Nepal and its civil war

Logan Moffett

Political Science 150

Blog 8: Categorizing Political Violence

            In Nepal since 1996 until November 21st, 2006 Nepalese citizens have suffered from an intense civil war killing many of thousands and leaving many others without homes. Understanding different types of political violence and defining them helps us be able to learn of their trends to and how to avoid them. Samuels defines political violence as “the use of force by states or non-state actors to achieve political goals”. In Nepal this can be seen by a lengthy civil war that has continued for many years until just recently. The conclusion was a treaty known as the comprehensive peace accord, allowing the rival group, the Maoists to officially receive government representation. Following Samuels definition for civil war Nepal fits this definition perfectly, “armed combat within the boundaries of a sovereign state between parties that are subject to authority at the start of hostilities”. Even though this definition includes the Nepalese civil war the in-class definition is even more through helping to create a more precise explanation of a civil war. Civil war is defined as “armed combat within the boundaries of a sovereign state between parties that are subject to common authority at the start with total death toll surpassing 1,000 deaths”. This definition is more precise but I feel is still missing an important factor, motive. If a civil war is missing motive I believe it to be just a rebellion of sorts. My preferred definition would be an armed combat within the boundaries of a sovereign state between parties that are subject to common authority at the start, with the total death toll surpassing 1,000 deaths motivated by a large number of supporters amounting to at least five percent of a countries population. This definition is more accurate because a civil war without the support of at least a minority is just a correlation of isolated incidents. Even if a group of fewer than five percent of the population chose to create a civil war the odds of it surpassing one thousand deaths is very unlikely. Now explaining the situation in Nepal will strengthen my argument even more so because this country fits my definition accurately. In Nepal there was a Constitutional Monarchy that was more so a Monarchy with a puppet democracy attached. This caused distrust within the government and much of the population outside of Nepalese cities joined the National Communist Party also known as Maoists. This radical group began launching attacks on military bases and began to block supplies to Nepal’s capital. According to my definition this situation can quickly meet all of my definitions requirements to become a civil war, firstly both groups engaging in combat were at the beginning under the same sovereignty, second the death toll easily reached about one thousand deaths and this war was involving a large number of the country’s population reaching well about five percent. Even though the definition of Samuels and in-class are fairly sound I believe that it is necessary to use my definition to more accurately separate a civil war from other form of political violence. Nepal from 1996-2006 is an excellent example of political violence specifically experiencing a civil war.

References

Samuels David J., Comparative Politics (Pearson Education Inc., 2013), 259.

WikiPedia.Napalese civil war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_Civil_War#2012 (accessed November 8, 2012)