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Paper short abstract

The paper draws on our collaborative fieldwork in Nepal to show that infrastructural disruption and delay following a major disaster are rooted in a democratic deficit at the local level, raising questions about the potential of infrastructure to support the well-being of disaster-prone communities.

Paper long abstract

Vital infrastructures, including road networks, water and sanitation systems, and health facilities, are increasingly vulnerable to disruption from climate-fuelled disasters, posing significant threats to development gains and exposing marginalised communities to social hardship. Despite global calls for climate- or disaster-resilient infrastructure, much research on infrastructural disruption emphasises the physical and technocratic aspects of building and maintaining large-scale or mega infrastructures, often overlooking how affected communities understand and navigate the political dynamics surrounding local or small-scale infrastructural disruptions, as well as their struggles to influence renewal and recovery processes. Drawing on interviews and collaborative fieldwork in flood-affected communities in Kavre District, Nepal—a peri-urban community undergoing rapid changes and at the epicentre of the 2024 floods—this study links infrastructure disruptions and subsequent delays to democratic deficits at the local level. We find that local politics around infrastructural recovery tend to focus on reproducing governing mechanisms that appear participatory and localised, yet raise questions about the possibility of producing an alternative vision of infrastructures capable of withstanding the threats of recurring disasters and alleviating community fears. The growing centralisation of authority over infrastructural decision-making has meant that infrastructural recovery following a disaster is limited to the mere restoration of basic services, leaving little room for the emergence of bottom-up politics of claim-making capable of linking infrastructural renewal to substantive human well-being. The paper calls for closer scholarly and policy attention to the link between infrastructural politics and human well-being, especially as climate-induced disasters continue to disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities.