Bates College SCARAB Honors Theses Capstone Projects Spring 5-2015 Constitutional Assembly Breakdown: A Study of Why Nepal’s Constitution Writing Procces Failed Evan Cooper Bates College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scarab.bates.edu/honorstheses Recommended Citation Cooper, Evan, "Constitutional Assembly Breakdown: A Study of Why Nepal’s Constitution Writing Procces Failed" (2015). Honors Theses. 118. http://scarab.bates.edu/honorstheses/118 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Capstone Projects at SCARAB. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of SCARAB. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Constitutional Assembly Breakdown: A Study of Why Nepal’s Constitution Writing Process Failed A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Politics Bates College In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts by Evan Cooper Lewiston, Maine March 30, 2015 Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my Advisor, Professor Stephen Engel, without whom I could not have completed this project. I would also like to thank the Barlow Thesis Research Fund and the Bates Student Research Fund, who generously funded my travels to Nepal for the interview portion of my thesis. Finally I would like to thank all of my friends and my family who helped me through this process and were available to read my work and bounce ideas off of. ! ! ! II! Abstract! ! This thesis explores the elements that account for why Nepal has failed to draft a new constitution since the end of the civil war in 2006. This study is grounded in two main areas of existing literature. The first is the political economy of collective decision making with a focus on the challenges faced by large groups, such as legislative bodies. The second area of literature focuses more specifically on particular challenges to constitution-drafting or constituent assemblies. Predictions from these literature sources are then applied to a newspaper analysis of eKantipur headline articles from November 2006 to January 2015 to analyze which factors are present as impediments to the constitution process in Nepal. Supplemental interviews from December 2014 are also used in order to highlight how newspaper depictions of the constitutional impasse match with the reality of the Constituent Assembly process. This study finds that while numerous political problems suggested by existing scholars appear to be present in newspaper data, the root of the problem is a lack of legitimacy grounded in the leaders of the four major political parties of Nepal. This study also uses the Nepal case to theory test Andrew Arato’s model of Post Sovereign Constitution Making. Overall, Nepal’s constitution writing failure, which is due to problems of legitimacy, supports the caveats of Arato’s theory. ! ! ! ! ! III! ! ! Table&of&Contents& Introduction!..............................................................................................................................!1! Economic!Overview!of!Nepal!.........................................................................................................!3! Historical!Context!of!Nepal’s!Constitution!Process!................................................................!4! Outline!of!the!Current!Study!.......................................................................................................!15! Chapter!1:!Constitution!Writing!and!Its!Challenges:!An!Overview!of!Legal! Scholarship!..............................................................................................................................!21! Introduction!.....................................................................................................................................!21! The!Problems!of!Collective!Action!............................................................................................!23! ConstitutionLwriting!Normative!Literature!..........................................................................!27! ConstitutionLDrafting!in!practice:!Insights!from!two!Cases!.............................................!34! Post!Sovereign!Constitution!Making!........................................................................................!38! Conclusion!........................................................................................................................................!39! Chapter!2:!Media!Analysis:!Coverage!of!Constitutional!Delays!..............................!42! Introduction!.....................................................................................................................................!42! Collective!Action!Problems!.........................................................................................................!47! Lack!of!Institutions!........................................................................................................................!50! Substantive!Delays!.........................................................................................................................!53! Public!Participation!.......................................................................................................................!55! Problems!of!Legitimacy!................................................................................................................!57! Other!...................................................................................................................................................!61! Conclusion!........................................................................................................................................!61! ! Chapter!3:!Interview!Analysis:!A!Crisis!of!Power,!Trust!and!Legitimacy!............!63! Introduction!.....................................................................................................................................!63! Testing!the!Hypotheses!................................................................................................................!66! Constitutional!Delays!....................................................................................................................!72! Power!Grabs!.....................................................................................................................................!74! A!Fundamental!Lack!of!Trust!.....................................................................................................!79! A!Dearth!Of!Legitimacy!.................................................................................................................!84! Conclusion!........................................................................................................................................!88! Conclusion!................................................................................................................................!90! Bibliography!............................................................................................................................!95! Appendices!..............................................................................................................................!98! ! ! ! ! IV! Introduction In the fall of 2013, I spent the semester studying in Kathmandu, Nepal. While there, I conducted a study on the role of international actors in the constitution process and second Constituent Assembly election in November 2013. Despite the common rhetoric among political leaders that international actors were taking over and destroying the constitution process, my study, based on interview analysis, showed relatively little interference by the international community. The current study seeks to expand off of this research; since the common rhetoric is incorrect what does account for the failures of the constitution process? This study explores the factors that have led to the delay and failure of the creation of a new constitution in Nepal. This study explores an answer to the question of how might we account for why Nepal has thus far failed to draft a constitution? Chapter one begins with an examination of two literatures. The first addresses the political economy of collective decision making with emphasis on the challenges faced by large groups such as legislative bodies. The second focuses more specifically on particular challenges to constitution-drafting bodies or constituent assemblies. These bodies may be a special case insofar as the level of politics is heightened and thus collective action dilemmas may either be simply exacerbated because the stakes are higher or they may manifest themselves in a qualitatively distinct form. The level of politics in constitution making is heightened as explained by Barry Weingast in his work on self- enforcing constitutions.1 Based on an evaluation of this literature, five hypotheses were created to predict the factors that derailed the constitution process in Nepal. Hypothesis 1: Existing political institutions in Nepal are not strong enough to overcome collective action problems in the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Barry Weingast. "Self-Enforcing Constitutions: With an Application to Democratic Stability In America’s First ! 1! legislative and drafting bodies. This will manifest in high transaction costs, a lack of clear committee system, or excessive negotiation time outside of the committee system. Hypothesis 2: There is a dearth of existing political institutions