Nepal’s participatory governance in diverse political systems: a comparative perspective

ABSTRACT

Nepal experienced three major political systems in the last seven decades: the multiparty political system (1958–1961 and 1990–2007), the panchayat political system (1961–1990) and the federalist political system (2007 onwards). Each political system carried its own political philosophy, claiming to inscribe participatory democracy at its core. The research is designed as an in-country comparative case study, taking three key political systems as its units of analysis. It asks how did ordinary people participate in the polity and politics of such diverse yet frequently changing political systems in Nepal? Interpreted from a participatory governance perspective, the research finds that citizen participation in public decision-making apparatuses has been transcending significantly over the last seven decades, yet ordinary people with no political affiliation have been facing difficulty in influencing decisions that affect them.

KEYWORDS:

• Political Systems
• Democracy
• Citizen Participation
• Federalism
• Nepal
• participatory governance

1. Introduction

The last seven decades of political development in Nepal show frequent turbulences in establishing a stable system of government (Bhatta, 2022; Smith, 1984). A political system is understood in this paper as the design and behaviour of political institutions created to achieve certain political purposes (Easton, 1981). This paper explores three key political systems in Nepal introduced in all seven different constitutions implemented in the last seven decades: the multiparty political system (1958–1961 and 1990–2007), the panchayat political system (1961–1990) and the federalist political system (2007 onwards). Each political system features different definitions and diverse methodologies of democracy, yet only a little is known about the comparative strengths and weaknesses of participatory governance under these diverse political systems. This research attempts to address this knowledge gap by asking: how did ordinary people participate in local institutions and processes under these diverse auspices of political systems?

Comparing political systems with a specific aim to understand the dynamics of participatory governance is not a new academic exercise (Font & Motos, 2023). However, many of the available studies seem to focus on cross-country (often within a comparable context) political systems (Buendia, 2021; Halligan, 2020) though in-country comparison of premierships and presidencies (Heffernan, 2005; Uchiyama, 2022), political ideologies (English et al., 2016) and selected public policy areas (Falanga & Lüchmann, 2020) are ubiquitous in the literature. The availability of both normative and empirical knowledge on comparative politics provides a useful analytical framework to interpret the political systems in Nepal.

This research follows an interpretive tradition of qualitative research designs. Inspired by Yin (2013)’s conceptualization of a case study with embedded units of analysis, it considers three diverse political systems viz. the multiparty political system (1958–1961 and 1990–2007), the panchayat political system (1961–1990) and the federalist political system (2016 onwards)—making this research in-country comparative research. Analysis suggests that the notion of participatory governance in Nepal has been adequately acknowledged in its constitutions and other relevant legislation, yet ordinary people do not find many convenient public spaces to influence decision-makers (see also Hachhethu, 2023). However, the latent research on Nepal’s different political systems provides insights that most of the participatory processes were available at the local level, and therefore, the notion of participatory governance has become a local phenomenon (Dahal et al., 2001).

This research is organized into six sections. After this introduction, a review of relevant normative and empirical research is presented. The third section highlights the methodological aspects of this research. Then comes a brief description of the three major political systems of Nepal, with an extensive explanation of local institutions and processes introduced to operate under these political systems. Key findings are discussed in the fifth section. Conclusions summarize the research by showing prospects for future research.

2. Literature review

Theoretical studies on comparative politics show that state structures, the power balance between state mechanisms and the quality of government are influenced by political philosophies and principles (Melanson & King, 1971). Empirical evidence confirms that theoretically, motivated cross-country comparisons tend to scrutinize Western theories and principles of political systems, and therefore, produce usual findings such as the extent to which a nation-state is better off in separating or balancing power between the executive, judiciary and legislative (Khosravi et al., 2021). In the in-country analysis, the theoretical aspects of comparative politics focus on institutions and processes (Table 1). The primary focus of such studies is to understand whether domestic political and administrative entities feature inter alia democratic values, participatory avenues and accountability structures (Fung, 2003).

Table 1. Categories of comparative political systems and their elements.

Theme	Cross-country comparisons	In-country comparisons
Theoretical lens	Political philosophies and principles	Purposive institutions and processes
Analytical base	Political system (i.e. presidential vs prime ministerial)	History
Contexts	government structures (i.e. unitary vs federal)	Political isms (i.e. conservative vs labour), governance (centralized vs decentralzsed)
Focus	Public policies (i.e. environment, health, etc.)	Subnational policies (determined by national politics)

Source: Author’s construct.

