Securing the peace or renegotiating the political settlement? Understanding popular support for post-conflict constitutions

ABSTRACT

How do ordinary citizens view elite-driven, post-conflict constitutional reforms? Established theories emphasize the role of constitutional reform in both postwar democratization and preventing conflict resurgence. This article contends that emphasis on fostering political inclusion and settling conflicts resonates differently across post-conflict societies. Focusing on Nepal, this study draws on a survey implemented with over 1,000 respondents shortly after the ratification of the country’s constitution in 2015. The exploratory analysis shows that even when post-conflict constitutions grant greater rights to historically marginalized groups in absolute terms, they may still perceive that greater concessions would be possible; this makes such groups more likely to oppose the constitution and more likely to prefer extended negotiation periods. Conversely, Nepalis exposed to higher violence during the Maoist insurgency from 1996 to 2006 view the constitution as the conclusion of the peace process and are more supportive of the constitution and opposed to longer negotiation periods. The analysis further highlights that some excluded groups were less likely to learn about constitutional negotiations at all. We identify new pathways influencing the democratic legitimacy of post-conflict constitutions, offering insights for internal and external stakeholders involved in constitutional reform processes and their aftermath.

KEYWORDS:

• civil war
• constitutional reform
• political settlements
• peacebuilding
• Nepal

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS) in Kathmandu, Nepal, particularly Bishnu Pant, Ram Khadka, and Anuj Bhandari for invaluable support conducting the survey. We are also grateful to Rohan Edrisinha, Whitney Taylor, and participants in the 2023 American Political Science Association Annual Conference for valuable feedback on prior drafts and to two anonymous reviewers.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated and analysed for this current study will be made available on the International Food Policy Research Institute's Harvard Dataverse page under IFPRI (2024), “Nepal Rural Households Survey.”

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Ozcelik and Olcay, “(Un)Constitutional Change Rooted in Peace Agreements.”

2 Garbiras-Díaz, García-Sánchez, and Matanock, “Political Elite Cues and Attitude Formation.”

3 Edrisinha, “Challenges of Post Peace Agreement Constitution Making”; Hutt, “Before the Dust Settled”; Khanal, “Participatory Constitution Making in Nepal.”

4 Elfversson and Höglund, “Are Armed Conflicts Becoming More Urban?”

5 Ginsburg, Elkins, and Blount, “Does the Process of Constitution-Making Matter?”

6 Lijphart, “Consociational Democracy.”

7 Agarin, “The Limits of Inclusion.”

8 Sriram, “Making Rights Real?”

9 Simeon, “Introduction.”

10 Agarin and McCulloch, “How Power-Sharing Includes and Excludes Non-Dominant Communities.”

11 Carey, “Does It Matter How a Constitution Is Created?”

12 Di John and Putzel, “Political Settlements.”

13 Kahneman and Tversky, “Prospect Theory.”

14 Mercer, “Prospect Theory and Political Science.”

15 Steinacker, “Externalities, Prospect Theory, and Social Construction.”

16 Masters, “Support and Nonsupport for Nationalist Rebellion.”

17 Vis, “Prospect Theory and Political Decision Making.”

18 Weyland, “Risk Taking in Latin American Economic Restructuring.”

19 McDermott, Risk-Taking in International Politics.

20 Lenowitz, Constitutional Ratification without Reason.

21 Garbiras-Díaz, García-Sánchez, and Matanock, “Political Elite Cues and Attitude Formation.”

22 Snyder and Ballentine, “Nationalism and the Marketplace of Ideas.”

23 Baum and Potter, “Mass Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy”; Berinsky, “Assuming the Costs of War”; Haas and Khadka, “If They Endorse It, I Can’t Trust It”; Matanock and Garbiras-Díaz, “Considering Concessions.”

24 Nathan, “The Real Deal?”

25 Hancock, “There Is No Alternative.”

26 Bell, “Bargaining on Constitutions.”

27 Arjona, “War Dynamics and the ‘NO’ Vote.”

28 Matanock and García-Sánchez, “The Colombian Paradox.”

29 Balcells, “The Consequences of Victimization on Political Identities.”

30 Demobilization from politics has been observed, for example, among those exposed to sexual violence during war (Wood, “Variations in Sexual Violence”).

