| This dissertation analyzes the paradox of the political exclusion of minorities in new democracies. I combine comparative concepts and multiple research methods to study the phenomenon intensively. The first part, which reviews democracy indices, found that not a single index measured the inclusion of socio-cultural groups in the decision-making processes, despite the democratic theorists' emphasis on it as an important democratic criterion. Hence, I argue that the conceptualizations for measuring democracies should be modified to evaluate the presence of the minorities in the decision-making processes. It will increase the validity of the measures and protect minority rights, deepen democracy, and prevent violent ethnic conflicts. I modify Dahl's (1971, 1989) conceptualization by operationalizing participation as the presence of various socio-cultural groups in the executive and the Parliament.; In the second part, I evaluate the Nepali polity with the inclusion criterion. I found that the marginalization of minorities in Nepal increased as the state consolidated after the 'unification' of the country in 1769, as the ruling groups consolidated their hold in the state. The situation of minorities after 1990, when democracy was restored, is no better in terms of inclusion in the influential decision-making bodies such as the parliament, executive, administration, and the judiciary. In fact, despite the increase in mobilization of the minorities, their political exclusion increased. I identify the discriminatory constitutional provisions, the unitary structure of the state, and the plurality electoral method as the causes of the political exclusion.; In the third part, I analyze the causes of political exclusion in Nepal employing statistical analysis. First, I evaluate the ten Nepali political institutions using Lijphart's (1984, 1999) majoritarian-consensus framework. I compare the Nepali institutions with institutions from Lijphart's 36 established democracies, especially with the 18 plural and semi-plural ones. The institutions in long established plural democracies have contributed toward the consolidation of democracy by including various socio-cultural groups: if the socio-cultural groups had not been included, the democracies would not have consolidated. The Nepali institutions are not similar to those found in established plural democracies. Hence, they are not inclusive. Combined with findings from part two, I conclude that the overall Nepali polity is exclusionary because some institutions are exclusionary, as shown in part two, whereas no institution is inclusive, as shown here.; In the second empirical part of the dissertation, I analyze the attitudes of the parliamentarians to investigate their roles in the exclusion of minorities. Questions were directed toward finding perceptions of the leaders on tolerance toward minorities, regime legitimacy, and racism. 101 (out of 265) members of parliaments, randomly selected but stratified according to ethnicity, political party, gender, and regions, were surveyed. Appropriate statistical tests, reliability analysis, index construction, and multivariate analysis were conducted. Surprisingly, the elite are tolerant. Hence they are not exclusionary. But, as they show racist attitudes, they are, however, not inclusive either. Among the causes investigated here, the overall onus of the exclusion lies on the political institutions because they are exclusionary whereas the elite are not. |
