The recent developments in Nepal’s politics from the abolition of autocratic monarchy, promulgation of a new constitution to successful completion of local, provincial, and federal level elections can be perceived as Nepal’s politics achieving miraculous success in forming democracy. Throughout the history, heavy reliance on the Indian economy has been considered as a major hurdle to Nepal’s sovereignty. This paper analyzes the Nepal-India relationship through path-dependent theory and argues that with series of above mentioned democratic success, the contemporary Nepali foreign policy towards India is at a critical juncture where Nepal can incorporate new changes to make its policies independent and uninfluenced by the Indian government. Analyzing the series of political and democratic events and foreign policies implemented to date, this paper aims to understand how the Nepali leadership can utilize these recent series of democratic successes as a turning point to break the traditional approach of forming policies to appease the Indian government and receive political and economic support and implement new policy changes leveraging on the multilateral organizations and developmental partners for its support economically and politically.
Caught between the rising rival powers- India and China, Nepali foreign policy can be perceived as following the practice of strategic hedging where it is attempting to position itself in a way to maximize benefits while simultaneously defending against undesirable threats and dangers from both the rising powers. In the context of a small state like Nepal, strategic hedging implies consciously choosing to adopt mixed policies, which features both balancing and bandwagoning. This paper aims to understand how a ministate like Nepal formulates its foreign policy to address the power politics and applies economic pragmatism followed by smart power and nimble diplomacy to its advantage. This paper also aims to explain that strategic hedging can be followed by Nepal when there is an absence of immediate threat that might compel the state to ally with the power for protection. Through the lens of various realist theories, this paper analyzes that a mini state like Nepal can achieve its national interest and would either bandwagon with the rising power i.e., “China, or” it could try to balance against it supporting the current status quo i.e., India.
Nepal and India share interdependence with each other regarding economy and politics. India, as a powerful nation with adequate structural power, has been seen meddling with Nepal’s internal affairs and exploiting its economic and political vulnerability. The overall objective of this paper is to analyze the Nepalese foreign policies towards India and its attempt to escape this asymmetrical interdependence throughout the history till date. This paper also tries to identify the factors that influence the formulation of Nepalese foreign policies as well as the consequences of the implemented policies. Additionally, the study shows that with the ongoing radical changes brought by series of democratic successes in Nepalese political system, the traditional approach of Nepalese political leaders that existed before can be changed. Nepal is at a critical juncture where the policies it will make can change significantly with the assistance of international and regional regimes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.