Papers by Dr. Mahendra Sapkota
Historical Journal
The paper aims to study the practice of local leadership and governance in Nepal critically. The ... more The paper aims to study the practice of local leadership and governance in Nepal critically. The historical perspective synthesizing the review of literature and interpretation analyzing the changes over some time is adopted as a method. The practice of local leadership and governance in Nepal has been since ancient times. The kings and states are examples of leadership and governance practice that is mentioned in Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. The great-men theory or charismatic theory of leadership has largely been associated with leadership and the governance system was mainly based on religious and community basis and ultimately utopian ideas. Self-rule was found on a community basis as governance at the local level. Similarly, the charismatic typology of leadership has long been dominant in Nepal. Despite this, leadership has largely been influenced by caste, kin, and noble family. However, with the advent of modernization, the traditional practice of governance and leadership ...
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Nepalese journal of development and rural studies, Dec 31, 2023
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Deleted Journal, Dec 31, 2023
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Journal of political science, Feb 20, 2024
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Journey for Sustainable Development and Peace Journal
Globally, governance studies have been an emerging paradigm of research and scholarly debate in s... more Globally, governance studies have been an emerging paradigm of research and scholarly debate in social sciences. This paper takes this debate as an entry point and aims to analyze its metaphysical construction in terms of ontology, epistemology, and methodology. Data and materials used in the paper are based on the sources of secondary literature. The findings reveal that the political construction of governance is now becoming complex in contemporary societies and it has then adjoined with social, economic, and regional issues in particular. The paper concludes that governance is a contested notion that is moving around different concepts, theories, methodologies, and paradigms. The paper, therefore, is expected to contribute to the governance study in particular along with different disciplines of social science research in general.
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Journal of Development Policy, Research & Practice (JoDPRP)
This paper maps out a movement of Kamlahari girls in Nepal which is popularly known as ‘Kamlahari... more This paper maps out a movement of Kamlahari girls in Nepal which is popularly known as ‘Kamlahari’ both in lingual and literal terms. This study analyses a semi-bonded child labour system among the girls of the Tharu ethnic community. Despite the long historical background of the Tharu movement, critics suggest that the freedom of Kamlahari in 2013 is largely neglected and has become a less prioritised agenda. Building on this critique, the paper aims to analyse different issues, challenges and opportunities of and from the Kamlahari movement, particularly in context of the western Tarai region of Nepal. Methodologically, the paper follows a set of qualitative methods, including narrative analysis of both primary and secondary sources. The central proposition of the paper is that there are some critical issues and contestations in the movement of Kamlahari girls, ranging from rescue and rehabilitation to educational support and livelihood sustenance. With the changing socioeconomic ...
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Nepalese Journal of Development and Rural Studies
This paper aims to synthesize development issues from a Buddhist perspective by taking an analyti... more This paper aims to synthesize development issues from a Buddhist perspective by taking an analytical universe of ‘well-being’. Methodologically, the paper is a review-based article that follows a systematic review process following different themes of Buddhism, development, and well-being. The major findings of the study include that the development has been contested with the rise of various issues, and its materialistic interpretation has been in crisis both theoretically as well empirically. At this outset, the Buddhist perspective seems to be a more humanistic approach to development which treats underdevelopment as the cause of development. This is the principle of dependent origination, whereby the byproducts of underdevelopment can be analyzed. The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Paths are also replicative in the development studies for the socio-economic transformation of society. The material outlet of development doesn’t contribute to the eradication of suffering and m...
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Journal of Political Science, 2022
The relation between politics and gender is contentious, which is further implied in the feminist... more The relation between politics and gender is contentious, which is further implied in the feminist critique of the state. This paper assumes that the nature of the state is gendered. With this ontological position of critical worldview, it aims to synthesize the gendered nature of politics. Methodologically, it is based on the secondary literature and thus the authors did not offer their empirical data to synthesize the major arguments so far. It has first discussed the feminist theoretical debates about the worldview of the state and then offered the empirical issues of power and citizenship. It argues that the state is constructed with contradictions in terms of uneven allocation of resources, gendered institutions, androcentric leadership, and male-biased policies. In this context, the paper analyzes the state as an androcentric construction that is political, coupled with uneven gender relations. The authors also agree that politics eventually makes up the state - the supreme of ...
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In the Global South there is a huge research gap in linking the social movements and power dynami... more In the Global South there is a huge research gap in linking the social movements and power dynamics within the societies. In this context, the paper analyses the contestations of social movements in the South Asia from a view point of contentious politics in the region. Despite having a long historical background, critics suggest that the social movements are increasingly contested with identity politics and agrarian issues. Following critical discourse analysis, the paper concludes that the social movements has been shaped by the social relations dominated by the elites of the south Asian societies who share some common features in terms of culture and ideology. The movements, thus, have become contested power games around the issues of class, caste/ethnicity, gender, region and development. Finally, the paper anticipates a call for the collective colloquium of south Asian social movements. Key terms: social movement, south Asia, identity politics, social relations, contested devel...
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Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 2020
Globally, power and leadership are considered as two unavoidable factors of social change and loc... more Globally, power and leadership are considered as two unavoidable factors of social change and local development. In Nepal’s federal context, the nexus of power and leadership has been less addressed in academic research though most of the studies are focused on local governance. The present study attempts to analyze the nature of leadership and its power structure in the context of rural Nepal. It follows a critical ontological position of the development of power and leadership. Methodologically, a complete leadership of Dogana village in Suddhodhan Rural Municipality of Rupandehi district (Lumbini Province) was undertaken to assess the rural leadership. It is found that the most important factor for holding the rural leadership was ‘affiliation with the political party’, which was followed by ‘well-being ranking’ and ‘caste/ ethnic status’ of the leadership. The rural leaders used to change their policies and strategies to create and sustain power, such as doing multiple professio...
