" if you believe that gaining socio-political awareness and starting to question our rights, our system, and the marginalized ethnic groups starting to question their social identity is problematic, that is strong belief in authoritarianism. (but i thought somewhere you said bridging ethnic and economic gaps will bring out a stable democracy). how will one bridge this socio-cultural, ethnic, economic gap without creating awareness among the 'commoners' which will then coordinate with the elites?" Very valid question indeed. But to ask for the rights and being concerned about the rights, the awareness has to be pursued pecaefully, not by spreading radical propaganda through radical "seperatist-ethnic" movements/organizations. There are many ethnic movements associated with the Maoist movement- Khumbuwan, Tharuwan.. and others and I do have problems with it. And why we saw this surge in ethnic nationalism in Nepal after 1990? I argue, it was economic reasons, not other factors... " building infrastructure and implementing a top-down approach to development is not going to bring much social change, at least for the impoverished mass. and hypothetically, even if the economic 'theory' you proposed were supposed to work, we would start industries, build infrastructure, control market, do whatever to stabilize economy, but we will have no civil society; under a reppressive regime, political institutions have no chance to foster, like i've already given example in earlier post, and we will be living in the dark, without our individual, social, economic, and political rights, for ages. what i derived from your arguments is this: lets build an economically stable society, then implant a civil society, then implement a democratic model. it is not that simple. " Whatvecer form of economic development, in the process it creates all those things you mentioned- civil society, middle class and this leads to the rule of law (sorry for being too repetetive here), and that leads to having a fully functioning democracy later. The choice is democracy now and instability or democracy later and stability.. I'd chose the latter approach. 10-20 or even 30 eyars to wait for political reform is not that long, if the regime no matter how authritarian it is, can promote economic development. You misread me, and I don't blame you for it.. maybe I was not clear enough.. I didn't say implant the civil society and democarcy.. they develop themsleves independent of the state in the process of economic developmnet/liberalization.