The analytical base of cross-country political analysis concentrates on the type of government i.e. presidential vs. prime ministerial (Heffernan, 2005). Empirical questions in this type of comparative research often ask how presidents and prime ministers capitalize on executive power (Doyle, 2020). Drawing a political system that has a presidential system and comparing another country’s political system with a similar power structure seems methodologically simple; yet, the notion of comparison between systems with presidential and prime ministerial is relatively a complex task (Laing & McCaffrie, 2013). In terms of the analytical base for in-country comparative studies, history remains also as a ubiquitous element although there are pragmatic questions as to whether political historians bring anecdotes of how ordinary people with no institutional affiliations participated more or less in a given set of political system (Hossain, 2015).

Context is yet another theme that most of the comparative studies on political systems focus on. The lingual contexts, such as the Anglophone world (Halligan, 2020), the philosophical contexts, such as liberal vs illiberal democracies (Munck & Verkuilen, 2002), the economic contexts, such as the group of G20 countries or members of the OECD world (Clifton & Díaz-Fuentes, 2014) and structural contexts such as multilevel governance (Gagnon, 2018), are dominant analytical contexts in the literature. In the in-country analysis, however, political isms seem pervasive to see the government performance within, for instance, conservative vs labour regimes (English et al., 2016) and democrat vs republican administrations (Gershtenson, 2003). The centralization/decentralization contexts are also crucial in comparing in-country politics (Hankla & Downs, 2010).

Finally, the focus of both cross-country and in-country comparisons is on public policies. There has been a proliferation of comparative policy studies in recent times, with some regional organizations’ efforts to ensure policy harmony within their jurisdictions (Majone, 2014). Public policies are increasingly scrutinized in comparative contexts, as a way of making them science-driven and evidence-based and ensuring policy consistency across different countries (cross-country) and policy domains (in-country) (Howlett & Ramesh, 2022). Inter-state or inter-regional policy comparisons are also evident in the literature, which provide insights into comparing policy subsystems within federal and non-federal countries, respectively (Kaur, 2022).

Studies referred to above show that political systems play key roles in determining whether ordinary people are given adequate and meaningful opportunities in decision-making processes. The classical understanding of representative democracy, for example, asserts that voting as a political institution provides unrestricted spaces for ordinary people (or political candidates and voters) to participate politically in the decision-making systems (Dahl, 2000). A more refined version of this understanding criticizes the classical understanding of representative democracy and calls for participatory democracy through which ordinary people are encouraged to participate somewhat directly in decision-making apparatuses (Pateman, 2012). Recent renewals in our understanding of democratic citizen participation advocate for democratic deliberation, a normative yet practical notion of meaningful participation of ordinary people in the making of political decisions (Elstub, 2018).

The inclusion of ordinary citizens in the process of political decision-making has garnered support across diverse political systems, regardless of their distinctive philosophical and ideological underpinnings. Within certain contexts, the concept of participatory democracy has been progressively recognized as a complementary element to representative democracy. Nevertheless, the formulation of a viable alternative to representative democracy remains a subject of ongoing exploration and debate (Yan & Xin, 2016). In other contexts, such as Nepal, the principles of deliberative democracy have been increasingly embraced to ensure that individuals affected by decisions have ready access to and the potential to exert influence on decision-making mechanisms (Breen, 2021). The overarching inquiry concerning citizen participation within various political paradigms thus resides in the capacity of institutions and processes to foster an environment conducive to participatory governance. To what extent do these regimes demonstrate a commitment to establishing a framework that facilitates and encourages citizen engagement in the decision-making process?

Specific to this research context, the available literature on Nepal’s participatory governance has captured the question of participatory aims of different constitutions, institutions and processes introduced in different political systems (Baral, 2006; Goutam, 2006; Hachhethu, 2006), yet they do not bring adequate in-country comparison in terms of how ordinary people participated throughout the dominant political systems: the multiparty political system (1958–1961 and 1990–2007), the panchayat political system (1961–1990) and the federalist political system (2007 onwards). The features and limits of each political system have also been analysed by both domestic and international authors (Bhusal & Breen, 2021; Khadka, 1986; Smith, 1984; Thapa & Sharma, 2011); yet the notion of participatory governance under each political system has not been comparatively scrutinized. Furthermore, the available literature—written both in Nepali and the English language—fails to comparatively examine diverse political isms practised in Nepal since the introduction of democracy in 1951. Nonetheless, a few policy-specific analyses have been evolving with limited insights into the studies and practices of participatory governance (Carney & Bista, 2009).

