Nepal is an important crucible for the idea of democracy. Can democracy as a system accommodate, moderate and discipline political forces that owe their existence to revolutionary violence and populism directed against an authoritarian establishment? Or will democracy unravel itself amid irreconcilable differences? Western democracies' stability is ascribed to a certain level of socio-economic development and broad agreement over the fundamentals of the political system. In the absence of such conditions, are postcolonial democracies like Nepal doomed to be forever fragile?
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