Suchergebnisse

This observational study of local government coordination brings fresh assessment of institutions and processes of District Coordination Committees (DCCs) in facilitating horizontal coordination across local governments and vertical coordination between federal, provincial, and local governments in Nepal. Necessary qualitative data – observational notes, interview transcripts and selected official publications – were generated based on researcher's two year's professional experience at the DCC in a remote district of Rasuwa in Nepal. Analysis is conducted in line with what John Halligan (2020) has explained as analytical elements of horizontal and vertical coordination. Findings suggest that although DCCs seem less effective local institutions in fostering both horizontal and vertical coordination, they are increasingly providing the most plausible avenues for politicians, administrators, and ordinary people to get together in materialising the constitutional thirst to implement cooperative federalism in Nepal.

This short essay discusses the issue of poverty in Nepal. Despite a number of poverty-reduction programs run by a myriad of actors, poverty in Nepal is still rampant, and the country remains one of the poorest countries in the world. In this essay, I argue that many poverty alleviation programs in Nepal failed because they isolated poverty as an economic and growth problem, whereas, poverty should have been identified and tackled as a political and a human rights issue. I begin the essay by briefly sharing my own experience of poverty while growing up in rural Nepal. I, then, explore the overall poverty scenario in Nepal and analyze a few major causes and consequences of poverty in the country. After offering an overview of poverty reduction approaches in Nepal, I conclude the essay with a few recommendations intended for organizations and policymakers formulating poverty-alleviation strategies in Nepal.

This research empirically explores whether and how informal forums facilitate the participation of ordinary people in the local policymaking process. Using qualitative data generated from 2014 to 2016 in the Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City in western Nepal, it argues that informal forums are the most conducive participatory platforms for ordinary people and that these forums can bring positive influences on the formal processes of policymaking. Examined through the analytical framework of society-driven participatory institutions, findings of this research suggest that informal forums, if designed properly, can contribute to securing democratic rights of ordinary people by allowing them to participate to raise and deliberate their issues in the local policymaking process. In addition to broadening the existing knowledge about the role of informal forums in local governance, findings of this research offer new insights for local authorities who are passionate about participatory local policymaking.

As the COVID-19 pandemic propagates throughout the world, speculations have begun of the post-pandemic world. In this article, I argue that the world after COVID-19 will be a different and difficult one, with unprecedented economic hardships and rampant social anxieties becoming the new normal. However, the pandemic also offers a chance to reflect and to revise our course, and to come up with an alternative that will be just and fair for the many. I begin the article by offering an assessment of COVID-19's impact on global power structures and move on to elaborate its possible implications on political processes, particularly on the instruments of democracy and the rule of law. Drawing from various experiences reported during the pandemic, I argue that the post-pandemic world will be characterized by populism, nationalism, intensified citizen surveillance, and curtailed and compromised individual liberties. The pandemic will also inflict severe damage to globalization, free trade, multilateralism, and development cooperation. I conclude the article by arguing that most of the problems witnessed during this crisis, however, are systemic, and caused by dysfunctional neoliberal corporate capitalism. In that sense, if there is a political mandate of this crisis – that is to find an alternative to the obsolete and oppressive neoliberal corporate capitalism which has served a few and failed the many. ; Peer reviewed

As the COVID-19 pandemic propagates throughout the world, speculations have begun of the post-pandemic world. In this article, I argue that the world after COVID-19 will be a different and difficult one, with unprecedented economic hardships and rampant social anxieties becoming the new normal. However, the pandemic also offers a chance to reflect and to revise our course, and to come up with an alternative that will be just and fair for the many. I begin the article by offering an assessment of COVID-19's impact on global power structures and move on to elaborate its possible implications on political processes, particularly on the instruments of democracy and the rule of law. Drawing from various experiences reported during the pandemic, I argue that the post-pandemic world will be characterized by populism, nationalism, intensified citizen surveillance, and curtailed and compromised individual liberties. The pandemic will also inflict severe damage to globalization, free trade, multilateralism, and development cooperation. I conclude the article by arguing that most of the problems witnessed during this crisis, however, are systemic, and caused by dysfunctional neoliberal corporate capitalism. In that sense, if there is a political mandate of this crisis-that is to find an alternative to the obsolete and oppressive neoliberal corporate capitalism which has served a few and failed the many.

