Need For Strengthening Systemness Of Polity

The Nepali political system is under pressure and in search of systemness for the correct disposition of rules, leaders, institutions, legitimacy and practices. It is continuously encountering difficulties in regulating the behaviour of all public institutions, the body politic, political parties, non-political seamless sub-systems of society and the general people locked in mutual interdependence. The changing pattern of political socialisation of elites and the masses does not seem to be a system-conforming cast. The ties of subsystems with the political system are not linear. It is linked to several feedback mechanisms, including inter-institutional communication among leaders and authorities. Their norm-based, regularised patterns of interactions do not disrupt security and legitimate political order endowed by the principles of democracy, rights of people, social and ecological justice, progress and peace. 

The edifice of justice helps resolve all problems and conflicts of society by peaceful means of compromise and adjudicatory means. In Nepal, however, the political system has always been wobbly. It has failed to strike a balance between the internal imperative to keep the desired level of cohesion of social, economic and political forces and remedy challenges and external geopolitical pressures that demand robust institutional capabilities for a balance in the context of rapid change. The impending election has exposed political parties to a situation of a prisoner’s dilemma, not casting a shadow of shared payoffs, necessary for system stability.

Non-state sectors

The control of state institutions by non-state actors -- political parties, interest groups and deep state — contributed to the dysfunctionality of the political system, opening an astonishing spectacle of corrosive effects. A well-functioning political system in Nepal demands predictable and rule-based behaviour of all actors, smooth coordination of public and private institutions, effective communication, proper steering of leadership towards the constitutional path and organisation of efficient collective action, not ad hocism and deviant behaviour causing system entropy. Nepali political system suffers from two sources: first, the defective monopoly of power of the state and second, the central tendency of leaders to retain power regardless of performance skill regarding public welfare. 

This is associated with the voters' preference for short-term personal profit, not long-term rationality of selection of leaders versed in the skills and wisdom of statecraft. A variety of opposition leaders hardly hold policy alternatives to provide Nepalis a reasonable choice. Every phase of Nepal’s political movements has sought to create a systematic political order sanctioned by public opinion, popular mandate and constitutional means, aiming to provide public goods and services to them. They are expected to fulfill the needs, rights, interests and aspirations of people. Ironically, they suffered from a system of economic and political syndicate. Leaders are comfortable with the disarray of governance where party cadres offered their personalised loyalties to them, not political parties, in exchange for patronage and protection. 

Responsible opposition, critical mass, civil society, media and courts are expected to hold the government accountable for its actions and keep the system full of life. Ironically, they continue with partisan instinct, rendering the ability of the Nepali polity face imbalance. The rightful, autonomous institutions and authorities avoid the arbitrary use of power against social standards, abolish impunity and enforce the rule of law, process and pattern and score responsiveness of the polity. Authorities and leaders must operate in a transparent and accountable manner to make their decisions socially binding, reasonable and accepted by the people. Paradoxically, high expectations of people in Nepal, incited by leaders only, bred a corresponding scale of discontent. 

All the constitutions of Nepal formulated after the success of political movements have, however, failed to make the powerful leadership accountable to the system’s imperatives for regulation. System maintenance has been disrupted by the non-execution of vital spirits of the constitution, keeping power checks and balances in the polity, managing the economy and promoting social and physical infrastructures so that Nepalis find optimal satisfaction from it. Nepali leaders can make the political system stable if they are able to address the legitimate expectations of people and external challenges and balance inputs and outputs. 

The capacity of Nepali political system to promote the policies inscribed in the Directive Principles and Policies of the state and constitutional commitment and muster the support of people rests on political socialisation with the national heritage of culture of tolerance, freedom and ideals of democracy, political mobilisation of natural and human power to worthy initiatives of national development and decision making roles owned by the people pertaining to sound governance. These roles affirm the ability of the polity to adapt to changing times.

A large number of rural Nepalis are conditioned by their own native faith, culture and knowledge. The urban elites are soaked in modern social science idioms and technologies and keep a dispassionate distance, while their leaders are indoctrinated in ideologies. Both collude with interest groups, thus losing an emancipatory impulse. Education and indoctrination are the vital sources of political acculturation in Nepal, which commits elites to civilizing processes to gain social mobility but whose rationality is insensitive to the Nepali context and people. Business too, aligned with political parties, confronts the political system and the state.