3. Research methodology

The literature reviewed above shows distinct classifications: cross-country and in-country comparisons. For this paper, these two dominant categories of comparisons seem useful to understand key methodological aspects and explore comparable themes. While the latent research on comparing political systems predominantly considers cross-country comparisons, in-country comparisons seem rare. This argument provides a glimpse of the research themes that most, if not all, normative and empirical studies of comparative politics offer. These themes are considered as the ‘keywords’ to further research on the topic. In-country comparisons are methodologically more challenging than cross-country comparisons, particularly due to the (un)availability of qualitative data in the English language (because researchers need a thorough understanding of local languages). Methodological tools, such as ethnography, are, therefore, considered plausible in carrying out in-country comparisons (Franzese, 2009). Perhaps as a result, domestic authors with extensive knowledge of the history and local language are often found in engaging in-country analysis of comparative politics while overseas researchers often appear as mere co-authors (for example, Sancton & Zhenming, 2014).

The principal question of this research article is how did ordinary people participate in Nepal’s local institutions and processes under three diverse political systems? The categorization of political systems did not follow any specific pre-existing criteria but adopted a cautious interpretation of the preambles of all seven constitutions implemented since 1948. Here, I acknowledge that all seven constitutions had many common features of participatory democracy and that each constitution features avenues for people to participate in the making of decisions that affect them. It should be noted that the conceptualization of participation in this article is to examine non-electoral methods i.e. voting, with the hope of understanding the degree to which ordinary people were given the opportunity to participate beyond voting. By saying this, I hasten to acknowledge that the aim of this article is not to justify nor falsify the efficacy of participatory prospects devised in each constitution, but to explore the degree to which local participatory institutions and processes were created to incorporate ordinary people’s presence in the making and implementation of local public policies.

Following the interpretive tradition, the research is designed as an in-country comparative case study. Three major timings of the democratic transition in Nepal are considered as case studies: the multiparty political systems (1958–1961 and 1990–2007), the panchayat political system (1961–1990) and the federalist political system (2007 onwards) (Table 2). While existing analytical frameworks (i) aim to understand horizontal and vertical notions of citizen engagement (Arnstein, 1969; Röcke, 2014), (ii) target to explain linear hierarchy of public participation (International Association for Public Participation, 2014) and (iii) hope to bring input-process-output aspects of participatory processes (Fung, 2006), this research has adopted a combination of—though not in exclusive manner—almost all elements featured in these much celebrated analytical frameworks.

Table 2. Constitutions of Nepal.

Name of the Constitution	Year	Fundamental character
The Government of Nepal Act	1948	Legitimisation of the Shah/Rana dynasty
Nepal Interim Government Act	1951	Interim arrangements with basic principles of democracy and human rights
Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal	1958	Multiparty politics
Constitution of Nepal	1962	Panchayat politics
Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal	1990	Multiparty politics
Nepal Interim Constitution	2007	Interim political arrangements with a federalist mindset
The Constitution of Nepal	2015	Federal democratic republic

Source: Author’s own construct, based on the preamble of the relevant constitutions.

Required qualitative data were generated through comprehensive readings of all seven constitutions and available legislative frameworks promulgated to operate under those constitutions. Ten additional semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with distinguished politicians and administrators who have served in different capacities during all these three major reigns. Official publications and relevant academic insights have also been utilized in the research.

4. Participatory governance under different political systems in Nepal

The constitutional development of Nepal shows unexpected turbulences, often characterized as the causes of instability in the political system. Starting from 1948 until 2015, Nepal implemented seven different constitutions, each having its own political and administrative feature in terms of devising the political philosophy, system of government, principles of governance and definition of democracy. For analytical purposes, the basic features of these constitutions have been labelled in this paper as (a) multiparty politics, (b) panchayat politics and (c) federalist politics. While such categorization is considered helpful to discern the specialities and limitations of the specified political systems, I hasten to acknowledge that such differentiation should not be understood in isolation. An interesting commonality amongst all these three categories of political systems is that each of them is fundamentally inscribed in the Westminster principles of politics and democracy.

4.1. Multiparty political systems (1958–1961 and 1990–2007)

The genesis of multiparty politics roots back to the 1930s and 1940s when Nepali politicians were actively organizing campaigns to overthrow the Rana family dynasty. The Rana family came into power, as a shadow monarch, in 1847 with an infamous massacre in Kathmandu. The preliminary efforts to overthrow the Rana dynasty were organized endogenously in Nepal but as the Rana rulers began to kill political actors, most of the political campaigners started to operate stealthily from the neighbouring India. The successful overthrow of the Rana dynasty took place in 1950 which coincided with the Indian liberation from their British colonizers in 1948. In fact, the Government of Nepal Act 1948 was a response from the Rana dynasty to demonstrate sympathy towards political campaigners and a last-minute survival strategy to keep the dynasty alive.

