Paper short abstract:

Bringing together ethnographic evidence from mid-Western Nepal and eastern Sri Lanka, this article explores how political legitimacy is constructed and contested in post-war environments.

Paper long abstract:

Bringing together ethnographic evidence from mid-Western Nepal and eastern Sri Lanka, this article explores how political legitimacy is constructed and contested in post-war environments. The two regions are marked by a history of violence and rebel rule. In post-war transition, authority is in a sense 'up for grabs', because previous patterns of rule and legitimacy can no longer be taken for granted.The article makes two inter-linked arguments. Firstly, post-war transition in both contexts encompasses a silencing form of pacification through strategies such as abeyance and the construction of 'transition' as a liminal period. Fundamental political issues are suppressed, neutralised or postponed, be it under the rubric of consensus or through the nationalist bravado of a triumphant government. Secondly, the end of military confrontation and the disappearance of the 'parallel' governance of the ethno-separatist or Maoist insurgents opens up space for new politicians, and re-opens a space for old ones. While the political muscle of these brokers clearly impressed our respondents - 'they are like Spiderman to the people' - it was also clear that these politicians faced challenges in tapping into the larger registers of political legitimacy: pro-poor (Nepal) and pro-minority (Sri Lanka) reforms. The need to both advocate people's rights and to deliver material welfare makes the construction of political legitimacy a highly paradoxical affair. In different ways, our case studies suggest that post-war democracy encompasses both a curtailment of "the political" and an intensification of "politics".