Reflection on Leviathan: State and Governance in Nepal

Abstract

Nepal’s state-society relations are moving in tandem with the change in global conceptual design and claim of Nepalese citizens to share state sovereignty and authority. Nepalese citizens have experienced various nature of state system—patrimonial, extractive-patrimonial, constitutional, authoritarian, subsidiary and now fragile. The state fragility is marked by the erosion of its “legitimate monopoly on power,” incapacity to achieve governance goals—national security, law and order, voice, civic articipation, service delivery and cope with post-state challenges. Endogenous post-conflict state building process in Nepal requires addressing the crisis of power, a legitimate social contract, a workable constitution, structural reforms to address the root causes of conflict and democratic peace. The support of international community to the Nepalese citizens’ aspiration for a constitutional state is necessary to maintain a golden rule of politics: the instinct of society for freedom and the imperative of state for public order to keep mixed fabric of Nepalese society together and attain civil peace, social justice and changing ideals of democracy rooted into constitutional and cosmological rights.