The Government of Nepal Act 1948 could not work as expected because the political campaigners continued to demand to establish people’s sovereignty with the adoption of multiparty democracy in Nepal. As the neighbouring Indian politics was somewhat supportive of Nepali politicians’ efforts to abolish the Rana dynasty, the demand to establish multiparty democracy transcended. Perhaps consequently, King Tribhuvan assured the leading political actors to have an elected Constituent Assembly to write a fresh constitution with multiparty politics as its core political philosophy. The Interim Government Act was then enacted in 1951 as part of the King’s assurance to move towards multiparty democracy in Nepal, but that never happened. Instead, the new King Mahendra proclaimed the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal in 1958—with royal decree—referring to his late father Tribhuvan’s commitment to establish multiparty democracy. This is how Nepal began to exercise multiparty politics only after 1958.

From a participatory governance perspective, the 1948 Act was somewhat clear in terms of citizen participation in governance. The preamble of the constitution reads, ‘ … providing opportunity to our dear people to participate in the state structures … with the sole objective to enhance the quality of Nepali people’s lives’. While this constitutional thirst can be regarded as the first-ever highest-level commitment towards participatory governance, no proper legislative and or institutional arrangements were created thereafter. In contrast, the Government of Nepal Act 1951 was promulgated at a time when King Tribhuvan himself was in a crisis to save the monarchy from Rana oligarchies as well as from mostly leftist political movements. The King’s assurance to have an election for the Constituent Assembly was codified in the constitution, yet the successive King appeared reluctant to form the elected Assembly to write a new constitution. Despite its amendments five times until 1958, the constitution was not vocal about participatory governance. Nonetheless, a local government landscape was flourishing, both as a way of expanding the government of Nepal’s programmes at the local level and addressing the foreign aid conditionalities such as that of the US government’s Point IV programme (Skerry et al., 1991, p. 37).

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal in 1958 was the third constitution in a decade. The preamble of the constitution stresses the need to address people’s demand to establish ‘democracy’ in the country; however, it does not specify any participatory mechanism for ordinary people. While the constitution clearly fostered the atmosphere for multiparty competition to form the House of Representatives, most of the power structures were designed to be governed by the King himself. The arrangements to separate power and balance such as power among the executive, judiciary and legislative were blurred, yet they can be considered as the beginning steps to exercise the theory of separation of power in Nepal. As the constitution was beginning to be implemented with the first-ever election based on multiparty competition, King Mahendra sacked the elected prime minister in 1960, along with the suspension of the constitution of the kingdom of Nepal.

The willingness of Nepali people to establish a multiparty political system in Nepal continued to be undermined until 1990. After the successful joint political movement of both leftist and rightist political parties, King Birendra was forced to enact a fresh constitution with a reaffirmation of the King’s commitment to exercise multiparty democracy in Nepal. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal exclusively mentioned the thirst for ‘participatory democracy’ in its preamble with a range of institutional and procedural avenues at the centre and the local level. One of the directive policies says:

It shall be the chief responsibility of the State to maintain conditions suitable to the enjoyment of the fruits of democracy through wider participation of the people in the governance of the country and by way of decentralisation, and to promote general welfare by making provisions for the protection and promotion of human rights, by maintaining tranquillity and order in the society. Article 25(4)

The fundamental principles of liberal democracy, power balance, political accountability, periodic elections, independent constituent entities and multiparty competitions were exclusively articulated in the Constitution. These features were systematically implemented notwithstanding a lot of tensions and conflicts between political parties—including the insurgent Maoists—and the monarch until 2007.

The second period of multiparty politics (1990–2007) brought some historic—albeit continuity of some of the previously launched participatory processes—footprints to exercise participatory governance in Nepal. The local landscape of governance was reframed with extensive devolution of power and resources to local governments (Bhusal, 2018). Certain features of local decision-making processes were made truly participatory where ordinary people could participate with dignity and meaning (Bhusal & Pandeya, 2022). People’s identities and capacities were greatly acknowledged by local decision-makers irrespective of the absence of electoral politics (Bhusal, 2017).

One key local institution revitalized during the second period of multiparty politics needs special attention. Labelled as the participatory planning process, the prospects for participatory governance began to evolve from below, with the operationalization of a set of diverse yet interconnected informal, semi-formal and formal forums operating at the community and municipal levels (Bhusal, 2019). The interconnectivity of local participatory policymaking institutions with national-level decision-making entities can be considered as the national atmosphere of participatory governance. The post-1990s reforms thus established genuinely democratic participatory infrastructure, though the impact of such infrastructure on actual decisions is still to be known.

