Robust Democracy Requires National Sovereignty

Constitutional politics is the basis of moral legitimacy. It is derived from the consent of people expressed in opinion, wishes, rights and interests. This consent is the source of state sovereignty and independent authority to govern the statecraft within the bounded space, population and governance without undesirable external interference. In this sense the state is the collective representative of people in international affairs. Internally too democracy is based on national self-determination of politics, law making process and contextual policies and initiatives beneficial to all people.  Political stability rests on how the government and the governed balance each other’s rights and duties in a harmonious way. The way the operation of political power is exercised as per democratic spirit strengthens popular sovereignty envisaged by Nepali constitution. National sovereignty grows with the coercive power of the state mutually entered into a Faustian Pact where people sacrifice part of their liberty for personal security.  This coercive power is vital to create order, enforce rule, husband its resources and distribute public goods to the people.  Popular sovereignty is bolstered by cooperative power of people. The system of checks and balances, devolution of power, provisions of rights including human rights and institutional design protect freedom of Nepalis. Welfare state is crafted to reflect the conscience of this democracy.

The current government under Prime Minister Balendra Shah is struggling to live up to the hopes ordinary people have placed on it and reclaiming the state to bridge the gap between legal and factual equality of Nepalis aiming to create opportunities for the poor through modernization of agriculture, reviving industries, equalizing educational and health sphere and merit-based social mobility thus including the interests of disenfranchised sukumbasis in the bodypolitik. Obviously empowerment of those at the bottom of society, controlling the thieves of state, rights-abusers, free-riders and deep state agencies can establish a national integrity system of governance and enable people to exercise their sovereignty in politics, leadership, institutions and policy and make democracy robustly outcome-oriented. People’s participation in provisions and production of public goods, local entrepreneurship and regulation of borders can contribute to substitute imports and spur economic self-reliance while contextual education improves their cognitive skills, ability and enables them to pass sane judgment on the performance of leadership. A robust democracy in Nepal is premised on a number of factors:

Popular Sovereignty: The impulse of information revolution is pushing for participatory democracy in Nepal as people know how to exercise sovereignty embedded in them and participate in the composition of political power which is by no means private. Popular sovereignty is generated by people acting in concert, vesting in them and actualized for collective wellbeing. It evaporates if people remain disunited, apathetic and lack will to imagine, assert, plan, devise strategies and enforce norms of cooperative action. Nepalis love for freedom has kept national independence durable. Their renewed consciousness about constitutional rights is demanding action to realize them for self-governance. Transparency and accountability are its key factors. People exercise them through their political agencies and means of communication–mobile phones, letters to the editors, public meetings in parties and civil society and even peaceful protests. They seek workable solutions to their problems of poverty, inequality, exclusion and abuse of rights. The circulation of education, health, infrastructures, information and resources in the entire Nepali society is essential to harmonize the state- society relationship, their mutual accountability and reciprocity. Real unity of the state with the centripetal forces of society can occur if the state is able to execute the constitution in the entire society, compress the anarchy of free will of powerful, punish the wrong doers and enable people to pursue their life of liberty, property and happy coexistence under indivisible sovereignty. In the future, one may anticipate a shift from the partisanization of local government to depoliticization so that political stratification of society does not create bottleneck for collective action for development and governance but cultivate democratic citizenship with access to natural resources, health, education, infrastructures and equal opportunity on the basis of civic equality. It can reduce the cost of politics, increase civic efficacy of Nepalis and gain access to resources and the stream of life raises to higher political awareness and greater social mobility.     

 Principle of Subsidiarity:

 Development experts believe in the power of subsidiarity for development. The notion of subsidiarity presumes the suitability and rationality of policy making, design and execution by the involvement of those at the grassroots level who are affected by the policy. Nepalis at the grassroots level bring contextual experience and knowledge, identify resources and personnel and formal and informal institutions who can take ownership, properly monitor the process and bear responsibility for the maintenance of local projects. Outsiders can only bring the capital, technology and cognitive frame to match them. In Nepal, however, conditionalization of aid on governance reform, minimal state, free market, human rights, cut in agricultural subsidy, privatization of import-substituting industries, labor market reforms attuned to globalization has torn up the liberal principle of democratic choice of people and undermined both popular sovereignty and subsidiarity. They have distorted national priority, created dependency and weakened the fiscal basis of Nepali state and consequently the writ of democracy. The ideological veil of top-down and external model of development has thus generated a fiscal crisis of the state, opened an insidious conflict faultline between the polity and radical political parties and society, created democracy-free zones and retreat of state from society causing authority deficits.  

