Browsing by Author "Holopainen, Anne"

This study relates to the conflict in Nepal and its peace process in particular, which is examined from the perspective of discourse theory. The conflict started in 1996 when a group calling themselves ‘Maoists’ launched their ‘people’s war’. Over the years, the conflict was marked by several negotiation rounds, intermittent ceasefires and a power-political struggle between the king, the mainstream political parties and the Maoists. The peace process can be deemed to have started upon the signing of a 12-Point Understanding between the Seven Party Alliance and the Maoists in November 2005. Despite its promising start, it is still too early to talk about the peace process in the past tense since researchers have considered the promulgation of a new constitution as a necessity for its closure. The conflict and its peace process have provided an interesting topic of inquiry for instance because Nepal’s Maoist insurgency has been considered the most successful one among other contemporary Maoist rebellions. The purpose of this study is to analyse how a ‘new Nepal’ was articulated in discourses of transformation during the peace process between 2005 and 2012 and determine potential shifts or changes in the discourses. Since the peace process is understood as a discursive process, a further objective is to evaluate the process and the prospects of sustainable peace on the basis of the discourses. Following the theory of conflict transformation, this study understood the peace process as a long-term project where sustainable peace necessitates addressing the root causes of conflict. The motive for choosing the discourse-theoretical perspective was that discourses have been suggested to have a significant role in conflict transformation. In their discourses, political actors may seek cooperation and consensus or reproduce the antagonistic relationship that existed between them during conflict. This study utilised the post-structuralist theory of discourse developed by Laclau and Mouffe as it has been considered suitable for studying political conflicts and changes. According to the fundamental premises of the theory, discourses are historically constructed and contingent systems of meaning in which signifiers receive their meaning in relation to other signifiers and which are susceptible to change. The empirical data of this study consisted of three official documents that have been said to provide a blueprint for a new Nepal as well as of newspaper articles published in The Kathmandu Post. Temporally the study was limited to a period between November 2005 and June 2012. The concept of new Nepal was understood as referring to the political, social, economic and cultural transformation of the country needed to address the root causes of the conflict, for which reason the analysis concentrated on discourses dealing with these aspects. Furthermore, the main focus was on the discourses of the political actors who were the chief adversaries during the conflict, i.e. the mainstream political parties, the Maoists and the king. The empirical analysis utilised the key concepts of Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of discourse, including articulation, floating signifier, nodal point, empty signifier, hegemonic practice, dislocation, social antagonism, political frontier, and the logics of equivalence and difference. According to the analysis, the discourses of the political actors were arranged around political transformation, which was closely linked with social, economic and cultural transformation. The discourses of transformation can be deemed to have formed a discourse on new Nepal, where the meaning of new Nepal was constructed around such salient signifiers as democracy, republic, federalism, secularism, peace, development, progress, change, social justice and inclusiveness. A chain of equivalence was articulated between these signifiers to establish a clear frontier between the past and the future. A significant finding was that the Maoists and the mainstream political parties were able to combine their particular interests into a common discourse by articulating the king as a common enemy and a threat to a new Nepal, which would appear to have made the peace process possible. However, this discursive unity seems to have dissolved after the king was removed and Nepal declared a republic. Since then the Maoists and the non-Maoist parties appear to have reproduced the previous antagonistic relationship between them and the situation has begun to resemble the circumstances before and during the conflict. Due to the discursive struggles between the actors, the Constituent Assembly failed to promulgate the new constitution that was articulated as a document which could bring peace and socio-economic transformation, and consequently it is argued that the prospects of achieving sustainable peace still seem rather bleak. The discursive struggles also pose a threat to the hegemonic discourse on new Nepal and to the new Nepal articulated therein. As regards sustainable peace, it would be important for the actors to find again the consensus that existed between them at the initial stages of the peace process.