4.2. Panchayat political system (1961–1990)

On the 15th of December 1960, the ambitious King Mahendra arrested the elected Prime Minister BP Koirala from a public auditorium where the latter was engaging in political activity. In his coup d’état speech, the King claimed that political organizations and their leaders generated only frustration and ruined peace in the country, which obliged him to replace multiparty politics with non-political panchayat democracy (Mishra, 1982). Consequently, the fundamental values of liberal democracy were suspended, multiparty politics was banned, elected political entities were dismantled and thus the country entered into a new political system. King Mahendra later proclaimed a new constitution with its own approach to political philosophy which he labelled as Panchayat democracy. Although the King proclaimed such a system as homegrown, critiques argue that King Mahendra was inspired by recently introduced political systems in Pakistan, Indonesia and Egypt—often described as the ‘third world model of democracy’ (Bhuwan Chandra Upreti, 1984, p. 36).

From liberal and representative democracy perspectives, the new political order of the King was obviously hampering the evolution of multiparty politics. However, the operational framework of the panchayat system garnered a conducive atmosphere for participatory democracy in Nepal. The institutional framework of Nepal’s panchayat system was designed in a way that citizens of different identities and capacities would be able to participate in any of its four-tiered, hierarchical and top-down structures: national panchayat (a legislative body), zones, districts and villages or towns, respectively. While the notion of participatory democracy was starting to evolve globally in the early years of the 1960s, there were questions about the extent to which the panchayat politics in Nepal had features of participatory democracy (Baral, 2006).

In its nearly 30 years of survival until 1990, panchayat politics faced fierce criticisms both endogenously by outlawed political parties and educated class and exogenously by neighbouring and donor countries (Skerry et al., 1991). To cope with such antagonistic reactions, King Mahendra and his son King Birendra continued to bring political and administrative reforms, some of whose impact can still be seen in Nepal’s contemporary federal politics. The establishment of village/municipal and district panchayats is still regarded as the foundation of modern-day local governments in Nepal (Hachhethu, 2008). The promulgation of the Decentralisation Act 1982 is greatly acknowledged as the founding framework upon which the participatory thirst of Nepali people is still thriving (Adhikari, 2006). Similarly, the modern-day administrative mechanisms or the civil service are still on the same basis as the panchayat politics introduced in the early years of the 1970s (Dhungel, 2011).

Undoubtedly, panchayat politics brought basic principles, institutions and processes of participatory governance in Nepal. Although the principles of participatory governance of the panchayat period were not clearly democratic—at least from the liberal democracy perspectives, the ideas and rationales of offering participatory opportunity to ordinary people created a true participatory atmosphere in Nepal (Dharamdasani, 1984). With their expansion, the original ideas of participatory institutions and processes at the national, zonal, district and local levels were unintendedly evolved as technocratic avenues suitable only for bureaucrats (Khadka, 1986). By the end of the 1980s, most, if not all, participatory platforms were dominated by bureaucrats, abandoning ordinary people’s right to and potential for participating in decision-making processes.

Regardless of their innovativeness and perhaps goodwill, participatory institutions and processes of panchayat politics were not widely accepted (Khanal et al., 2005). Three key features of the panchayat politics were responsible for this circumstance. First, the participatory institutions were designed in a way that the central control over local public deliberation was inevitable. Ordinary people across many localities would never feel safe to raise their voices because the bureaucratic representatives of the central government used to intimidate them with threats of exclusion. An interviewee of this research recalls:

I was assigned to work as Local Development Officer (LDO) in _____ district. As part of our annual budgetary process, we had to organise several consultative and deliberative meetings across nine Ilakas (specific territories within a district). In principle and also based on the Decentralisation Act 1982, I was responsible to organise such meetings, choose participants, determine deliberation methods, and ultimately attest record of discussions. While such meetings were meant to be truly participative and democratically deliberative, we used to get instructions from the top to control who should participate and who should speak. We used to bare unlisted participants from raising their opinions.

Second, most of the participatory platforms were designed to attract only those individuals who were considered loyal to the panchayat system (Messerchmidt et al., 1983). As can be learned from the interview transcript above, organizers were instructed to organize consultative forums in a way that only royalists would be encouraged to participate. This caused antagonistic perspectives about the participatory forums that were created with noble aims.

Third, most of the participatory chances would be captured by local elites representing upper-caste Bramhins and Kshetriyas, forcing lower-caste Dalits and other marginalized communities to remain excluded (Jha, 1984). When a major cluster of social groups ignores participating in any public event, the efficacy of participatory institutions and the effectiveness of decisions produced via such institutions remain unacceptable.

