The Question of Federalism in Nepal

Author(s): André Lecours

Source: Publius , Fall 2014, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Fall 2014), pp. 609-632
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24734639

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Publius

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 The Question of Federalism in Nepal
André Lecours

University of Ottawa; alecours@uottawa.ca

In 2012, a Nepali Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting a federal constitution was dissolved
after four years of wrangling over federalism issues. This article develops three explanations for
why federal structures have yet to take shape in Nepal. It argues that consensus on federalism
hides a reluctance by key actors to build a federal system; that while some political forces want
federal structures based on ethnic identities, two of the three main political parties have little
appetite for "identity-based federalism"; and that political actors hold antagonistic ideas about
federalism and what it should achieve. More broadly, the article speaks to cases of "holding
together" federalism stemming from previously unitary states.

As the clock was striking midnight on May 28, 2012, Nepali Prime Minister
Baburam Bhattarai announced in a television address that the Constituent

Assembly (CA) tasked with drafting a federal constitution for the country was
dissolved. Four years after it was formed through historical elections that signaled
the beginning of a new era for the country, and with great hope that it would
provide the constitutional foundations necessary to secure civil peace and
democratic stability in Nepal, the CA had failed, despite four extensions given to
the original two-year mandate, to produce a constitution. In announcing that
elections for a new CA would be held,1 Prime Minister Bhattarai stated: "People
will again decide who is for federalism and change" (Himalayan Times 2012).
Indeed, federalism proved the most contentious question surrounding the adoption
of a new constitution despite the fact that all major political parties have been on
the record supporting a federal model for Nepal. More specifically, Nepali political
parties could not agree on a "federal map," that is, they could not forge a
consensus on the number of constituent units a federal Nepal would have. The fact
that federalism was the most controversial issue in constitution-making in Nepal
is particularly meaningful considering the scope and importance of choices faced
by the CA, whose members had to decide, among other things, on a system of
government, a rights regime, and a judicial system.
Why is the basic design of the federal system proving so problematic in Nepal?
In the literature, the origins of federal systems are typically located in elite pacts
seeking to create common markets and security arrangements, or looking to

Publius: The Journal of Federalism volume 44 number 4, pp. 609-632

doi:10.1093/publius/pjt030
Advance Access publication August 27,2013
©The
© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CSF Associates: Publius, Inc.
Author 2013.
All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
610 A. Lecours

provide autonomy to communities with a historical homeland. Not only does

neither situation apply very well to Nepal, but the literature is also mostly silent on
what causes frictions in negotiations over federalism beyond the behavior of
maximizing self-interested actors (Riker 1964) or the autonomist pursuit of a
specific historical community (Silver 1997). The complicated political dynamics of
post-conflict management, democratic transition, and state restructuring in Nepal
calls for a sophisticated and multidimensional explanation for why the question of
federalism has prevented the adoption of a new constitution.
This article draws on historical institutionalism to account for the paradox of
the difficulty of agreeing on federalism in Nepal despite the apparent unanimity
between major political parties that federalism is necessary to manage the country's
diversity (close to 100 groups are officially recognized) in a democratic regime.
It develops three complementary explanations for addressing this paradox. First,
I explain that consensus on federalism hides lukewarm support, if not a reluctance,
by key actors to build a federal system. Federalism was written into the interim
constitution in 2007 when an uprising in the South of the country (Madhesh)
required political guarantees that territorial autonomy would be part of the new
framework.

Second, while some political forces, namely Madheshi parties and leaders of the
country's "indigenous nationalities,"2 want federal structures based on ethnic
identities, two of the three main political parties (Nepali Congress, NC and
Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist, CPN-UML) have no history
of opposing the state through ethnic identity politics and little appetite for
"identity-based federalism." The other important party, Unified Communist Party
of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M), publicly supports federalism because of its connection
with the indigenous nationalities but is internally divided over the wisdom of
institutionalizing ethnicity through federalism. Hence, disagreement over the extent
to which the identities of historically marginalized groups should be represented in
its federal structures has made it difficult to come to an agreement on federalism.
Third, the article shows that distinct, and sometimes antagonistic, ideas have
been featured in the debate over federalism. More specifically, the idea of self
determination, readily associated with federalism by Madheshi parties and leaders
of indigenous communities, coexists uneasily with political ideas such as "national
unity," "sovereignty," and "development" that suggest a different federal
structuring. Federalism is given different meanings by the various political actors
struggling for power in Nepal, which means that translating the concept into
concrete structures, even a basic federal map, falls victim to underlying tensions.
This article is divided into five sections. The first explains how federalism came
to be part of the constitution-making process in Nepal and how the various parties
support different federal maps of the country, with the key issue being the extent to
which the constituent units will represent the identities of historically marginalized

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Question of Federalism in Nepal 611

groups. The next section queries the literature for insight into the question of the
origins of federalism. Facing serious limitations as to the usefulness of this
literature in explaining the difficulty in agreeing on a federal map in Nepal, I
discuss how historical institutionalism presents great potential for effectively
tackling this question. In the third section, I explain how the federal specification
brought to the interim constitution in 2007 was the contingent product of timely
pressures from the Madhesh. As a result, the apparent consensus on federalism is
superficial. In the fourth section, I argue that there is, among Nepal's main political
parties, much opposition to the notion of "identity-based federalism," that is, to
any federal structuring that would have constituent units become political
communities for the country's historically marginalized groups. In the next section,
I explain how tensions between different political ideas surrounding federalism,
which often mask claims for power, further complicated agreement on federal
structures. In the conclusion, I attempt to draw some implications of Nepal's
experience for theorizing the origins of federalism.

Origins of Federalism in Nepal

The fact that Nepal is looking to adopt a federal system would have surprised most
observers just a decade ago for at least three reasons. The first is that the country
has a strong tradition of autocratic rule (Whelpton 2005). The unification of the
country that began in the middle of the eighteenth century through the conquest
by the Kingdom of Ghorka of neighboring principalities laid the foundations for
the creation of an absolute monarchy under the Shah dynasty (Shaha 2001, 56-83).
In the mid-nineteenth century, an official of the royal government wrestled power
away from the crown and established a system of hereditary prime ministership
under the Rana family that reduced the king to a figurehead but continued the
system of authoritarian rule (Stokke and Manandhar 2010). Rana rule came to an
end in 1951 as a result of a revolt spearheaded by the Nepali Congress Party but,
despite early experimentations with multipartyism, the monarchy did little to open
up to democratic reforms until 1990 when a rebellion (jana andolan, or the
People's Movement) forced King Birendra to accept a multiparty environment and
political cohabitation with governments drawn from elected parliaments. In 2002,
after the murder of Birendra and many other members of the royal family, and in
the context of a Maoist insurgency making tremendous inroads in much of the
country (Lawoti 2010, 3-30), new king Gyanendra begun appointing governments
and, in 2005, simply assumed all executive powers. In short, the types of
democratic practices that facilitate the operation of federalism have been absent for
most of Nepal's history and, in the past twenty years, in very short supply.3
The second reason why federalism in Nepal seems implausible is that the
country's previous autocratic rule came with a heavy dose of centralism. The Nepali

