Florian Krampe

Empowering peace: service provision and state legitimacy in Nepal’s peace-building process

Abstract There is growing demand for an understanding of peace beyond the absence of violence. As such research focuses increasingly on the issue of state legitimacy as a tool to assess and understand peace processes. In this paper the relationship between service provision and state legitimacy is studied to assess whether the provision of services like electricity to rural communities of war-torn countries through state actors contributes to the consolidation of the post-war political system. The qualitative analysis of two localities in post-war Nepal highlights that service provision in the form of electricity through micro-hydropower yields tremendously positive socio-economic effects for rural communities. However, socio-economic development in combination with interactions among villagers has strengthened local autonomy through emphasising alternative local governance structures. This highlights that the relationship between service provision and state legitimacy is more complex than previous research anticipates. The absence of a positive effect on state legitimacy raises the question of whether in its current case-specific form service provision is conducive to the broader peace-building efforts in post-war Nepal, because it stresses the divide between state and society.

Liberal State-building and Environmental Security : The International Community Between Trade-Off and Carelessness

Liberal state- and nationbuilding fails to include into its framework of analysis environmental problems of post-conflict societies. Economic development projects such as large hydro projects or op ...

Stability and Sustainability in Peace Building: Priority Area for Warfare Ecology

The chapter aims to highlight the importance of efficient management of the environment in providing stable and sustainable peace to a post-conflict society. An attempt has been made to give selected cases where sustainable economic development is neglected and short-term, situational development is favored in post-conflict peacebuilding systems. The negative outcome of this approach has been the pollution of the environment, and also, in some instances creating further conflicts and insecurity in the society. In order to avoid these negative consequences, three policy recommendations – good governance, inter-state cooperation and early warning systems – have been elaborated for how to address and successfully overcome the environmental threats to sustainable peace – hence, how sustained stability can be brought into post-conflict systems.

Avoiding catastrophes: seeking synergies among the public health, environmental protection, and human security sectors

Global health catastrophes have complex origins, often rooted in social disruption, poverty, conflict, and environmental collapse. Avoiding them will require a new integrative analysis of the links ...

Human Development and Minority Empowerment : Exploring Regional Perspectives on Peace in South Asia

South Asia is the sub-Himalayan southern region of the Asian continent, comprising eight countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. South Asia has a population of about 1.6 billion, which is characterized by significant cultural divergences between and within the states. An estimated 2,000 ethnic groups, at least six ethnic-linguistic families and several major faiths make South Asia one of the most diverse regions on earth. The states and societies in this vast region face challenges on several fronts. The major challenge is to achieve the social and political stability that is needed to enable their progress towards increased human development. Several factors, however, make the prospects of progress daunting. The rise in the region’s population is a key challenge. A large part of the population in South Asia lives in abject poverty.