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Nepal's constitutional foundations between revolution and Cold War (1950–60)
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Malagodi, Mara (2023) Nepal's constitutional foundations between revolution and Cold War (1950–60). Law and History Review, 41 (2). pp. 273-294. doi:10.1017/S0738248022000724 ISSN 0738-2480.
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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248022000724
Abstract
The 1950s represent a foundational decade in Nepal's constitutional history. In the wake of decolonization in British India, the “year 7 revolution” (1950–51) grew out of the alliance between King Tribhuvan Shah and Nepal's democratic political parties created in India against the Rana autocratic regime in Kathmandu. Eventually the pro-democracy forces prevailed, and a crucial political transition began. Two constitutions were promulgated, the 1951 Interim Constitution and the 1959 Constitution. Both short lived and only partially implemented, these documents, however, laid the foundations of Nepal's constitutional edifice for years to come. Constitution building became a marker of sovereignty understood in terms of independence and an assertion of popular sovereignty. However, in the fraught Cold War context, the preoccupation with securing political stability by constitutional means that centered around the Shah monarchy prevailed, even at the expense of democracy. As such, the shift from a traditional notion of sovereignty from above to a modern concept of sovereignty from below remained incomplete. These aspirations, however, were not extinguished even by 30 years of royal autocracy under the Panchayat regime (1960–90) and lived on to this day to inform demands for constitutional reform, democratization, and inclusion. The present analysis is based on Nepali primary legal sources, archival material from the United Kingdom and United States National Archives, and the Ivor Jennings Private Papers.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Law and History Review | ||||||||
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0738-2480 | ||||||||
Official Date: | May 2023 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 41 | ||||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 273-294 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1017/S0738248022000724 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Re-use Statement: | This article has been published in a revised form in Law and History Review http://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248022000724. This version is published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND. No commercial re-distribution or re-use allowed. Derivative works cannot be distributed. Copyright © The Author(s), 2023 | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Free Access (unspecified licence, 'bronze OA') | ||||||||
Copyright Holders: | Copyright © The Author(s), 2023 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 6 March 2023 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 6 March 2023 |
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