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
612 A. Lecours

state always featured unitary structures, although it sometimes proved too weak to
effectively take control of all groups and had to strike deals with some (e.g., the
Limbus), who thereafter retained some form of autonomy through a system o
land tenure known as Kipat (Forbes 1996, 42).4 Even the seemingly decentralist
Panchayat, a "system of bottom-up representation on the basis of what were
argued to be genuinely Nepali village-level councils" (Gellner 2008, 10) established
by king Mahendra in 1960 largely in an attempt to legitimize his absolutist rule,
served to re-enforce centralization by allowing a better state control of rural areas
Although the Panchayat lasted until 1990, its village representation was always
meant to operate within a strongly centralized unitary state. The Panchayat era als
yielded fourteen Zones carved out of five Development Regions as well as seventy
five District Development Committees, but all these structures were about
administrative management and political manipulation rather than political
decentralization (Baral 2008).
Finally, Nepal's history of political exclusion and state control by a group that
represents a minority of the population puts it at odds with federalism's notion of
reconciling unity and diversity. There are many different cleavages in Nepal. They
involve, most importantly, ethnicity, language, territory, caste, and religion (Lawoti
2005). The crucial political implication of socio-cultural cleavages is that "high
caste" Hindus from the hills (a group composed of Brahmans and Chetris) form
approximately "31 per cent of the population, but overwhelmingly dominate the
state, politics, economy and society" (Lawoti 2007, 23). Moreover, in the post-Rana
period, this group's stranglehold on the state translated into various policies of
"nepalization," underscored by the imposition of a majority culture, that ar
anathema to federalism such as declaring Hindu the official state religion and
promoting the Nepali language at the expense of others.
Despite all these features of the Nepali state that go against the spirit of
federalism, the first amendment to Nepal's 2007 interim constitution specified tha
the country would be federal (UNDP 2008, 5). Indeed, after ten years of Maoist
insurgency aiming at broad socio-economic, political, and institutional change
culminated in the second jana andolan in 2006, elections to a CA in 2008 produced
a body tasked with "restructuring the state." In this context, federalism appeared as
a necessary approach and system to govern democratically and peacefully a very
complex society (Elazar 1994; Burgess 2006). Interestingly, questions such as the
fate of the monarchy and the relationship between religion and state did not prove
the most controversial in a country where the Crown and Hinduism were pillars of
the state and of national identity (the monarchy was abolished at the CA's firs
meeting on May 28, 2008 and the 2007 interim constitution declared Nepal a
secular state). Federalism did.
The major stumbling block in reaching an agreement on the country's federal
map has been the number of constituent units Nepali federalism should have.

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Question of Federalism in Nepal 613

Literally dozens of federal maps have been circulated and promoted by political
parties, civil society organizations as well as experts, academics and consultants.
Maps have ranged from a federal Nepal made up of three to twenty-five constituent
units with names of constituent units representing the identity of core ethnic
groups to varying degrees (Dhungel et al. 2009; Bhattachan 2010). At the most
basic level, these maps differ on how ethnicity and territory would be articulated in
Nepali federalism. In early 2010, the Committee for Restructuring of the State and
Distribution of State Powers of the CA produced a federal map composed of
fourteen units where the names of the units are based primarily on ethnicity.
(Figure 1 in the appendix available as supplementary data at Publius online
provides a map showing the units proposed by the CA.)
Although extensive consultation all over Nepal was conducted in the preparation
of this map (UNDP 2010) and even if there was very strong support in the CA as
whole for it, there was never an agreement among the leaders of the three main
parties that it would serve as the foundation for the construction of federalism in
the country. For NC and CPN-UML leadership, this map was too strongly based
on identity. The leadership of the main parties then formed, in November 2011, a
State Restructuring Commission (SRC), composed of nine experts (with known
political affiliations) and tasked with making a recommendation on federal
structuring. Illustrative of the deeply divisive nature of the federal map issue, the
SRC was unable to produce a unanimous report. Instead, the SRC submitted, in
February 2012, two reports to the government: first, supported by six members,
dividing the country in eleven provinces (including a non-territorial Dalit unit),
largely on the basis of ethnic identity, and second, backed by the other three
members, recommending six provinces based primarily on economic viability.
(Figure 2 in the appendix available as supplementary data at Publius online shows
the six province and eleven province maps.)

Theorizing the Origins of Federalism

There is relatively little in the literature on federalism that explains why
contemporary unitary states become federal systems and even less about the
difficulties in adopting specific federal structures such as a basic federal map.
Indeed, the bulk of the literature on the origins of federalism focuses on states that
were created as federations such as Canada, the United States, Australia, India, and
Switzerland. The main explanations for why these states were created as federations
focus on security and markets. Riker (1964) developed the classic argument on how
security threats were the main impetus for the construction of federal systems while
a number of authors have argued that early federalization was an effort at
economic modernization and the creation of larger markets (Fenna and Hueglin
2006). These arguments do not apply to the federalization of Nepal: unitary

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
614 A. Lecours

structures are viewed within the country as providing better insulation from
external (primarily Indian influences) and the country already has a common
market. Neither do more recent arguments about how the level of pre-existing
institutional capacity at the regional level determines if a state will be created as
federal or not (Ziblatt 2006) since Nepal has no regional political structures
whatsoever. Even the relatively small literature on federalism in Asia has limitations
when it comes to shedding light on the federalization of Nepal since the origins
and development of federalism in states such as India, Pakistan, and Malaysia are
typically linked to colonialism and the de-colonization process (Bhattachan 2010).
Still, we can extrapolate from the literature two explanations for the current
impasse on the federal map in Nepal. The first is that a federalization process is
typically driven by a group, often identifying as a nation, looking for territorial
autonomy. Taking their cues from specialists of Canada and Switzerland (Linder
1994; Gagnon and Iacovino 2006), scholars who have looked at the contemporary
transformation of unitary states into federal systems in Spain and Belgium have
convincingly argued that federalism there was triggered by the autonomous pursuit
of specific communities (Catalonia and the Basque Country in Spain, and Flanders
in Belgium) (Moreno 2001; Deprez and Vos 1998). In both cases there was
opposition to federalism, but in Belgium it came from the minority (French
speakers) who in the end could not stop federalization while in Spain the use of
terms other than federalism (Estado de las Autonomias, State of the Autonomies)
dampened the controversy.
The argument that societal dynamics, and more specifically ethno-cultural and
national cleavages (Erk 2007), explain the origins of federalism and frictions over
its basic design sits somewhat uneasily with the case of Nepal. It is true that much
of the support for federalism has come from the Madhesh (the South of the
country, alongside the Indian border) (Hachhethu, Yadav, and Gurung 2010)
where the priority, guided by claims for the recognition of a right to self
determination, is to have one constituent unit for the region ('One Madhesh, One
Province'). This being said, the struggle over federalism in Nepal can not be
understood in terms of a confrontation between Madheshis and the rest of the

country. Not only is the Madhesh far from being politically united on federalism,
but there is also support elsewhere in the country, particularly among Nepal's
indigenous nationalities, for federal structures.5 In short, Nepal's diversity is
certainly part of the story for explaining the dilemmas posed by federalism, but the
connection between diversity and federalism is complex and mediated by other
forces.

