English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

Post-conflict state buildingdebated at present. There is no doubt, in due course of time, these issueswill turn into a decisive direction. State building process has to take this inmind while redressing the state institutions, exploring new potentials andworking amidst fresh hopes.3. Post-conflict state building: Some conceptual debatesGeologists believe that the shaping and reshaping of rocks and plateshas constituted the earth we are living in now. The ebbs and flows inthe national politics of any country appear, similarly, to redress a newerstate. With changes, there comes a grave challenge to institutionalisethe achievements with the reinvention of state apparatus. At such times,people accumulate the hopes for betterment from the change theyinvited. Managing and balancing them requires specific skills and plan,with a scrutiny on what potentials the state has and what weaknesses ithas to address.It is reported that at the end of 2006, there were more than 80,000 militaryand police personnel deployed in 16 different missions of the UnitedNations (UN) (Heathershaw 2008). Such international interventions inconflict and post-conflict countries have usually two stated aims: 1) To assistin reconstruction of the core structures and institutions in such countries,and 2) To support for the transition from war to peace (peace-building).Also in Nepal, there is UN involvement for peace-keeping which monitorsthe deposited arms and ammunition and the Maoist ex-combatantsresiding in different camps and satellite camps. However, embedded insuch assistances is the Western-promoted imposition of 'liberal peace', aset of measures designed to liberalise the economy, modernise society,introduce democracy and induce political stability (Heathershaw 2008;Paris 1997; Duffield 2001). Such assistances have persistent bias, in thatthey approach post-conflict countries from an outsider's perspective.Little attention is paid to the resilience of local space; elite-subordinatedynamics of patronage and the structures of authority remain a mysteryto most international state builders. Thus, Richards (2005) claims that,the subject of the post-conflict space remains under-theorised and overgeneralised.On one hand, international actors make intrusive interventions into thesovereign space of a given state (Nepal's case is representative of thiskind). On the other hand, local actors engage in their own to obtainpolitical and material support from outside parties. However, the influenceof international actors gets inhibited by the resilience of local informal4