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

The Remake of a Stateof ethnic and religious identities, forced compliance with national laws,and norms set by unrepresentative elites. As a result, many groups andcommunities had limited access to and expectations from the mechanismsof the state.This, however, has started to change with the end of the decade-longMaoist-led insurgency and the starting of the peacebuilding process thatbegan in 2006 with the signing of the CPA between the Maoists and thegovernment. Realisation that state building and restructuring are absolutelynecessary for peace implementation has come to most of the stakeholdersand actors of development, although there exist fundamental differencesin the perception of development and process of peacebuilding. Thesedifferences can be debated, and a realistic compromise can be reached.For that, context-specific analysis of the historical and contemporarydynamics of social contract negotiations must be the basis for statebuilding efforts. This is what the different chapters of this volume haveattempted to highlight.3. State building in the context of state formationOECD (2008) defines state building as a purposeful action to developcapacity, institutions and legitimacy of the state in relation to an effectivepolitical process for negotiating the mutual demands between state andsocietal groups. In such a process, however, the state-society relationshipis not permanently fixed, as it needs to be understood in the changingdynamics of the present and historical context of the past. Legitimacy,which again may be embedded in historical context and institutions,will be a major key to the effectiveness of the process of state building.Equally important are capacity and resources, institutions and an effectivepolitical process, some of which have been discussed extensively in theprevious chapters (chapters 1, 4, 7 and 14).In the process of state building, it is of vital importance that state-societynegotiation be given due importance. Any policies that are made toaddress state building need to appreciate and acknowledge the fact thata state is not just the collection of its formal institutions, but incorporateshistorical movements and moments that have shaped it. Hence, it is morethan just establishing key institutions for a functioning state (Fritz andMenocal 2007).307