Contributed articles.

Now Nepal is in the process of fundamental transformation: from monarchy to republic, centralized, exclusionary unitary to federal democratic, secular state from the aspirations of Nepalese people. Foundation for this change was laid by the decade long (1996- 2006) armed conflict by the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the popular people s movement of April 2006. This book documents evidences of change process and their analysis and the examination of the peace negotiation, and implementation of Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the Interim Constitution. This book provides a thorough analysis of the peace process in general and role of women, civil society, political parties and media in specific. It then examines the third-party interests in Nepal s conflict. Then it analyses challenges for management of political change and state building process: war-to-peace transitional complications. It offers some ways to address consequences of the armed conflict on natural resources, post-conflict reconstruction and development, dealing with proliferation of small arms and finally post-conflict reconciliation and reintegration.

This volume provides a holistic overview of the long peace process in Nepal following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2006. The date of 21 November 2021 marked the 15th anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which concluded the decade-long civil war that had ravaged Nepal. Despite avoiding a resurgence of statewide conflict, Nepal’s post-conflict era has been far from perfect. This era has witnessed ethnic violence, rampant corruption, the politicisation of key public institutions and a failure to fully implement the provisions of the CPA. The resulting lack of socio-economic progress has led to large-scale dissatisfaction within the country and even given rise to elements within Nepal who reject the framework of the CPA and the 2015 constitution. With a focus on the years following the 2015 constitution, this book offers an analysis of post-conflict Nepal and explores issues relating to ex-combatants, transitional justice, women, socio-economic affairs, and federal governance. The contributors are all scholar-practitioners, some of whom had direct involvement in the peace process, and are therefore able to offer unique insights into the processes and challenges of Nepal’s long journey to addressing past grievances and promoting future peace in the country. This book will be of interest to students of peace studies, Asian politics, security studies and International Relations.

This book investigates the power of art to enhance human development and to initiate positive social change for individuals and societies recovering from conflict. Interventions aimed at reinforcing social justice and bringing communities together after conflict are often accused of being top-down, or failing to consider all groups and contexts within a society. The use of participatory arts can help to address these challenges by fostering community engagement, social cohesion, influencing public policy, and ultimately, advancing social justice. Arts-based methods can be particularly effective at reaching youth communities, providing voice and political agency to young people who are often not given a platform. Situated at the intersection of participatory arts, social and epistemic justice, this book brings together case studies from across the world to reflect on best practice for the use of bottom-up, participatory, co-produced, and co-designed arts processes in conflict settings. This book provides an important guide to the role that arts can play in addressing epistemic injustice and contributing to social justice and human development. As such, it will be of interest to international development and arts practitioners, policy makers, and to students and researchers across participatory arts, youth studies, international development, social justice, and peace and conflict studies.

Nepal2s 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 3legitimate monopoly on power, 4 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 citizens2 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.