progress since democracy was introduced in the country in 1990. As a sign of their movement, they attacked three police outposts and a a few privately owned firms and banks located in remote parts of the country to symbolize their attack against the feudal government, the capitalists and the elites. Their movement spread gradually to other parts of the country with support from the rural and poor masses. Their expansion and operation included few key features: they seized land from the landlords and let poorer farmers cultivate under cooperative systems, they extorted money from the wealthy, attacked private firms and banks, and encouraged the poor and often marginalized people to join their movement by highlighting their pro-poor agenda (Macours, 2011). Their attacks on government police posts and subsequent retaliation by the police (which involved capturing and torturing people that they believed were militants) made the conflict increasingly violent. By 2001, 2,000 people were killed, mostly in the mid and far-western regions of the country.

An unexpected incident changed the nature of the conflict and made it much more violent after 2001. Before 2001, King Birendra considered the Maoist insurgency to be an internal problem to be dealt by the government and the police force. He refrained from mobilizing the army against the insurgency even upon requests from the government to mobilize the army. On June 1, 2001, King Birendra and his entire family were massacred at a family dinner by the then crown prince, who subsequently turned the gun to himself. In a matter of days, Gyanendra, who was very far in the line of succession to the throne, and who survived as he was not present for the dinner, became the new monarch. King Gyanendra was less reluctant to use the army to suppress the insurgency. The ongoing peace talks with the government broke in late 2001 with the Maoists attacking an army barrack in one of the mid-Western districts. The Nepal Army was deployed overnight and the conflict took a very violent turn. In 2002 alone, over 4,600 people were killed. By 2006, when the insurgency eventually ended, over 13,000 people were killed and more than ten times as many displaced.

Another equally unexpected coalition emerged during the conflict that ended the insurgency in 2006. In a short duration, Gyanendra proved himself unpopular when he dismissed the elected parliament and started ruling the country through his handpicked cabinet of ministers since 2005. This presented an unusual opportunity for the Maoists to become a mainstream political party by teaming up with the other political forces in a fight against the King. This movement led to the demise of the monarchy and an election was held in 2008 to write the constitution for the newly formed republic. The Maoists emerged as the largest party, confirming its transition to mainstream political force.

The geography and the trajectory of the insurgency produces spatial and inter-temporal variation in conflict intensity, which I exploit in my empirical study. Conflict intensity was lower before year 2001, when census data were collected. The conflict took an unexpectedly violent turn after 2001, until its end in 2006. The threat of violent Maoist conflict ended in 2008 when the constituent assembly elections were held, the year when the NLFS-II data were collected. The period between 2008 and 2010 represents a post-conflict peace period after the Maoists emerged as the largest party in the elections. Figure 6 shows the stark increase in conflict intensity before and after 2001. Conflict intensity increased from 0.1 deaths per 1,000 population on average to 0.6 deaths per 1,000 population in this period. The figure also shows large geographic variation in conflict intensity in both periods. Further, post-election peace ended violent in all districts.

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