Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the role played by borderland regions in negotiating and constituting power at the political centre through a comparative examination of the dynamics of peacebuilding, reconstruction and development in the recent post-war transitions in Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Paper long abstract:

Recent borderland studies literature has explored the role that margins play in negotiating and constituting power at the centre (Newman, 2006; Donnan and Wilson, 2012; Scott, 2009; Nugent, 2003). This research has found that protracted conflict frequently recalibrates power relations between centre and periphery and that borderlands may become critical sites of institutional and socio-economic innovation with new forms of political authority and new sources of capital accumulation and investment emerging from the periphery (Goodhand, 2004; Raeymakers, 2009; Zeller, 2009). Rather than being of marginal importance to the dynamics of war to peace transitions, borderland regions can play a key role in shaping or determining the post war order. This paper examines the constitutive role of borderlands, through a comparison of the dynamics of peacebuilding, reconstruction and development in post-war Nepal and Sri Lanka, and with reference to war time dynamics. In doing so it assesses the contrasting experiences of classical transnational borderlands with frontier zones on the margins of an island state. It also draws attention to the role played by actors and institutions that span the national and subnational levels, arguing that in both cases these actors appear to be central to negotiating and consolidating (or undermining) the post-war order.