【Webinar Report】A Decline in Government Legitimacy and its Impact on Human Security: A Case of Human Security

On Thursday, 2021 June 17th, an online lecture by Associate Professor for the Institute of Liberal Arts and Science at Kanazawa University, Dr. Hazuki Sasaki, was provided under the presentation title, “A Decline in Government Legitimacy and its Impact on Human Security - A Case of Human Security”.
In his lecture, Dr. Sasaki spoke on human security issues and government legitimacy in Nepal, particularly with the dynamic of the Communist Party (Maoists) between 2001 and 2006. The conflicts between the reigning government and Maoist group led to insurgency and civil war, which claimed many victims. Even so, the Maoist insurgency, which politicized the poor human security condition of marginalized groups, could be viewed as a struggle to gain legitimacy in place of the inefficient government. Unfortunately, it took a vast array of interactions between 2001 and 2006 (mutual demands, terrorist attacks, assassinations, mobilization of armies, etc.) before negotiations even began. From the case of Nepal, it can be learned that the decline of a government’s legitimacy can provide opportunity for an insurgent group to take an offensive approach against said government, however, such decline invites downside risks that endanger lives through the intensification of the conflict.
The lecture ended with a Q&A session where Dr. Sasaki and members of the audience considered several notions, such as the extent to which the case of government legitimacy in Nepal could be applicable to other countries in general, the differentiations between the Maoist group in Nepal with the Maoist group in India, and how we can learn from the Nepalese case for the sake of other cases like the current coup in Myanmar.

Written by Yami Roca and Yusy Widarahesty (Doctoral Students at the Graduate School of International Relations)