Fixes and Flux: Frontier Brokers, Political Settlements and Post-War Politics in Nepal and Sri Lanka

Abstract

This article examines post-war politics in Nepal and Sri Lanka through the prism of centre-periphery relations, drawing upon and expanding political settlements analysis. We highlight two key features neglected in existing research on political settlements: first, the spatial dimensions of these settlementsparticularly the salience of frontier regions in shaping post-war orders. These 'sensitive spaces' continue as sites of struggle in the post-war period and frontier battles over the reordering of space and the delineation of rights, authority and citizenship are central to the emergence of post-war political settlements. Second, within these post-war frontiers we highlight the role of 'frontier brokers' who mediate between national and local levels of the political system. Post-war frontiers provide an opening and a demand for brokers who act as both gatekeepers and go-betweens, balancing demands from communities at the margins with the need to forge alliances and extract resources from central actors. We argue that questions of space and agency need to be foregrounded in political settlement analysis, and studying the lives of frontier brokers provides a lens for understanding shifts in political settlements and the changing relationship between the national and subnational levels of the political system at war's end.

Agents of order? Brokerage and empowerment in development and conflict

“…Brokers' capacity to play an enduring brokerage role relies on an ability to navigate such challenging situations. The most successful and long‐standing brokers are those capable of maintaining a high degree of flexibility and an ability to read and adapt to changing conditions (Goodhand & Walton, 2022b).…”

“…The dynamics examined in Pope's (2022) paper have parallels in frontier or borderland regions of countries affected by conflict (see Goodhand & Walton, 2022b;Goodhand et al, 2016). Goodhand and Walton's (2022a) paper for this special issue highlights how two key moments of rupture in Sri Lanka's recent history (the 2004 tsunami and the ending of the war in 2009) gave rise to two distinct constellations of actors, connections and forces (assemblages), which in turn shaped the dynamics of brokerage.…”