Federalism and Ethnicity in Nepal: Use and Abuse of Concepts, Constructed Controversies, and the Failure to Write a Constitution
Mahendra Lawoti, Ph.D. When Friday April 26, 2013 Where L 280 Kennedy School of Govt 79 JFK ST
The Constituent Assembly was constituted in 2008 largely due to the demands of the Maoists and as a pathway to settle the decade long violent conflict but the assembly failed to deliver a Constitution ironically not over disagreements on class issues but over increasingly contested federal models that would recognize or reject identities of, and autonomy toward, marginalized identity groups. The presentation will discuss the contested federal models and the notions of ethnicity and identity deployed in the public domain, and argue that the failure to follow democratic processes was the proximate cause behind the failure to produce a new Constitution. The presentation will also discuss the possible scenarios of possibility of crafting a new Constitution by the proposed second CA. |