accord was signed between the then government and the Nepal Communist Party Maoist in 2006). In the post-conflict transitional politics, the political subjects, meanings and power dynamics are rapidly evolving in the country.
Given this context, ‘reflexive governance’ (Voß, Bauknecht and Kemp 2006) may help to analyse and understand the interwoven relationship of local governance system, actors of governance and the social structure which do not themselves exist in time and space, but manifest in social systems in the form of produced and reproduced practices in rural Nepal. I use this concept to analyse the self-confrontation of governance and the emergence of new kinds of institutions, strategies, processes and interactions in the local governance system in post conflict rural Nepal.
The objectives of my research paper are to analyse how differently positioned people enact, subvert, and resist local governance and development projects; and how the All Party Mechanism and local authorities work together in rural Nepal’s fragile political situation. Data is collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data is collected from three village development committees of Khotang district, the eastern middle hill district of Nepal. In-depth interviews have also been conducted.
The preliminary findings show that during the current political transitional period, political parties are exerting an influential role through the structural mechanism of Integrated Project Selection Committee popularly known as All Party Mechanism though the mechanism is envisioned as an advisory body by law in the absence of locally elected representatives. Local political leaders pressurise local authorities to channelize resources through their party-patronage relation rather making an investment on the basis of analysis of the problem and local situation. However, due to the mandated representation of the differently positioned groups and increased awareness level, local people claim their rights to participate in governance and decision-making through different strategies of group pressure and political interactions.
The All Party Mechanism is inclusive in its nature and brings civil society organisations, political parties, and mandatory representation of women and different caste/ethnic groups together for local governance. This provision of mandated representation has provided some space to marginalised and excluded groups. Still there is a danger of capturing this space by elites of marginal groups. If a particular section of people continue to control the governance system and enjoy development resources, a large section of people feels excluded. This might exacerbate conflict in society and there remains little space and hope for sustainable development. In this regard, ‘reflexive governance’ approach might be the better approach to meet the governance challenges in rural Nepal.
References
Voß, J., Bauknecht, D. and Kemp, R. (2006). Reflexive governance for sustainable development, Edward Elgar Publishing Inc., Northampton Massachusetts, USA.