Directrice de thèse : Stéphanie Tawa Lama

École doctorale : EHESS - Études politiques

Année d’inscription : 2019

Towards Federal Democracy: The Role of Institutional and Socio-Political Factors in Defining Local Level Participatory Planning in Nepal

Consequences du Fédéralisme au Népal sur les processus de planification de dévelopement local.

This study revolves around politics, structural arrangements and practices of local governance in order to vest power in the hand of diverse citizen through planning in newest constituently federal nation, Nepal.

Federalism in Nepal is a result of the chain of events that took place since 2006, starting from the Comprehensive Peace Accord, Jan Andolan II (People’s movement) and constitution making process that ended the 10 year long civil war. Inequality and undemocratic constitution was considered as one of the reasons for escalation of civil war. Therefore inclusion of diverse population from initial phase of planning, starting from demand collection at the grass root level, to the highest level of decision-making (in this research, municipal level) was felt important to indicate in legal frameworks such as Local Government Operation Act.

With the advent of the Federalism, Nepal is practicing decentralization through participatory planning, as it is made mandatory by the federal constitution of Nepal and Local Government Operation Act. Nevertheless, while conducting preliminary research it was difficult to come across any literature on Nepal that elaborated participatory planning in post war, federal context. Therefore, this study is an effort to fill in the existing research gap.

This research will evaluate and analyze inclusion of excluded groups in Nepal, during the planning process, for resources mobilization, in existing socio economic and political environment. The study will also address impact of the recent changes on local planning and budgeting that has not been addressed by the academic world.