31 Do and Iyer, “Geography, Poverty, and Conflict.”

32 Tamang, “Exclusionary Processes and Constitution Building in Nepal.”

33 Ibid.

34 Lecours, “The Question of Federalism in Nepal.”

35 Adhikari and Gellner, “New Identity Politics.”

36 Breen, “Nepal, Federalism and Participatory Constitution-Making.”

37 ACLED, “Protests and Riots in Nepal, 2010-2016.”

38 HRW, “Like We Are Not Nepali.”

39 Breen, “Nepal, Federalism and Participatory Constitution-Making.”

40 Hutt, “Before the Dust Settled.”

41 Edrisinha, “Challenges of Post Peace Agreement Constitution Making.”

42 Hutt argues that the Maoists, fearing political irrelevance if the NC and UML drafted the constitution without them, were ready to come to the bargaining table even before the earthquake struck and that a deal would likely have been reached sometime in 2015 regardless.

43 ICG, “Nepal’s Divisive New Constitution.”

44 Other issues included the way in which Nepali citizenship rights affected Madhesi women who inter-married with men across the Indian border and their children (see Grossman-Thompson and Dennis, “Citizenship in the Name of the Mother”).

45 As cited in Suwal, “Accepting Six-State Federal Model Is Suicidal.”

46 Sharma and Najar, “Plan for New Nepal Districts.”

47 Chemjong, “‘Limbuwan Is Our Homeland.”

48 While the final constitution formally remained secular, the final version explained that secularism included protecting old-established religions, understood to mean Hinduism and Buddhism—protections that may not be extended to religions perceived as coming from elsewhere in South Asia (see Gellner and Letizia, “Religion and Secularism in Contemporary Nepal”).

49 Hutt, “Before the Dust Settled.”

50 Cited in Björnehed, Ideas in Conflict, 170.

51 Breen, “Nepal, Federalism and Participatory Constitution-Making.”

52 World Bank, World Development Indicators.

53 Hainmueller, “Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects”; Hainmueller and Xu, “Ebalance: A Stata Package for Entropy Balancing.”

54 We also asked enumerators at the end of the survey whether they perceived that any specific questions made respondents feel uncomfortable, faced any refusals to answer, or heard negative feedback from respondents during the survey. Enumerators indicated difficulties with the political questions in less than 1 percent of interviews. Excluding these interviews from the sample does not affect results (available upon request).

55 Because the Nepali army has historically been linked with Khas Aryas, it is possible that marginalized groups would feel differentially pressured to falsify their preferences with army presence. However, we do not see evidence of this among marginalized ethnic groups, who also express lower support for the constitution on average in areas with army presence (4 percentage points lower). We thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.

56 Do and Iyer, “Geography, Poverty, and Conflict.”

57 Gilligan, Pasquale, and Samii, “Civil War and Social Cohesion.”

58 Gellner, Adhikari, and Bahadur, “Dalits in Search of Inclusion.”

59 Wing, “Hands Off My Constitution.”

60 Moehler, “Participation and Support for the Constitution in Uganda.”

61 Do and Iyer, “Geography, Poverty, and Conflict.”

62 Kyle and Resnick, “Delivering More with Less.”

63 In the Appendix, we show formal tests on awareness, controlling for other socio-economic factors likely to affect political information.

64 Breen, “Nepal, Federalism and Participatory Constitution-Making.”

65 Carey, “Does It Matter How a Constitution Is Created?”; Claassen, “Does Public Support Help Democracy Survive?”; Eisenstadt, LeVan, and Maboudi, “When Talk Trumps Text.”

66 Pradhan, “Civic Group Marches in Kathmandu.”

67 IDEA, Marginalized Groups and Constitution Building.

68 Mross, “First Peace, Then Democracy?”

69 Bell and Zulueta-Fülscher, “Sequencing Peace Agreements and Constitutions.”

Additional information

Funding

The Nepal Rural Households Survey was supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Policy Reforms Initiatives Project in Nepal and ReSAKKS-Asia. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The authors also thank the David M. Rubenstein Fellowship at The Brookings Institution and the donors who fund the CGIAR research initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: www.cgiar.org/funders for support for Resnick and Kyle, respectively.

Notes on contributors

Jordan Kyle

Jordan Kyle is a research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. Her research focuses on how to improve public services, how policy implementation shapes citizen-state relations, and voice and political inclusion.

Danielle Resnick

Danielle Resnick is a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution in the Global Economy and Development Program. Key research areas include the political economy of agricultural policy and food systems, decentralization, urban governance, informality, and democratization.