‘We the People’: Constitutional Architecture, State Sovereignty and Identity in Nepal

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Abstract
The present paper investigates in a historical perspective the articulation of the concept of internal state sovereignty in modern Nepal’s constitutional domain by juxtaposing an analysis of the country’s various constitutional texts with a reading of the physical architectural structures hosting the main central state institutions in Kathmandu. The emphasis on the internal notion of state sovereignty with a focus on the formation of the modern nation-state, as expounded by Martin Loughlin (2004; 2010), seeks to illuminate the transformation of the relationship between the state and the people in Nepal through the country’s various constitutional configurations. The core argument put forward is that Nepal’s constitutional instability derives from the country’s historical difficulties in secularising political authority and entrenching the tenets of the doctrine of popular sovereignty. As a result, over the years Nepal’s various constitutions have featured ineffective executive accountability mechanisms, and an exclusionary constitutional definition of the Nepali nation.