A second possible explanation for the difficulty in finding agreement over basic
federal structures in Nepal can be drawn from the literature. Since Riker (1964),
federalism has often been portrayed as a "bargain" (Duchacek 1975; Volden 2004)
involving powerful elites. From this perspective, the "players" in the federalism

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Question of Federalism in Nepal 615

"game" are looking to secure some benefits (for Riker, mostly of a security nature),
and federations are created when federalism can deliver those benefits for key
players. We can surmise from this proposition that when key actors do not find
that a federal model will be to their advantage, they will oppose it. This is most
certainly true, but it tells us very little about what has gone on in Nepal short of
the truism that some actors do not find specific federal maps to their advantage
and therefore will not accept them. The rationalist perspective on federal bargains
tends to reify groups, assumes that masses follow leaders, and fails to problematize
preferences and interests. In the context of Nepal, many different actors have
taken part in the negotiations on the federal bargain (most importantly the CA
and political parties), but they are internally divided and do not consistently
command loyalty from their followers. Perhaps more importantly, the preferences
and interests of every actor have been far from evident, which undermines a
straightforward rationalist explanation for the stalemate over federalism. Of course,
power and politics are central to the story, but they need to be integrated into
a broader theoretical framework sensitive to timing and sequences, institutional
legacies, and ideas.
This framework is provided by historical institutionalism (Steinmo, Thelen, and
Longstreth 1992; Lecours 2005; Peters 2005). Two features of historical
institutionalism make it the most appropriate theoretical school for tackling the
question of why crafting the basic structures of federalism in Nepal is so difficult.
The first is its sensitivity to time and sequencing (Pierson 2000a, b). A fundamental
assertion of historical institutionalism is that causality is deeply embedded in the
sequencing of institutional development and socio-political processes. Politics,
therefore, should be studied in time (Pierson 2004). Institutional development
sometimes arrives at critical junctures where divergent socio-political processes put
pressure on an existing institutional setting and allow actors to make choices that
can alter that setting (Thelen 2004). Path-departing change therefore results from
tensions between institutional and socio-political orders (Lieberman 2002). The
federalization of Nepal clearly represents a path-departing change since Nepal's
institutional history has consisted of centralized unitary structures. Historical
institutionalism draws our attention to the political dynamics of the critical
juncture represented by Nepal's democratic transition and to how these dynamics
led to the path of federalism. In turn, as I will show, the process that led to Nepal
toward that path is crucial for explaining the difficulty in finding agreement on the
federal map.
The second feature of historical institutionalism that makes it the most

appropriate theoretical approach for tackling the question of federalism in Nepal is

that it allows for a blending of causal factors of different nature: institutional,
power/interest-based, and ideational (Schmidt 2010). Macro institutional change
such as the construction of a federal system in the context of a democratic

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
616 A. Lecours

transition and mega-constitutional politics are extremely complex processes that

require consideration of more than one causal factor. The three "i"s of historical
institutionalism (institutions, interests, and ideas) are very useful in this context
(Hall and Taylor 1996).
From an institutional point of view, states are structures that matter deeply
insofar as they produce, reproduce, and alter social orders and identity (Scott 1998;
Laitin 2007). The starting point for understanding the question of federalism in
Nepal is the legacy of a state that was not only autocratic through an absolutis
monarchy for most of its history, but also captured by a small group of people who
redistributed resources almost strictly to its own. The Nepali state, in other words
never reflected nor represented the diversity of Nepali society, and the effective
erosion of this state's hold on society resulting from the success of Maoist
emergency created an opportunity to re-shape that state. Yet, centralized unitarism
with almost exclusive control from "high-caste" Hindus from the hills is all that
Nepal has ever experienced and weighs heavily on the ongoing federalization
process.
Historical institutionalism connects the weight of political institutions to power
struggles between interest-maximizing agents (Hall 1997). Opposition to the
contemporary autocratic Nepalese state has been multidimensional. It has featured
liberal-democratic, Marxist/social-democratic and, most crucially, Maoist political
forces, each carrying its own agenda for political, institutional, and socio-economic
changes and each seeking to secure political power within new institutional
arrangements. As I will explain, movements of political opposition in Nepal
featured very different positions on the political treatment of ethnic diversity and
identity, and it is these movements' leaders who are now the key political actors
involved in power struggles over the definition of, among other things, the
country's federal structures.
The tensions between institutional legacy and struggles for change reverberate
through an array of different ideas. The historical institutionalist literature has
emphasized how ideas mediate the weight of institutions and shape the preferences
and strategies of actors (Hall and Taylor 1996; Schmidt 2010). In other words,
actors operating in, or having experience with, a specific institutional contex
wrestle with various ideas stemming from different stages of the institutiona
development process. In Nepal, many different and sometimes antagonistic idea
have been featured in debates about federalism. Tensions between, on the one
hand, the idea of self-determination, which suggests federal structures based on the
identities of historically marginalized groups and, on the other hand, ideas such as
national unity, sovereignty, and development, which do not, are central to the
difficulty of finding agreement on a federal map for the country.
In the next sections, I draw from historical institutionalism to make three
arguments about this issue. First, I explain how the decision to federalize Nepa

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Question of Federalism in Nepal 617

came out of the circumstantial political dynamics of the transition rather than from
a political agreement on federalism. Indeed, the apparent consensus behind
federalism in Nepal hides lukewarm support on the part of key actors for a federal
model. From this perspective, the failure to agree on a federal map becomes less
surprising. Second, state legacies of centralization and rule by a privileged group, as
well as legacies of opposition to the state, have produced contemporary political
actors who have quite different positions on the articulation of territory and
ethnicity. In concrete terms, some want the federal map to reflect the country's
ethnic diversity and some do not. Third, the debate around federalism in Nepal has
been framed around several different ideas that suggest a different logic for the
territorial structuring of federalism in the country.

Time-Contingent Federalism
The historical institutionalist literature has stressed the importance of temporality
when looking to explain socio-political outcomes. From this angle, the search for
causality involves not only identifying the nature of a trigger for a specific outcome
but also being sensitive to its timing (Pierson 2000b). In other words, causality is
embedded in sequencing, and outcomes are often the contingent results of specific
sequences. This historical institutionalist insight gives a different perspective to the
insertion in Nepal's interim constitution of the stipulation that the country would
be federal than the intuitive one, which is that there is strong and deep support for
federalism. In fact, there is not this type of support for federalism in Nepal, and the
constitutional requirement of federalism was the contingent product of the timing
of the Madheshi rebellion.

