title: The Role of External Actors in Nepal's Peace Process
Creators: name: Timilsina, Bikram
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: diplomatic
subject: military
subject: economic interventions
subject: India
subject: China
subject: United States
subject: Nepal’s peace
subject: influence
subject: Interventions

description: This thesis examines the diplomatic, military and economic interventions of three external state actors – namely, India, China and the United States – during Nepal’s peace process (2005-2015). It identifies three critical junctures in Nepal’s peace process that were likely to be influenced by external interventions: the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) 2006, the Constituent Assembly (CA) Elections 2008, and the Constitution of Nepal 2015. Introducing an external intervention typology framework, this research identifies and compares the specific nature of the interventions undertaken by each of the three external actors at each of the three critical junctures. By examining the wide range of intervening measures used by India, China and the US, it finds that the relative influence wielded by each actor varied at each juncture: while India was more influential than China and the US during negotiations over the CPA, it was the least influential actor during the Constitution promulgation phase. Similarly, while China and the US failed to influence the peace process outcomes during the first critical juncture, their interventions corresponded with the peace process outcomes during the third critical juncture. Thus, although each of the three external actors influenced the peace process at particular junctures, none were influential enough to alter the trajectory of the peace process in its entirety, either positively or negatively. This thesis thus argues that in cases such as that of Nepal, a relatively small state which is subject to the competing interests of great powers and big neighbours can exercise agency, defy external powers’ interventions that do not serve the interests of peace, and shape the trajectory of its own peace process. It demonstrates that at each of the three critical junctures, domestic political actors were able to capitalise on strategic competition between India, China, and the US, to achieve the support of at least one of these external actors. Similarly, local actors were also able to resist interventions that appeared to be against domestic peace process initiatives, by gaining the backing of one or more of the intervening state’s strategic competitors. That is, domestic political actors were able to lead and control the peace process by using the complex geopolitical context and the competing strategic interests of great powers and neighbours to their advantage. With extensive interviews of influential politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats and/or scholars from Nepal, India, China and the United States, this thesis not only produces a comprehensive, in-depth, and original research study on external interventions in Nepal’s peace process, but it also offers insights on how a small power can gain agency to tackle major powers and big neighbours to lead and protect its peace process, especially when the civil war country has a complex geopolitical milieu and competing strategic interests of big powers and neighbours.