“Populist politics will further drive migration”

the_farsight · “Populist politics will further drive migration”

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In this sixth episode of the FSi podcast, we have Lekh Nath Paudel as our guest. He is a political economist, who did his PhD in Political Science from the Institute of Political Studies, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Presently a Visiting Faculty of International Political Economy at Madhya Purbanchal (Mid-West) University Institute of Cooperation and Development (MICD), Paudel has extensive research experience on financialisation of Nepal’s economy particularly focusing on remittances.  

Paudel talks about how external influences — from Western economic theories to geopolitics have shaped Nepal’s economy. 

While there is a need to take a departure from Western theories and base our future policies on our socio-cultural, political, and economic realities, there is also this immediate need to factor India in our future economic and development plans and policies, says Paudel, explaining that the neighbouring country holds the potential to exert assertive political and economic influence on Nepal due to Nepal’s geographical constraints and deeply rooted economic dependence.

For instance, Nepal needs to take a bold approach to establishing permanent trade policies with India, Paudel suggests.

Paudel also stresses its time to reconfigure Nepal’s economy and to do that, policymakers must first truly understand the intrinsic nature of capital to guide it toward productive economic purposes such as energy production.

The conversation also touches upon other pressing problems that Nepal presently faces — from financialisation of the economy to the present state of economic crisis; increasing youth migration and emerging populist politics.