Virtually all theories suggest that behind the origins of federal systems lies a
concerted agreement on the necessity of federalism. Whether this is expressed as a
bargain (Riker 1964), a moral compact (LaSelva 1996), or a sine qua non condition
for democracy (Moreno 2001) or for the survival of a country (Deschouwer 2010),
the literature suggests that federalism begins with strong support from key actors.
It is reasonable to think that negotiations over the specific design of federal
structures are facilitated by a core agreement on the principle of federalism itself
(Watts 2008, 68).
There is no such core agreement in Nepal. On the surface, every party supports
federalism, except for Rastriya Prajatantra Party, Nepal (RPPN), a marginal party
(it won four seats out of 601 in the 2008 CA election) supportive of the old
monarchist regime and the small communist party Rastriya Janamorcha (that also
won four seats in these same elections). In reality, however, the 2007 decision to
specify in the interim constitution that Nepal would be federal was the consequence
of the particular dynamics of a democratic transition process rather than the
reflection of a consensus on the desirability of federalism.

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
618 A. Lecours

The end of monarchical rule in Nepal and the subsequent transition to

democracy, constitution-making and federalism was the product of a ten-year
Maoist insurgency (Baral 2006). CPN-M started an armed struggle, the so-called
People's War, in early 1996. Capitalizing on disillusionment over the regime's many
reversals on political liberalization in the previous fifteen years, the Maoists began
spreading their message about the evils of "feudalism" and "imperialism" in
Nepal's most remote and impoverished Far-West and Mid-West regions, and they
eventually gained effective control of much of the country outside the Kathmandu
valley. The Maoists vowed to fight for the poor and the oppressed (Lawoti 2010)
denouncing the extreme inequalities generated and sustained by the political
regime. At the beginning of the armed struggle, the ultimate political objective of
the Maoists was to create a '"people's republic' in Nepal based on Marxism
Leninism-Maoism" (Khanal 2006, 173). There was no sense that the institutional
structures of such republic would be federal.
At the same time, political activists representing Nepal's indigenous nationalities,
which were always excluded from the governance of the country and severely
disadvantaged socio-economically, were taking advantage of the political liberal
ization, albeit sporadic, ushered by the 1990 constitution to make political demands
based on the principle of self-determination (Hangen 2010). There was, therefore,
some overlap between the discourse of these activists, who would re-brand their
communities "indigenous nationalities," and Maoist politics: both sought
fundamental changes to the Nepali state in a way that would end the dominance
of "high-caste" Hindus from the hills and emancipate all of those populations who
had been politically excluded, socially marginalized, and mired in poverty since the
territorial unification of the country. By 2003, when for the second time they
entered peace negotiations with the government in Kathmandu, the Maoists were
publicly committed to federalism (Khanal 2006, 171). Yet, the 2006 Comprehensive
Peace Agreement that ended the war on the strength of twelve-point agreement
signed by the Maoists and seven other parties a year earlier made no mention of
federalism; it only said that "the state shall be restructured in an inclusive,
democratic and forward looking manner" (International Crisis Group 2011, 7, note
54). Indeed, federalism was also absent from the original version of the 2007
interim constitution, which specified that Nepal was an "independent, indivisible,
sovereign, secular, inclusive and fully democratic State" (The Interim Constitution
of Nepal, Part 1, article 4-1).
As soon as that constitution was promulgated on January 15, 2007, an
unexpected event threw Nepal into the developmental pathway of federalism. In the
Madhesh, Maoist references to federalism had increased expectations that the
Southern plains (often called "Terai")6 would enjoy territorial autonomy in a
democratic Nepal. There is a strong sense of distinctiveness in the Terai, at least
among its Hindu caste group inhabitants who are native to the plains, not to

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Question of Federalism in Nepal 619

the hills. These people, along with some Muslims and some members of the plains'
indigenous groups, call themselves Madheshis, and are bound by a history of
exclusion from the state. Indeed, Madheshis have long been considered quasi
foreigners by Hindus from the hills; citizenship certificates have been difficult to
acquire for this population (Hachhethu, Yadav, and Gurung 2010, 80). A Madheshi
movement became visible in the fifties as the Nepali Terai Congress, formed in
1951, called for an autonomous Madhesh, the recognition of Hindi as an official
language, and a Madheshi presence in the civil service. By the eighties, federalism
entered the Madheshi discourse more clearly (Hachhethu, Yadav, and Gurung
2010, 80).
When the Maoist insurgency stepped up its action in the Terai after 2000, the
Madheshi movement started to make more forceful claims about federalism,
connecting it to the notion of self-determination, and its new organization,
Madhesh National Liberation Front (MNLF), was established with close links to
CPN-M. In this context, the absence of any reference to federalism in the interim
constitution was a shock for Madheshi leaders, especially since the seemingly
federalism-friendly CPN-M was dictating much of the terms of the transition. The
Madheshi Jana Adhikar Forum (MJF) immediately called for a general strike. MJF
activists burned the constitution and there were abductions of Maoist politicians as
well as violent clashes between Madheshi nationalists and Maoists that left more

than thirty people dead.

The timing of the Madheshi uprising maximized its effect on Nepali politics for
four reasons. First, Maoists had just ended their armed insurgency and accepted to
attempt bringing about change through political means, but peace in Nepal could
not be taken for granted. Thus, the violence of the Madheshi uprising brought fears
of a new insurgency, or even of a civil war. Second, if civil peace could not be taken
for granted, neither could the success of democracy. From this perspective, unrest
in the Madhesh threatened to derail the democratic transition. Third, the
promulgation of the interim constitution was meant to be the stepping-stone
toward a new constitutional order. In this context, going ahead with a
constitutional document opposed by a significant proportion of the population
would have been an inauspicious beginning. Finally, the Madheshi uprising put
pressure on a fragile eight-party government whose participants were eager to avoid
any upheaval that could jeopardize their stakes in Nepal's new power structure.
Under those circumstances, the government reacted to the Madheshis' claims for
federalism. In an address to the nation in February 2007, Prime Minister Koirala
promised that Nepal would be restructured as a federal system. In March, the first
amendment to the interim constitution stipulating that Nepal would be federal was
passed in parliament.
The constitutional specification that the Nepali state would be restructured
along the lines of federalism did not reflect a broad consensus among the country's

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
620 A. Lecours

various parties and movements. It was simply the consequence of the timing of a
violent uprising by a group who wanted federalism. Thus, Nepal was launched into
the federal pathway because the Kathmandu-centered leadership of the main parties
wanted to escape the dramatic consequences of the Madheshi general strike
(including shortage of essential goods such food and petrol). The fact that most key
political actors in Nepal's constitution-making process initially did not make
federalism a priority, or simply did not want it at all, has made it complicated
fleshing out the structures of the federal arrangement. Once the interim
constitution was amended and discussions over federal structuring began, the
legacy of different patterns of opposition to the monarchist regime and different
views of the state, especially with respect to the relationship between ethnic identity
and territory, rendered an agreement even more difficult.