4.3. Federal political system (2007 onwards)

The promulgation of the federalist constitution in 2015 brought unprecedented changes in Nepal’s political history. Foremost of all is the transformation of state structure from the unitary system of government to a federalist one, which leveraged to establish three levels of government: federal, provincial and local. This new landscape of federalist politics aims to address at least three perennial problems: governmental, developmental and societal. The first problem relates to the unitary model of government which caused excessive centralization of power and resources, despite efforts of the aforesaid political systems to decentralize them (Dhungel et al., 2011). The developmental problems associated with geographic disbalance in terms of infrastructure development and human prosperity. Irrespective of efforts made during the panchayat and multiparty politics, Nepal’s geographic image of development remains imbalanced (National Planning Commission and United Nations Development Program, 2020). The societal problems are deeply rooted in Hinduism-based cultures. Caste-based discrimination is one but has been said to bring uncivilized and inhuman exclusionary social practices in Nepal (Lecomte-Tilouine, 2009).

Along with these three relatively exclusive logics behind the introduction of federalism, three diverse crises also played implicit yet crucial roles in bringing federalist politics to Nepal. The first crisis began in the mid-1990s when a political fraction called Maoists launched a violent insurgency to solve the malaises of multiparty politics. The insurgency lasted for 10 years (1994–2004), leaving more than seventeen thousand people dead, thousands of others disappeared and hundreds of thousands displaced. While the violent insurgency is still notorious for its inhuman methodology, many believe that it caused massive public mobilization against the pre-existing governmental, developmental and social problems (B.C. Upreti, 2008). The second crisis that caused the emergence of federalist politics in Nepal is linked with the Royal massacre of 2004, which left most of the royal family members dead. Amidst the growing mistrust amongst ordinary people about the role of the monarch—primarily instigated by the Maoist insurgency, the massacre brought a consensus—though contested—amongst influential political parties to replace the monarchy with a republic system of government (Government of Nepal, 2006). And the third crisis appeared along with the earthquake in April 2015 that killed about ten thousand people. The earthquake reminded the ruling political parties to institutionalize the changes caused both affirmatively and adversely by the two crises of Maoist insurgency and the royal massacre. Consequently, a fresh new constitution was promulgated by the Constituent Assembly in September 2015 (Breen, 2021).

The federalist politics in Nepal thus emerged with big promises. On the state structures, federalist politics is now exercised at the federal, provincial and local levels. State power and resources are constitutionally divided across these federal entities. Each level of government is empowered with constitutionally assigned power, resources, roles and responsibilities. Several coordination arrangements are in place to make sure that each level of government operates with the principles of cooperation, collaboration and coordination (Bhusal, 2023a). On the functional side, ordinary people are devised to participate in many policy areas across the federal, provincial and local levels although the focus of much of the participatory avenues exists at the local level. Unlike previous political systems, the federalist structure empowers local governments with unprecedented scale and amount of autonomy in the design and operationalization of participatory platforms (Acharya & Zafarullah, 2022). While the new landscape of local governance has certainly expanded the scope for citizen participation across a range of local policy regimes, modern-day local governments demonstrate variances—though not significantly—in terms of the institutional design, adoption of participatory ideals and thus overall efficacy of participatory processes (Bhusal & Pandeya, 2022).

Although it would be too early to assess the implications of participatory avenues created to implement under the federalist political system, it is important to recognize the existence of diverse types of participatory political institutions at different levels of government. At the federal level, all three branches of the government—executive, judiciary and legislative—seem to offer varying degrees of participatory opportunities to people of different types, identities, capacities and interests. At the provincial level, most of the federal government’s approaches to participatory governance appear to have been imitated although some provincial governments in recent times have endeavoured to bring innovative ideas and methodologies to broaden citizen participation. At the local level, the notion of participatory governance seems flourishing, most notably with the continuation of previously effective participatory platforms.

5. Findings and their discussions

Framed in the analytical frameworks mentioned in Section 3 of this article, the following five key insights are found as results of this research. While these findings are generated alongside the extensive reading of all seven constitutions and the relevant regulatory frameworks promulgated in each of the three dominant political systems, interview transcripts have also helped to refine and verify the result. Discussions are presented simultaneously with key findings.

