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

Chapter15The long and winding road ofstate buildingSagar Raj Sharma 11. ContextPost-conflict states are almost always divided, socially, economicallyand structurally, and many which were weak (institutionally and inresource terms) before the conflict are even weaker after it. Nepal isno exception in this regard. Many of the institutions in Nepal are weakand fragile, and the country is psychologically divided like never before.Development, peace and stability in such post-conflict situations requireeffective and legitimate states capable of fulfilling key responsibilities andproviding core public goods and services, including security. In this book,we have attempted to view state-building as essentially an endogenousprocess, based on the broad context of variations and relations, includingnegotiations and contestations, between the state and different societalgroups.The preceding chapters in this book have dealt with various such aspectsof state-building in today’s post-conflict Nepal. The first two chaptershave dealt with the broader conceptual issues of state-building, whilechapters three to seven have highlighted some of the pertinent economicand associated issues related with state-building. These issues range fromexploring the role of the private sectors in state-building to highlightingthe potentials of tourism in sustainable growth. Chapters eight to twelvehave tackled the emerging social trends and issues in post-conflict Nepaland the challenges they have brought for efficient state-building, whilethe next two chapters attempt to look into the future and deal with issuessuch as R&R, and contradictions associated with them. As each chapterhas shown, all of these are very important issues, and without properlyaddressing them, Nepal will find it very difficult and challenging even toenter into the process of state-building.But there are some other equally important issues that have been left outin the discussions above, namely, role of education system in state building,1Coordinator, graduate programme at the HNRSC of Kathmandu University; sagar@ku.edu.np305