Historical Legacies and Contemporary Articulation

Historical institutionalism has drawn the attention of researchers to the weight of
the state on socio-political outcomes (Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985).
More specifically, it has argued that institutions and their legacies structure politics
(Steinmo, Thelen, and Longstreth 1992). From this angle, the territorial
restructuring of a state will be influenced by historical practices of both state
power and resistance to it. In multiethnic contexts, historical institutionalism has
suggested that legacies of alignment between state institutions and one or a few
specific groups are likely to render problematic the re-articulation of territory and
group identity through federalism or other forms of decentralization since
historically dominant groups will see such process as a threat to their power,
influence, and status (Bertrand 2004; Lecours 2007). Institutional change is often
seen by political actors as involving a redistribution of political power (Acemoglue,
Johnson, and Robinson 2005, 450). The case of Nepal speaks to this idea.
The major stumbling block in designing a federal system in Nepal has been how
many constituent units the federal state should have. These questions may appear
to be of secondary importance considering the wide array of matters (distribution
of powers, role of the judiciary, representation of constituent units in central
institutions) that need to be addressed in the building of a federal system. However,
deciding on the number of constituent units and their names involves crucial issues
linked to how state, territory, and ethnic identity should be connected in
contemporary Nepal and, indeed, to political power more generally.
In this debate, NC has been the strongest proponent of a territorial of division
of power that neither reflects nor recognizes the identities of historically
marginalized groups. NC is the oldest oppositional political force to the absolutist
state in contemporary Nepal. Its forefather, Nepali National Congress, was created
in 1947 to struggle against Rana rule. NC played a significant role in the overthrow

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Question of Federalism in Nepal 621

of the Ranas in 1951 and thereafter had episodic access to political power whenever
the monarchy opted to open up the political process. As such, NC never had
designs for fundamentally restructuring the Nepali state; NC leaders. For example
G. P. Koirala, were typically adamantly against federalism (International Crisis
Group 2011, 12). Rather, NC pushed for multipartite democracy, initially of a
social-democratic bent (Brown 1996, 14—34) and later toward liberalism. Both
struggling against and cooperating with the monarchy, NC was a party dominated
by "high-caste" Hindus from the hills who showed little specific concern for the
country's excluded and disadvantaged minorities.
This history is reflected in the party's contemporary stance on federalism. Much
of the NC still opposed federalism by 2006, but the party's formal position
switched to pro-federalism that year in large part because not doing so involved
significant electoral risks (International Crisis Group 2011, 13). NC leadership,
however, is still not overly supportive of federalism and has wanted to avoid any
maps structured around the identities of historically marginalized groups. In its
first proposals, NC suggested using the already existing Development Regions
whose bases are purely geographical (Eastern, Central Western, Mid-Western, and
Far-Western). Both members of the State Restructuring Commission associated
with NC supported a six constituent unit model (essentially the four Development
Regions plus two provinces in the Terai) quite detached from explicit ethnic
references and where the units are numbered rather than named. NC has lost many
indigenous and Madheshi members who left to the party over its opposition to
identity-based federalism and formed the Social Democratic Party.
The CPN-UML is more divided over federalism than the NC. At its birth in

1949, the Communist Party of Nepal had shown sympathy to ethnic demands for
self-determination, but the class perspective eventually won out within the party as
it shaped its opposition to the state. CPN-UML eventually came out strongly
against ethnic activism, which it considered, beginning in the nineties, reactionary
(International Crisis Group 2011, 11). Much like NC, CPN-UML formally adopted
a pro-federalism position after 2006 despite divisions within the party. In the wake
of Maoist positioning on federalism, CPN-UML has made some room for ethnicity
in its federal design but remains divided on the notion of identity-based federalism.
One of its proposed maps features fifteen constituent units, many of which would
be "homelands" for some of the country's most important indigenous groups (e.g.,
the Tharus, Limbus, Magars, and Rais). In the context of the State Restructuring
Commission, the two members linked to CPN-UML were split on what type of
map to recommend, with Bhogendrajha endorsing the eleven province "ethnic"
model and SarbarajKhadka siding with the six province proposal. Similarly to what
happened to NC, many important indigenous and Madheshi members left CPN
UML as a result of its stand on federalism and created a new party, the Federal
Socialist Party.

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
622 A. Lecours

UCPN-M committed to federalism before NC and CPN-UML and it has been

more supportive on the surface, to identity-based federalism than either of these
two parties. Yet, the Maoists are not unanimously enthusiastic about the idea that
constituent units should be established on the basis of the identity of historically
marginalized groups. The roots of UCPN-M are in the Communist Party of Nepal
that stressed class struggles over ethnic discrimination. Before the beginning of the
armed insurgency in February 1996, the Maoists represented one of many marginal
off-shoot Communist groups. Ten years later, they would bring the monarchist
regime to its knees.
A key to that success was the mobilization of the country's indigenous nationalities.
UCPN-M was created as a class-centered organization, but as its focus on poverty,
exclusion, and discrimination dovetailed with those of indigenous leaders, the party
began promoting identity-based federalism as part of a restructured Nepali state. In
this context, although the thrust of UCPN-M's insurgency initially featured an
opposition to parliamentary democracy and, later, abolishing the monarchy and
secularizing the state, federalism and identity also became a key component of the
Maoist message once its mobilization effect proved important (Lawoti 2010, 14). In
fact, in 2004 the Maoists announced the formation of regional autonomous
governments in various parts of Nepal. Their scheme provided "nine autonomous
provinces ... seven named after the ethno-territorial identity of the major ethnic and
indigenous groups." (Khanal 2006,164). As a result of its connection with indigenous
nationalities leaders, UCPN-M campaigned on federalism in the CA elections and
specified that constituent units would be based on identity, and therefore provide
homelands to some of the country's indigenous groups.
Initially, the Maoists' federal map featured seventeen constituent units, making it
the most "ethnic" proposal of all the three major parties; it even included a Sherpa
unit, which many experts thought could not be economically viable. The two Maoist
members of the State Restructuring Commission endorsed the eleven-province model
that was submitted to government as the recommendation of the majority. This being
said, the strength of the Maoist commitment to identity-based federalism has been
questioned; in private conversations, Maoist leaders, as well as leaders from the two
other major parties, have reported to have said they could favor a less ethnic map
made up of six provinces (International Crisis Group 2011, 9; my interviews). For
UCPN-M, such a shift in position would present some danger since it would alienate
the indigenous nationalities that are a key part of their constituencies. UCPN-M,
therefore, has strong incentives to keep promoting identity-based federalism even if
support among the leadership for this federal structuring is fairly weak.
The political dangers of straying from identity-based federalism for UCPN-M
were made clear when, on May 16, 2012, it struck an agreement with NC and
CPN-UML on an eleven-unit federal map. At that time, it seemed that Nepal could
have a constitution by the May 28, 2012 deadline. However, the proposal was

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Question of Federalism in Nepal 623

strongly rejected by Madheshi parties and indigenous leaders. Madheshi parties

denounced the eleven-unit map particularly vociferously because it divided the
Madhesh into five units, and they promised serious disturbance through a general
strike. Madheshis within CPN-UML also came out against the proposal. In this
context, UCPN-M stated, just a few days later, that it was withdrawing its support
for the proposal.
Madheshi parties7 also support an identity-based federal structure, but their
central focus is to have the whole of the Madhesh form a constituent unit. The

