Draft: Please Do Not Cite without Permission

Nepal’s political system is in rapid transition following the end of the Maoist People’s War and overthrow of the King in 2006, and the subsequent formation of a Federal Democratic Republic in 2007. A radical-left coalition, led by a Maoist party in 2008, won an electoral majority (surpassing the two biggest parties that ruled the country in the post 1990 period). The conflict period animated the political agency of people in diverse localities with profound implications for state processes particularly the manner in which, and the types of institutions the central state and donors sought to engage. Such ‘institutional choice’ (Ribot, Chhatre, and Lankina 2008) by the state and donors significantly structured local autonomy and centralised authority. While the conflict produced pressure for decentring centralised control – coming from all directions including developmentalism and the feudal polity – the conflict was indeed more complex in terms of claims to greater autonomy at multiple scales and directions.