 Digital platforms reinforce these and hit the state’s imperatives. Political use of algorithms in digital platforms lures Nepali youths to the power of the techno sphere but also to hypnotism and hysteria, not civic engagement in rational debate to uphold the imperative of the democratic system.  It has stripped the power of the system to govern, plan the template for the nation's stable future, manage the restless youth who find no opportunities in the nation, craft future-conscious policies to stem anti-state forces and cope with rising scarcity. Governance requires the political will to address the demands arising from the sub-system and structural coherence of politics, economics and ecology.

This gap is perpetuated in public administration, services in health and education, too mark an emotional distance between people, not mutual help for self-fulfillment. It is here that the modern conception of human rights collides with the traditional politics of manipulation and domination of people and post-modern ahistorical politics without any sense of systemness of the political system designed for impersonal service. Non-performance of leadership to achieve the constitutional goals and political promises has led to popular frustration and the collapse of regimes and constitutions in various phases of history. The uncoordinated functions of various actors and roles flagged the ability of the political system to create a virtuous cycle of impartial concerted action beneficial to people.

It has negative effects on the values and national priorities of development set by plans and policies. Post-traditional form of solidarity is founded on the concept of citizenship affinity, not differentiation of citizenship on the basis of social, ethnic, racial, biological, regional and religious criteria and deliberate fragmentation of public spheres or the use of neo-liberal market built on an atomistic form of the state of nature, nurturing Nepali society to perpetual individualization. The ego-centric, conflict-generating model of economics and politics of Nepal marks a structural divorce from social ethics, constitutional spirit of social justice and ecological web of self-renewal. 

One reason for the lack of systemness in Nepal is the absence of a constitutional mechanism to address the scarcity, growth of poverty, inequality and deprivation of people from equal opportunity. The other is the growth of patronage politics and zero-sum politics that made opposition forces non-stakeholders of the political system and stoked their restless fight. Still, the other is the erosion of public institutions to perform their system tasks and thus the skewed distribution of public goods. Moreover, the leaders with an authoritarian streak equated their survival in power as a success of the democratic regime, bred factionalism within parties and sparked the revolt of the alienated. The lack of coordination among the vital institutions of the political system affected their performance ability and failed to cohere, persist and move towards the attainment of constitutional goals.  

Nepalis desire for positive freedom and equality is propelling the demand for political transformation—incremental or transformational. Growing consciousness of people and the availability of modern science, technology and exposure to modernity have eased their social and political movements demanding voice, visibility, representation, opportunity and recognition. The range of Nepalis caught in a variegated pyramid cannot harness the power of the “diversity dividend” if public policies do not meet their requisites of sustainable progress. These requisites are vital for resilience and optimization of decisions, assuming many perspectives into account and managing systemness. 

Market, civil society, political parties, government, polity and the state have been deeply penetrated by deep state, interest groups and free riders as well as an international regime that stripped the power of leadership to formulate contextual policy benefitting the larger public welfare and muster their moral and political support for system regulation and maintenance. Politics without public policy cannot hold the representative power accountable and keep the social and national integration process moving forward. Nepali political parties, representative institutions, modern civil society and NGOs are promoting sub-national identities and loyalties. The auxiliary bodies of political parties have reinforced this propensity. 

Impersonal state

They hardly promote the notion of impersonal citizens of an impersonal state. The Nepali political system has thus become weak as its foundation of local bodies has been downsized and several national commissions have been created for differentiated citizens without harboring a national identity. This is why in every decade, the Nepali constitution and political system have undergone major changes. Ironically, the constitutional and regime changes have remained a subject of contested debate. They did not alter the political culture of leadership. The traits of negation of rivals, revenge, unprincipled collusion for power sharing, clientelism and authoritarianism remain. 

They are wrecking the self-correcting nature of the democratic system. Nepali political system’s endurance requires it to stop undemocratic bargaining of interest groups and undemocratic communication but foster a sense of security, dignity and life-affirming possibilities for the people and hone the ability of the nation to adapt to international laws, values and institutions as a historically independent state. Only systemness, not deviation from its norms and laws, can guarantee legitimate order and acquire responsive capacity of the political system to keep the state and society in dynamic balance. 

(Former Reader at the Department of Political Science, TU, Dahal writes on political and social issues.)