Madheshi parties' politics of opposition to political power in Nepal have always

been to denounce the exclusion and discrimination suffered by inhabitants of the
Terai and to promote territorial autonomy, and eventually federal restructuring of
the state featuring the Madhesh as a single province. Madhesi parties assign to the
Madhesh a single identity, common past, and commonality of interests (Interviews
2011), something that is challenged both within the Terai (e.g., by leaders of
indigenous nationalities such as the Tharus) and outside. For this reason, neither
NC, nor UML, nor UCPN-M is ready to accept that the Madhesh would form a
single constituent unit within a Nepali federal system.
Above and beyond considerations linked to the relative demographic weight of the
three proposed units, high-caste Hindus from the hills, who are dominant in the
leadership of the three main parties, are concerned that having a single Madhesh
province, covering the whole border with India, would serve to reinforce the
distinctiveness of a population whose loyalty to Nepal is already questioned.
Madheshi leaders understand that their position will never find agreement among the
three parties and they are ready to compromise (International Crisis Group 2011,
17). Members of the State Restructuring Commission associated with Madheshi
parties supported the eleven-province model even if it featured two provinces in
the Terai. Madheshi parties were, however, furiously opposed to the May 16, 2012
eleven-unit proposal because it divided the Terai in five provinces.
The CA's Committee on State Restructuring and Distribution of State Power put
forth its federal map in January 2010. Since the CA's committee included members
from all major parties (and some minor ones) and was therefore the product of a
compromise, it was always a significant proposition.8 The SRC's work was severely
compromised by the fact that the nine experts could not agree on a
recommendation. In the end, political power in Nepal rests with the leadership
of the three main political parties rather than the CA or an expert body such as the
SRC and, to a certain extent, so does political legitimacy. Because parties were most
often pushed aside, or even outlawed, in contemporary Nepal, they are now
typically understood to be the main vehicles for democracy. Therefore, the
leadership of the main political parties is at the center of the stalemate around
federalism in Nepal. As evidenced by its refusal to endorse the CA's map, and by
the divisions within the SRC, the leadership of the three main political parties is,

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
624 A. Lecours

to varying degrees, uncomfortable with identity-based federal structuring despite

strong societal pressure to move into that direction.9
The transition to democracy in Nepal created opportunities for leaders of the
country's marginalized indigenous nationalities as well as Madheshis to push for a
territorial re-structuring of the state based on their groups' identity. While they
could not ignore these voices, key political parties such as NC and CPN-UML were
ill at ease with the notion of "identity-based federalism"; their history of
opposition to the state was really devoid of identity considerations. In the case of
UCPN-M, ethnic identity was incorporated fairly late in the discourse surrounding
the armed struggle against the state, and political expediency most likely played an
important role in the Maoist support for a federal system based on the identities
of historically marginalized groups. This lack of consensus on how to articulate
institutions, territory, and ethnic identity in democratic Nepal is, in addition to
weak support for the very idea of federalism discussed earlier, a central reason for
why no agreement has yet been reached on the federal map.
Supporters of a federal system based on the identity of historically marginalized
groups are driven by the powerful idea of self-determination. This idea, however,
comes in conflict with three others (national unity, sovereignty, development) that
have been central to debates around federalization and have been mobilized by
opponents of "identity-based" federalism.

Self-Determination and its Ideational Competitors

The historical institutionalist literature makes room for ideas as important
structures enabling and constraining agency (Hall 1989).10 From this perspective,
ideas are analytically distinct from institutions, yet can shape, and be shaped by,
these institutions. The resilience and socio-political embeddedness of ideas make
them powerful forces for either change or continuity (Béland and Cox 2011). The
importance of ideas in politics appears particularly relevant when it comes to
processes of federalization since federalism is an ambiguous concept whose exac
meaning strongly depends upon the larger ideational and institutional context.
As previously explained, federalism came to Nepal mostly as a result of the
Madheshi rebellion. None of the country's political parties had been thinking about
federalism for very long before it was written into the interim constitution in 2007, and
there certainly was no consensus on what federalism was and what it was supposed
to do beyond the notion that it entailed political decentralization and the creation
of constituent units. In this context, at least four distinct and hard-to-reconcile ideas
have accompanied the debate around the federalization of the country.11
The push for federalism in Nepal has been closely linked to the idea of self
determination. Indeed, for the core supporters of the federal model, found in both
the leadership of the country's indigenous nationalities and the Madhesh

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Question of Federalism in Nepal 625

movement, the longstanding practices of exclusion, discrimination, and margin

alization of the Nepali state could best be prevented through an actualization of
self-determination that involved the establishment of autonomous territorial units

based on these groups' identity. Hence, in those circles, federalism has meant
self-determination. Among indigenous nationalities, the stress on the idea of
self-determination that appeared in the nineties coincided with the use of the
indigeneity label (Hangen 2010, 50-51). From that perspective, Nepal's caste
Hindus were late comers to the country (from India, it is argued). That notion of
indigeneity came with powerful connections to self-determination framed by
international law. For example, contemporary claims for self-determination
articulated among indigenous groups typically come with references to the 1989
International Labour Organization's Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention
(No. 169) and the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples' Rights,
adopted by Nepal on September 13, 2007, that recognize a right to self
determination to Indigenous peoples (my interviews, 2011).
The idea of self-determination is of great concern to "high-caste" Hindus from
the hills who dominate the leadership ranks of the three main parties. When
Madheshi parties and indigenous activists speak of self-determination in the
context of debates over federal structuring, other political actors, especially NC and
CPN-UML, bring up the idea of national unity (my interviews 2011). From the
perspective of "high-caste" Hindus from the hills, the strength of Nepali unity in
the context of tremendous diversity is a considerable achievement that should serve
as a source of pride to all Nepalis. Self-determination, and any type of federal
structuring informed by that idea, therefore represents a threat to the unity of the
country. The Maoists are more comfortable with the idea of self-determination, but
they also argue that, in Nepal, the actualization of self-determination (through, e.g.,
federalism) would make secession redundant. When put forth by Madheshi parties,
self-determination, and thus a federal structure that would have one province for
the whole of the Madhesh, appears particularly threatening since it sets up a
political community large enough and most likely economically strong enough to
consider independence. The idea of national unity, therefore, suggests a different
type of federal map than the idea of self-determination.
For some key actors, most notably CPN-M, self-determination, when invoked by
Madheshi parties, comes into conflict with the idea of sovereignty. Nepal is
sandwiched between two giants, India and China. India has had a long history of
strategic interest for, and influence in, Nepal, a fact heavily condemned by Nepal's
Maoists. At the beginning of its insurgency, CPN-M stated that "the enemies [sic]
of Nepalese people are not only within the country but also present outside of it in
the form of imperialists, specially [sic] Indian expansionists" (Subedi 2006, 135).
The Maoist suspicion of India fuels worries that a federal map featuring a single
Madheshi province will compromise Nepal's sovereignty, that is, render the country

