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 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.

AbstractNepal's 2015 federal constitution empowers local governments with significant autonomy, power, and resources for local policymaking, developmental programs, and public services. This research examines this new landscape of local governance as experienced during the first electoral tenure from 2017 to 2022, exploring the quality of local democracy in Nepal. Designed as interpretive research and analysed through a set of participatory democracy frameworks, the findings uncover mixed progress in the capacity of local democratic institutions to utilise constitutionally guaranteed power and resources. The findings of this study offer fresh academic and professional insights on Nepal's local democracy, participatory governance, and federalism.