The doctoral thesis is dealing with the phenomenon of economic crime in the context of Nepal, i.e. a developing country situated between two big emerging States, China and India. The study starts by explaining objectives and methods of the work, then it gives a short overview about the actual social, economic and political situation of Nepal. Chapter 3 concentrates on the definitions of "economic crime" and describes seven different types, starting with corruption and ending with money laundering. The explanation of these various types is completed by sketching the relevant working agencies the task of which is to fight against specific crimes. In the next chapter, the author at first shows the structure of the Nepali legal order and organisation, before he is looking at various laws/acts relating to economic crime. At the end of chapter 4, he is trying to compare those laws and to assess their stringency and efficiency. Chapter 5 deals more detailledly with relevant working agencies and is structured similar to the previous one, i.e. it explains the organisation, task and powers of each agency as well as their cooperation and, at the end, it tries to assess common features, parallels as well as divergencies between them. Chapter 6 is based upon field studies of the author. On the one hand, it shows the results from questionnaires which were handed out to a lot of persons in Nepal and which might give a rather broad impression about various aspects of economic crime in this country. On the other hand, a very prominent case (Governor and Director of Nepal Rastra Bank) is looked at more intensively, and the author has scanned important original documents in order to give a clear account of its main features. At last, by summing up theoretical, normative and empirical components the author has been caused to deliver some proposals of his own for remedies relating to economic crime, in particular concerning improvements of control mechanisms and establishing a single working agency with different departments for the fight against economic crime. ; Die rechtswissenschaftliche Dissertation befasst sich mit dem Phänomen von "economic crime" (Wirtschaftsstraftaten) im Kontext Nepals, d.h. eines Entwicklungslandes, das zwischen zwei großen Schwellenländern, China und Indien, gelegen ist. Die Untersuchung beginnt mit einer Erläuterung von Zielen und Methoden der Arbeit und gibt dann einen kurzen Überblick über die gegenwärtige gesellschaftliche, wirtschaftliche und politische Lage Nepals. Kap. 3 widmet sich den Definitionen von "economic crime" und beschreibt sieben unterschiedliche Typen, von Korruption bis Geldwäsche. Die Darstellung dieser verschiedenen Typen wird ergäzt durch einen Blick auf die zuständigen staatlichen Stellen, die mit dem Kampf gegen "economic crime" befasst sind. Im nächsten Kapitel zeigt der Verfasser zunächst die Struktur der Rechtsordnung und Staatsorganisation Nepals auf, bevor er sich zahlreichen Rechtsvorschriften bezüglich "economic crime" zuwendet. Am Schluss des 4. Kapitels ist er bestrebt, diese Vorschriften zu vergleichen und ihre Stringenz und Effizienz zu würdigen. Kap. 5 befasst sich ausführlicher mit den zuständigen (Verwaltungs-) Stellen und ist ähnlich aufgebaut wie das vorherige, d.h. es erläutert Aufbau, Aufgabe und Befugnisse jeder Stelle sowie deren Zusammenarbeit und versucht schließlich, Gemeinsamkeiten, Parallelen und Unterschiede zu verdeutlichen. Kap. 6 stützt sich auf Feldstudien des Verfassers. Einerseits zeigt es die Ergebnisse einer Erhebung per Fragebogen auf, den eine Vielzahl von Personen in Nepal erhielten und ausfüllten und durch den wichtige Eindrücke über verschiedene Aspekte von "economic crime" in diesem Land vermittelt werden. Andererseits wird ein überaus prominenter Fall (Gouverneur und Direktor der Nepal Rastra Bank) eigehender erörtert und der Verfasser gibt im Text wichtige Originaldokumente wieder, um die wesentlichen Züge dieses Vorfalls deutlich zu machen. Abschließend stützt sich der Verfasser auf theoretische, normative und empirische Erkenntnisse zur Unterbreitung eigener Vorschläge für Maßnahmen ("remedies") gegen "economic crime", vor allem im Hinblick auf eine Verbesserung der Überwachung und des Vollzugs sowie der Errichtung einer einzigen zuständigen Behörde mit mehreren Abteilungen zum Kampf gegen Wirtschaftsstraftaten.