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
626 A. Lecours

vulnerable to Indian influence. Those worries build on perceptions that a

significant proportion of Madheshi are less than loyal Nepalese because of close
cultural ties to India. Thus, the Madheshi self-determination claims of "One
Madhesh, One province" and the type of federal structuring it entails clashes with
Maoist concerns for the country's sovereignty.
While the strongest supporters of federalism view it as a way for distinct,
historically marginalized, indigenous nationalities to put forth their existence as a
collectivity and make decisions for themselves, other actors who were never
enthusiastic about federal structures (e.g., NC) are now counting on them to tackle
one of the country's foremost problems: development. Nepal is a very poor country
whose development effort has been complicated by a geography of mountains, hills,
and plains, and skewed by a political system that distributed resources to a
privileged few. For parties such as NC, using federalism to further development
involves detaching it from ethnicity. Indeed, the idea of development is argued to
inform a federal map where the administrative capabilities and economic viability
of potential constituent units are more important factors in their creation than
their connection to historically marginalized groups.
There is, therefore, an ideational component to the difficulty of finding
agreement on federal structuring in Nepal. There is no single understanding of
what federalism is and what it is meant to accomplish, in part because Nepal has
no history of federalism; indeed, political parties latched onto federalism only
recently, and then adjusted it to their own view of the state and to their political
objectives. Thus, while for Madheshi parties federalism is about self-determination
and the creation of one Madheshi province, national unity is a foremost concern
for the three main parties. UCPN-M, because of its deep suspicion of India, has the
additional concern of sovereignty whereas NC looks at federalism to promote
development rather than to satisfy identity claims.
These ideas about federalism are also discursive and rhetorical weapons in a
political struggle where power is central. For Madheshi parties and indigenous
nationalities, the idea of self-determination and the corresponding federal model
where some groups form the core of constituent units is about emancipating their
populations from a Nepali state dominated by "high-caste" Hindus from the hills.
For this traditionally dominant group, federal models are assessed for what they
will mean for its power and influence. From this perspective, being a plurality in
most constituent units would be the optimal scenario. This is why "high-caste"
Hindus from the hills have continuously referred to the model preferred by the
Madheshi and indigenous nationalities as "ethnic federalism" (making good use of
the negative connotations of the word "ethnic") and have attempted to blunt its
underlying concept of self-determination by opposing it ideas of national unity,
sovereignty and development that support the type of federal model that would
allow them to retain power in Nepal.

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Question of Federalism in Nepal 627

Conclusion

The case of the ongoing federalization of Nepal is crucial for deepening our
understanding of how states become federal, or, more specifically, of the problems
and obstacles facing unitary states entering processes of federalization. While
federalism scholarship is successful at explaining why previously independent
entities have chosen to form federal states, it is less illuminating on transitions from
unitary to federal structures. Differently put, the birth of "coming together
federalism" is better understood than the birth of "holding together federalism"
(Stepan 1999) that began with the restructuring of a unitary state. Studies of cases
where such restructuring has led to a federal state (most notably, Belgium and
Spain12) focus (rightly) on the importance of nationalist movements (Flemish in
the former, and Basque and Catalan in the latter) (Deschouwer 2010; Lecours
2007). Yet, transitioning from unitary to federal structures can be a very difficult
process, driven and shaped by many other forces than one or two nationalist
movements. This is particularly the case in developing countries where the
sometimes extreme ethno-cultural diversity of society, underdevelopment, a history
of political violence, a fragile democracy, and vulnerability to outside influence are
all likely to structure the federalization process and condition the resulting
territorial political institutions.
This case study of Nepal has shown that historical institutionalism helps
explain the difficulties and obstacles of "holding together" federalization processes.
It suggests that three components important for understanding why negotiations
over federal design can be long and difficult.
First, strong and broad support for federalism can not be assumed. Federalism can
be the contingent outcome of a democratic transition process in a muthiethnic
country. In the case of Nepal, the fear of political violence endangering a nascent
democracy led the country's three main political parties to accept, with various
degrees of reluctance, the Madheshi claim for federalism. The weak support for the
very notion of federalism made more difficult any compromise on its actual design. In
this context, the case of Nepal speaks to the necessity to interpret actors' support for
federalism, perhaps especially when it comes from Marxist movements that have
looked to trigger political and institutional change through armed rebellion. Indeed,
support for federalism within these movements can be primarily of a strategic nature
as was the case for Bolsheviks and Chinese Communists who spoke in favor of federal
accommodation for minorities when looking to take over the state (Connor 1984).
Second, the question of how to articulate state, territory, and ethnic identity in a
complex multiethnic society can render the drawing of the federal map quite
arduous, especially if historical opposition to the state was informed by plans for
political and institutional restructuring that treated ethnic identity differently. In
Nepal, while Madheshi groups had a significant history of opposing the state on the

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
628 A. Lecours

basis of a distinct, and marginalized, identity and UCPN-M took on identity

politics in its armed struggle, neither NC nor CPN-UML ever sought to restructure
the Nepali state around multiple identities. From this perspective, Nepal shares
much with other Asian states such as Sri Lanka, Burma, Indonesia, and the
Philippines where ethnic diversity coexists with centralist tendencies and a fear that
accommodating diversity through identity-based federalism or autonomy would
lead to the disintegration of the country (He, Galligan, and Inoguchi 2007;
Bertrand and Laliberté 2010).
Third, federalism can take many different meanings and be counted upon to
achieve many different objectives, especially in developing and democratizing
societies with little or no federal tradition. As the case study of Nepal shows, "self
determination," "unity," "sovereignty," and "development" are all ideas that can
frame debates around the federalization of a state and complicate federal design
since they tend to suggest different logics for drawing up the map.
Research on the origins of federal systems would benefit from focusing more on
what makes federalization, or even the decision to adopt federalism, difficult. Why,
for example, has federalism not taken hold in Iraq despite the stipulation in the
2005 constitution that it would be federal and much commentary to the effect that
the federal model could help govern the country democratically (O'Leary, McGarry,
and Salih 2005; Visser and Stansfield 2007)? Why has Afghanistan not chosen
federalism as suggested by many policy experts (Signer 2010)? Other states such as
Sri Lanka, Congo, and the Philippines where some political actors pushed for
federalism in the hope that it could help manage various forms of territorial and
ethnic conflicts have similarly rejected federal arrangements. There are many
different puzzles about federalism; in some contexts, the difficulty in putting federal
structures together is the biggest one.

Supplementary Data
Supplementary data can be found at www.publius.oxfordjournals.org.