First, Nepal’s experiment with three diverse yet relatively overlapped political systems gives a single message to the studies and practices of participatory governance: the political system itself may not have much role in materializing the prospects of citizen participation but underlying methodologies to offer participation to ordinary people play crucial roles. This message, nonetheless, should not be understood in isolation. When the political system is conducive to facilitate participation as a civic right, it is possible—though not inevitable—that adequate participatory avenues are created where ordinary citizens may enjoy their constitutionally defined rights. The first ever promulgated constitution of Nepal (1948), for example, exclusively mentioned citizen participation but no necessary institutions and processes were created thereafter. Similarly, the successive two constitutions of 1951 and 1958 did not mention much about participatory aims yet some remarkable steps to establish Gram Panchayats (local governments) in some parts of the country were taken (Skerry et al., 1991).

Earlier research carried out in other contexts also provides seemingly similar findings. Canada has been one of the pioneering democracies and China is criticized for its notoriously closed political system. If the political system is to blame or to criticise, the participatory governance landscape would have been different from what Sancton and Zhenming (2014) have demonstrated in their book on comparing citizen participation in China and Canada:

We set out to examine [in the book] how local citizens in each country participate at the local level. We managed to share some common vocabulary and discovered some common practices, such as formal public hearings and surveys of citizens to determine program effectiveness. We learned that in both countries [China and Canada] government encouragement of participation is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for real citizen influence. We also learned that lower-income citizens in both countries are not on an equal footing unless special efforts are made to facilitate their participation (Zhenming, 2015).

Empirical evidence from different parts of the world reveals that political ideologies matter as leftist political ideals are said to be more favourable to offering participatory opportunities to ordinary people (Wampler, 2008). The Brazilian municipality of Potre Alegre and the Indian state of Kerala provide insights into the influence of leftist political ideologies on citizen participation (Heller, 2001). Drawing on the much-celebrated cases of participatory governance, and also generating similar sense from this research, it can be established as a knowledge base that local institutions and processes—but not the overall outlet of the national political system—are conducive to flourish citizen participation (Fung & Wright, 2003).

Second, from the interpretation of available participatory institutions and processes within the auspices of three different political systems in Nepal, it is evident that the quality of institutions, processes, methodologies, and even the outcome of citizen participation programmes have been increasing. Although the foundation of Nepal’s participatory governance was created only after the 1960s when King Mahendra adopted ambitious apolitical democracy, much of the modern-day participatory traditions were inscribed on the panchayat institutions and processes. The earlier efforts to attract ordinary people to local decision-making apparatuses were merely informative, vis-à-vis one-sidedly informing citizens about the governmental programmes. As the panchayat political system progressed throughout the 1960s, reformers began to design participatory forums as grassroots-level informative avenues. Appointed bureaucrats at the local level would visit villages/towns with official information to disseminate in mass gatherings, typically organized by the Panchas (chiefs) of village panchayats (Abullaish, 1980). By the 1970s and early years of the 1980s, ordinary people and local officials had developed some form of skill to participate, and have their say and thus informative forums of the 1960s were transformed into consultative and deliberative platforms (Messerchmidt et al., 1983).

After the re-introduction of parliamentary democracy in 1990, these participatory platforms became more systematic. With the (new) constitutional aim, much of the legislative, institutional and procedural aspects of local governance were (re)designed to foster the participation of ordinary people in decision-making mechanisms. Unlike previous design choices and methodologies, reformers reinvigorated participatory institutions to engage citizens across all the steps of the policy cycle (Government of Nepal, 1999). Citizens were not only offered participatory spaces but also were encouraged to collaborate with local governments to implement small-scale projects that benefit them (Huntington et al., 1999). The progress of participatory practices continued to advance in recent times as local governments under the federalist constitution are given unprecedented power and resources to empower citizens (of different identities, interests and skills) through participatory institutions (Bhusal & Breen, 2021).

Third, with these relatively good signs of progress in participatory traditions, the modern-day participatory forums seem to be focussing more on the ‘attendance’ of citizens, rather than generating valuable ‘voice’ of ordinary people. During the multiparty politics in the 1990s and 2000s, participatory processes were under extreme need to include citizens of diverse identities and from minority communities (Ministry of Federal Affairs Local Development, 2013), which established a ceremonial tradition to invite women, Dalits and other minority communities in municipal-level participatory events (Provincial and Local Governance Support Program, 2019). After the promulgation of the new local government act, such traditions continued to thrive, both as a legislative requirement to be implemented by municipalities and also as rubrics of participatory governance to be adopted across a range of participatory platforms at the local level.