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Research Nepal Journal of Development Studies, 2019
Development studies have got both discourse as well as empirical field of research. This paper pr... more Development studies have got both discourse as well as empirical field of research. This paper presents a synthesis of research methodology and its philosophical settings in the field. It deals with philosophical and methodological approaches from the qualitative research design approach. Then it offers a methodological plural perspective along with the discussion of interpretivism, criticalism and social constructivism. Though this paper is not developed out of an empirical field study, the methodology here employed is the review based reflexive perspective of the author. Discussing the context of grounded theory approach, the paper illustrates how a position of the researcher and the conditionality of the study universe affect each other. The central argument of the paper maintains that in multi-real world the disciplinary approach and single-method inquiry could not go into the depth of the research world. Rather, the realties are complex and often changing rapidly in the given p...
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COVID-19 crisis is a great tragedy of human life in the modern history of the world. It has disru... more COVID-19 crisis is a great tragedy of human life in the modern history of the world. It has disrupted social mobility and economic activities and challenged public life globally as well as Nepal. This paper aims to examine the socioeconomic and health impacts of COVID-19, thereby discussing the opportunities for the future to rebuild these sectors and sustain them. Methodologically, the paper is based on secondary data, a review of budget statements, policy intervention, and documents related to COVID-19 and its consequences. This also rings true in Nepal, where reports are increasingly coming that the poor became more vulnerable to the COVID-19. The disruption of transportation and human movement as a part of containing COVID-19 has been troubled socioeconomic activities and resulted in a health crisis in Nepal. Nevertheless, this paper further argues that the crisis of COVID-19 will eventually lead to an opportunity in terms of reforms in the socioeconomic and health sectors in Ne...
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Development is an essentially contested discourse and debated issue; both in theoretical and empi... more Development is an essentially contested discourse and debated issue; both in theoretical and empirical world. With this proposition, this paper offers a synthesis of multifaceted dimensions of development. Methodologically the paper follows a critical perspective, though it is based only on secondary data and prepared as a synthesis paper drawing insights from various literatures. The major arguments of the paper include that: development is constantly becoming contradictory, involving different actors, agencies, and structures. The paper concludes with the remark that development is being questioned elsewhere, and its conclusion in terms of theory and practice is yet contradictory to have universal validation.
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New Angle: Nepal journal of social science and public policy, 2016
In many countries of the developing world, the dominant development discourse is being contested ... more In many countries of the developing world, the dominant development discourse is being contested by the emergence of different kinds of social movements and the land rights movements in agrarian socieites is not an exception. Despite having a long historical background, critics suggest that the land governance is largely based on state-centric epistemology and less on the pro-poor discourse of movement and struggle. Building on this critique, this paper highlights different issues, challenges and opportunities of the land-based movements particularly in context of western Tarai region of Nepal. The central proposition of the paper is that there are some significant implications and research gaps to be analyzed under the emerging discourse of “land movement” in Nepal. It therefore argues that ‘public land management’ and ‘public land movement’ are two mutually contested phenomena with contradicting actors, strategies, policy gaps, empirical dilemmas and shifting of power dynamics.
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IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2014
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Social movements and protest activities in contemporary Nepalese society have been a common pheno... more Social movements and protest activities in contemporary Nepalese society have been a common phenomenon. They are becoming intermediary power to challenge the State-led political mainstream and development affairs. With a long history, Tharu movement is a part of such movement discourse in Nepal. The leadership, however, has not been dealt in detail for scholarly research. This paper analyses how the leadership of Tharu movement is becoming degenerated and elite-centric in representing the poor people’s grievances. With a social constructivist epistemology, the study was conducted in 2013 in Dang district of western Nepal. Keywords: Social movement; Leadership; Identity politics; Discourse
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Globally, the Tibetan diaspora has been taking an emergent concern of social science research in ... more Globally, the Tibetan diaspora has been taking an emergent concern of social science research in terms of its understanding, conceptualization and theorization. It truly rings in Nepal where around 21000 Tibetan migrants have been settled in the different regions of the country and most of the studies about them have been insulated around the political dimension of the migration at the macro level. To speak this research gap, this paper aims to highlight the historical dimension of Tibetan migration in Nepal, their status of settlement, and the contemporary research issues. The key arguments on this paper reflect that within a broader transboundary ethnic identity of Tibetan migrants in Nepal, their political economic construction should be viewed from a plural perspective. Following a social constructivist ontological position, this paper, however, does not take methodological insights from any particular empirical field, rather it allows reviews of the already accessed research pu...
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Journal of Political Science, 2021
This paper is a review based synthesis on the conceptual and theoretical debates on social moveme... more This paper is a review based synthesis on the conceptual and theoretical debates on social movements (SMs). It aims to analyse the debate from different theoretical lens which are popularly used in the studies of SMs. The paper then explores prominent research issues that could be grounded at the local contexts of the movements. The main argument of the paper is that the discourse of SM is not linear and monolithic. Rather, it is a poly centric notion and thus essentially contested in terms of theorization and research.
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Papers by Dr. Mahendra Sapkota