Notes

This work was supported by a grant from the Secrétariat aux affaires inter
gouvernementales canadiennes du Québec (SAIC), 2010-11. The author thanks Susan
Henders and Publius' three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

1. The initial announcement was for elections on November 22, 2012, but they were then
further postponed.
2. The government of Nepal recognizes the existence of "indigenous nationalities," which
are populations who do not belong to Hindu caste groups and often speak Tibeto
Burman languages. The most important of these groups, population-wise, are the

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Question of Federalism in Nepal 629

Magars (7.2 percent), Tharus (6.5 percent), Tam

Gurungs (2.4 percent), and Limbus (1.6 percent
3. Although some states governed by Communist r
most federalism experts believe that authoritariani
does not allow for genuine autonomous territorial r
4. Other groups, such as the Chepangs, largely esca
their traditional social practices.
5. Nepal's indigenous nationalities have been deman
the indigenous peoples' caucus in the CA served as
6. The terms "Madhesh" and "Terai" are often used
the Madhesh is only one part of the Terai (i.e., t
border). The term "Madhesh" also has a much str
7. There are five main Madhesi parties: Madhesh
Madheshi Jana Adhikar Forum (Nepal), TaraiM
Party, and Nepal Sadbhavana Party.
8. In the CA's proposed map, seven constituent u
ethnic minorities insofar as these communities w
unit's population: Kirat (Rai 34 percent), Sherpa
34 percent), Tamuwan (Gurung 32 percent), Ta
(Newar 36 percent), and Lumbini-Awadh-Tharuw
9. For example, the reports of the SRC triggered
community since none of the expert body's pr
featured a Sherpa province.
10. Vivian Schmidt (2010) has argued that the i
scholarship on ideas warrants a new category o
institutionalism."

11. The identification of these ideas has come fro

discussions conducted by the Centre for Constitu
proposed by the CA as well as from my own interv
consultants, academics, and journalists. On the ro
Constitutional Dialogue (2010).
12. Spain is not a federation insofar as its constitut
nonetheless be considered federal (Watts 2008).

References

Acemoglue, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James

fundamental cause of long-run growth. In Handbook
and Steven Durlauf, 386-464. Amsterdam, the Neth

Baral, Lok Raj. 2006. Nepal. Facets of Maoist insurg

Baral, Lok Raj. 2008. Nepal. The restructuring of a

frontiers of restructuring of state, ed. Lok Raj Ba

Béland, Daniel, and Robert H. Cox, eds. 2011. Idea

New York: Oxford University Press.

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 630 A. Lecours

Bertrand, Jacq
University Pres

Bertrand, Jacq
or resistance. C

Bhattachan, Kr
Social exclusio
19-62. Kathma

Brown, T. Loui

Burgess, Micha

Center for Con

Connor, Walk
Princeton, NJ:

Deschouwer, Kr
UK: Palgrave M
Desprez, Kas,
1780-1995. New

Dhungel, Dwar
Institute for In

Duchacek, Ivo.
Journal of Fed
Elazar, Daniel. 1994. Federalism and the way to peace. Montreal and Kingston:
McGill-Queen's University Press.

Erk, Jan. 2007. Explaining federalism: State and society congruence in Austria, Belgium,
Canada, Germany and Switzerland. London: Routledge.

Evans, Peter, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds. 1985. Bringing the state back
in. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fenna, Alan, and Hueglin Thomas. 2005. Comparative federalism. A systematic inquiry.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Forbes, Ann Armbrecht. 1996. The discourse and practice of Kipat. Kailash 18 (1-2):
39-80.

Gagnon, Alain-G., and Raffaele Iacovino. 2006. Federalism, citizenship and Quebec: Debating
multinationalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Gellner, David, ed. 2008. Resistance and the state. Nepalese experiences. New Dehli, India:
Social Science Press.

Hachhethu, Krisna, LalBabu Yadav, and Deepa Gurung. 2010. Nepal: State and ethnicity. In
State and society. Social exclusion and inclusion in Nepal, ed. Kristian Stokke and
Mohan das Manandhar, 63-89. Kathmandu, Nepal: Mandala Book Point.
Hall, Peter, ed. 1989. The political power of economic ideas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Question of Federalism in Nepal 631

Hall, Peter. 1997. The role of interests, institution

economy of industrialized nations. In Comparative p
ed. Mark I. Lichbach and Alan S. Zuckerman, 174
Press.

Hall, Peter A., and Rosemary C. R. Taylor.

institutionalisms. Political Studies XLIV: 936-57.

Hangen, Susan. 2010. The rise of ethnic politics in Nepal. Democracy in the margins. London:
Routledge.

He, Baogang, Brian Galligan, and Takashi Inoguchi, eds. 2007. Federalism in Asia.
Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

International Crisis Group. 2011. Nepal: Identity politics and federalism. Asia Report,
no. 199. Kathmandu, Nepal/Brussels, Belgium: ICG.

Khanal, Krishna P. 2006. The Maoist agenda of restructuring the state. An appraisal. In
Nepal. Facets of Maoist insurgency, ed. Lok Raj Baral, 164-84. New Delhi, India:
Adroit.

Laitin, David. 2007. Nations, states, and violence. New York: Oxford University Press.

LaSelva, Samuel. 1996. The moral foundations of Canadian federalism. Montreal and
Kingston, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Lawoti, Mahendra. 2005. Towards a democratic Nepal. Inclusive political institutions for a
multicultural society. London: Sage.

, ed. 2007. Contentious politics and democratization in Nepal. London: Sage.

. 2010. Evolution and growth of the Maoist insurgency in Nepal. In The Maoist
insurgency in Nepal. Revolution in the twenty-first century, ed. Mahendra Lawoti and Anup
K. Pahari, 3-30. London: Routledge.
Lecours, André. 2007. Basque nationalism and the Spanish State. Reno, NV: University of
Nevada Press.

, ed. 2005. New institutionalism. Theory and analysis. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press.

Lieberman, Robert. 2002. Ideas, institutions, and political order: Explaining political change.
American Political Science Review 96: 697-712.

Linder, Wolf. 1994. Swiss democracy. Possible solutions to conflicts in multicultural societies.
Houdmills, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.

Moreno, Luis. 2001. The federalization of Spain. London: Frank-Cass.

O'Leary, Brendan, John McGarry, and Khaled Salih. 2005. The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Peters, B. Guy. 2005. Institutional theory in political science. The "new institutioanlism."
London: Continuum.

Pierson, Paul. 2000a. Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics.
American Political Science Review 94 (2): 251-68.

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 632 A. Lecours

. 2000b. Not ju
in American P

. 2004. Politic
Princeton Univ

Riker, William.

Schmidt, Vivie
discursive inst

Scott, James C

Shaha, Rishikes

Signer, Mike. 20

Silver, Arthur.
University of

Steinmo, Sven,
institutionalism

Stepan, Alfre
Democracy 10
Stokke, Kristia
and inclusion

Subedi, Jiwan.
insurgency, ed

The Himalayan
Thelen, Kathlee
Britain, the Un

United Natio
restructuring
Center for Con

. 2008. Designin
UNDP.

. 2010. Federalism dialogues. Series 1-14. Kathmandu, Nepal: Center for Constitutional
Dialogue.

Visser, Reidar, and Gareth Stansfield, eds. 2007. An Iraq of its regions: Cornerstones of a
federal democracy? London: Hurst and Company.

Volden, Craig. 2004. Origin, operation, and significance. The federalism of William H. Riker.
Publius: The Journal of Federalism 34 (4): 89-107.

Watts, Ronald. 2008. Comparing federal systems. Kingston, Canada: Institute of Inter
governmental Relations, Queen's University.

Whelpton, John. 2005. A history of Nepal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ziblatt, Daniel. 2006. Structuring the state. The formation of Italy and Germany and the puzzle
of federalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

This content downloaded from

13.233.181.131 on Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:09:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms