Himal Books

Ethnicity, Inequality and Politics in Nepal
edited by: Mahendra Lawoti and Arjun Guneratne
2010, pp. vi+168
ISBN: 978 9937 8266 8 6
US$ 22

The ‘surprising’ rise of identity politics after the restoration of democracy in 1990 led to increasing academic and political attention on political exclusion and ethnic politics. However, many aspects of exclusion are yet to be analyzed. The articles in this volume illuminate additional dimensions of exclusion and inequality. The authors examine interactions between formal and informal institutions and political exclusion, inter-group inequality, ethnicization of the business sector and the country’s protracted democratization.

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Arjun Guneratne is Professor of Anthropology at Macales­ter College, Minnesota, USA, and the editor of Himalaya, the journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies. He has carried out research in the Nepal Tarai since 1989 and is the author of Many Tongues, One People: The Making of Tharu iden-tity in Nepal (Cornell, 2002) and the Editor of Culture and the Environment in the Himalaya (Routledge, 2010). In addition to his work on ethnicity formation and the state in Nepal, he has pub­lished on the development of an environmental movement in his native Sri Lanka.

Mahendra Lawoti is Associate Professor of Political Science at Western Michigan University, president of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, an Associate Fellow of The Asia Society, and a columnist for The Kathmandu Post. He has authored, co-authored, edited and co-edited nine books and journals on democratization, ethnic politics, social movements, including Towards a Democratic Nepal: Inclusive Political Institutions for a Multicultural Society (Sage, 2005), Contentious Politics and Democratization in Nepal (Sage, 2007) and Govern-ment and Politics in South Asia (Westview, 2008). He has also published articles in Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Democratization, Himalaya, Asian Survey, and Studies in Nepali History and Society.