“Self-interest and Political Kinship: Power Dynamics in Federal Nepal”

Abstract

This article attempts to scrutinize the recent culture of politics and powerplay that has been enacting and performed since the very advent of downfall of shah regime, transforming Nepal into Federal Democratic Republic on may 28, 2008 A.D., from mass protest, overthrowing the 240-year-old monarchy, fostering immense culture of inclination to wide arrays of political ideologies yet the subtle voices of oppressions and dominations still persist in everyday livelihood dimensions, due to collective political manipulation and exploitation of the subordinates and the hegemony over subalterns. The study further aims to explore through an interpretivist mixed method paradigm based on prolonged ethnography and participant observation through unstructured and semi-structured interviews to elicit the social realities being shaped by political suppression and the embedded artificial political kinship network of inheritance and corporate groups in reforming the hierarchies and conflicts suffused by self-interest attitudes for power capital and exerting knowledge to gain power. The explicit goal of this research is to proffer the crucial need in redefining and bridging the gap between policy and practice to demolish the traditional form of dominance, which is still in practice as a disguise of Kinship