Responsive Political System:

A robust democracy abolishes discretionary power of authorities.  Such power  reflects  a patrimonial system where governance is personalized and run without democratic prerequisites of performance in areas of basic needs fulfillment and rule of law. It does not care about establishing a level playing field whereby both powerful and powerless can compete for leadership in the political process through the power of class and mass mediation by the constitution.  Ancient regime like that run by Ranas sought personal loyalty of state authorities and people to them, not to the state and distributed positions, lands and resources to families, loyalists and followers for personal consolidation of power. Reckless exploitation of people amounts to the violation of individual freedom provided by the rule of law under modern democracy. Obviously, reducing human relationship to the hierarchy of power sinks democracy into unrestrained authoritarianism. Its political culture survived even after the restoration of democracy and constitutional tradition of politics. Top party leaders upon climbing the higher position of power in Nepal did not make a distinction between the public and the private sphere and spread the reign of party in every sphere of life of the state and people akin to partiocracy.

This has weakened Nepali democracy to act impersonally in matters of distribution of public goods and services in the entire society. Patrimonial politics detests the merit system and suffers from the performance deficits. This is the reason Nepal has witnessed decadal cycle of political change with no government fulfilling its tenure of five years. The current politics of generational change organized by youths springs from the disharmony between modern, democratic aspiration of people fed by insatiable information and knowledge and traditional habits of power, privilege and patronage. Democracy can become stable not only by the constitution but by constitutional behavior of leaders, state authorities, business, civil society and the people. Resolution of national problems requires multi-disciplinary skills and engagement, not only street stirs every time to fragment political sphere and foment instability. The polity must be reasonable to make all actors act as per their mandate and jurisdiction and become accountable for their actions to people, the source of national sovereignty.    

Policy Innovation:

The struggle of Prime Minister Shah’s government appears as a figure of hope. It aims to create a rule-based welfare democratic system in Nepal able to perform constitutional duties and address activism of civil society, negative externality of market and layers of opposition struggling to return to power without vaunted public purpose.  His success depends on how he can overcome the forces of resistance to governance reform in a decent and legitimate way.  The struggle to cut human relationships on the basis of power and hierarchy from public life and public policy, in the long run, helps to establish democratic equality and civic culture in the nation. As democracy detests discretionary power of executive and legislative units entering into executive domain through constituency development fund, it is high time to repair the power balance of the polity and strengthen the power of national sovereignty in global politics.

The judiciary too needs its integrity and ability to fairly adjudicate the justice on the basis of public morality and prudence, not syndicate and political setting. This is central to protect the rights of the weak beyond legal quibbling. Interpretation of law on the basis of constitutionality, not personal, pecuniary or partisan bias can restore faith in the justice system. The autonomy of executive, legislatures and judiciary above the interest groups of society and downward accountability to people strengthens the social basis of democracy and makes it vibrant. The locus of popular sovereignty is the legislative power of people. French constitutional theorist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes rightly argues the legislature is “the soul that gives form, life and unity to the commonwealth”. But when the legislature is devoid of policy and law making  functions  and interested only in the executive domain of power and privileges  practiced until recently it tramples the beauty of democracy and undercuts the sovereignty—the core of people’s power. Democratic control of government on tax and financial resources can enable the state to respond to the unrealized needs and rights of weaker sections of Nepali society. The problem of Nepal is not a physical factor associated with landlocked status. Its geographical and topographical diversity has offered enough resource endowment for progress. The problem is fiscal and contextual planning. Nepal cannot animate its development potential so long as needed finance is missing owing to corruption, capital flight, misallocation and lack of adequate investment in the productive sector of the economy to satisfy livelihood and diversify in the international market to augment the nation’s independent freedom of maneuver. It entails the courage of government to liberate national potential and unselfish devotion to public goods, the elegance of statecraft.