Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses local government in Nepal's post-conflict transition. It provides insight into how the Nepalese state is manifested in practice, mapping the local authority (re-) configurations and arguing that local government functions through everyday compromises among authority claimants.

Paper long abstract:

The form and function of local government in Nepal has undergone several transformations in the past decades, from the "party-less" panchayat system, to decentralisation, and the retreat of local state actors and establishment of Maoist People's Governments during the conflict. While the term of the last elected local governments ended in 2002, different interim arrangements have been put in place in the post-conflict political transition, both building on and interacting with previous sedimentations of local government. This paper analyses these interim local government arrangements and explores the "composite and chimerical" practical form and functioning of public authority they represent (Lund 2007). With reference to the insights of Tania Murray Li (1999, 2007) on "compromising power", the paper argues that local government in Nepal functions through everyday compromises - explicit and implicit - among authority claimants and between authority claimants and subjects. Exploring the various and varied details of how governmental projects are implemented, including the multitude of minor adjustments and intentional oversights necessary for ensuring the compliance of those to be governed, leads to insights about how local government is accomplished. Indeed, in Nepal, compromise is a significant feature of decision-making processes and of how politics is practiced (Nightingale et al 2012, Upreti 2004). This paper explores a series of such compromises in the practice of local government in a Village Development Committee in Nepal's mid-Western hills. In so doing, it sheds light on how the Nepalese state is manifested in practice and maps the local authority (re-) configurations emerging in the political "transition".