While finding women, Dalits and other minority communities in public deliberative forums can itself be regarded as a good sign for inclusive and or democratic participatory governance, there is a question of the degree to which such participants can influence actual decisions (Bhusal, 2019). As Fung (2006) argues, the incapacity of participants to influence actual decisions cannot be regarded as participatory hence reformers need more attention to designing participatory institutions more carefully (see also Fung, 2003). This research provides an insight that the Panchayati efforts to participatory local governance did not mean to influence decision-makers or decisions, which made those efforts relatively undemocratic. However, during multiparty and federalist political timings, the aims of participatory forums were to design and deliver participatory practices in line with democratic principles and values.

Fourth, the institutional design of participatory forums across all three periods of political systems appeared with flaws. All political systems—including the most recent federalist politics—aim to bring ordinary people into the broader framework of the national political system, yet participatory avenues of all times appear to have been designed to operate in isolation. During the Panchayat period (1960–1990), reformers focussed on creating informative and consultative forums at the local level. Local officials organized such forums in villages and towns but what (content) came out of those forums was not known. Some scholars doubt that local officials used those forums to intimidate participants with ‘state power’ (Khadka, 1986; Pant, 1966). The effectiveness of participatory forums of the Panchayat regime was, therefore, unclear. In contrast, the second phase of multiparty politics (1990–2007) seemed relatively promising to flourish the practice of participatory governance. Most of the participatory processes at the local level were organized as ‘collaborative forums’ where ordinary people and local officials would negotiate not only to formulate local public policies but also to implement small-scale developmental programmes. Although the participatory planning process was portrayed as a fourteen-step process—linking local government activities with the central government’s policymaking regime, there remains doubt as to whether decision-makers at local and the national levels were affirmative to incorporating public views into actual policies (Pandeya & Shrestha, 2016). The last seven years experience of federalist politics also shows a similar pattern though the recent moves towards participatory governance seem focussing on empowering people of different identities, capacities and interests (Bhusal, 2023b).

Finally, as with other participatory processes around the globe, the incompatibility between the ideals of representative institutions and participatory processes appeared pervasive across all three political systems in Nepal. Although the Panchayat political system did not embrace many of the principles of representative democracy, there remained the absence of explicit aims, standard methodologies and political and administrative rationale of actual institutions and processes for citizen participation. Consequently, local administrators and political elites took such forums as their prerogative instruments to validate their actions and inactions across communities. In multiparty politics, the contestation between the ideals of representative and participatory democracy appeared more visible. Local governments after the 1990s were designed as elected bodies although there could not be any local elections between 2002 and 2017 (Bhusal, 2018). As part of this research, the interview transcripts confirm that Nepali elected politicians continue to underestimate the notion of participatory democracy merely because they reach power through the rungs of representative democracy.

6. Conclusions

The research brought a comparative case of Nepal’s participatory governance, by framing Nepal’s political development into three broad political systems: the multiparty political system (1958–1961 and 1990–2007), the panchayat political system (1961–1990) and the federalist political system (2007 onwards). It finds that each political system brought new dimensions of, and prospects for, citizen participation, with significant inheritance of participatory ideals, institutions and rationales from one system to the other. These dimensions are quite similar to the major steps articulated in the public participation spectrum of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) although it is not clear whether reformers of the relevant time were objectively inspired to design participatory institutions to fit into the aforesaid spectrum. The research nonetheless confirms that the quality of participatory institutions and processes hsa been gradually enhancing since their first appearance in the early years of the 1960s, albeit with varying influence of the national political system on local participatory governance.

This paper has yielded a fundamental argument pertaining to the interplay between the overarching regime type, namely the political system, and the potential for ordinary individuals to participate in decision-making processes. Building upon prior research with analogous inquiries, this study substantiates that subnational institutions and processes assume a pivotal role in delineating the landscape of participatory governance. While it is a common assertion that the character of the national political system may influence participatory governance, the findings of this research furnish evidence that certain localised participatory mechanisms can, at times, furnish a more extensive arena for the engagement of ordinary citizens than those provided by the overarching national political structure.

Analytically, this research gathered evidence from Nepal on how different political systems in the last seven decades were facilitating or obstructing citizen participation in local decision-making processes. The findings of this research are expected to help reformers to (re)consider previously implemented successful participatory processes whilst designing new participatory avenues to operate under the federalist political system. While the research endeavoured to cover different political systems to understand the notion of participatory governance, future research may build upon the findings of this research and devise comparative studies to examine participatory governance at the federal, provincial and local levels. There even seems a possibility to design research to compare cross-provincial and cross-municipal practices of participatory governance in Nepal.

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thaneshwar Bhusal

Dr Thaneshwar Bhusal is an honorary professional associate of the University of Canberra in Australia. For the last five years, he has been actively engaged in academic research in the field of participatory governance, local democracy, and federalism in the context of Nepal. He tweets from @tsbhusal.