The Power-Relations of Danida Business Partnerships in Nepal - A study in governmentality, identities and practices

Abstract: Danish development policy is increasingly orienting towards the private sector and development through economic growth. Development programs are heavily influenced by a neo-liberal discourse, and they alter power-relations, identities and practices where they intervene in local contexts. The purpose of this thesis is to denaturalize the taken-for-granted truth established in the development discourse, and to make the embedded power-relations of certain types of development programs visible. The theory of governmentality is applied to investigate how the small-scale private sector development program Danida Business Partnership is rendered powerful and governable. Furthermore, I explorer how the program, through its central components of CSR and partnerships, constitutes and shapes local identities and practices of companies in Nepal. In order to catch these different aspects of the relations between truth, power, and the subject, I have performed a discourse analysis on qualitative data in the form of government documents and a range of interviews and observations, which were gathered in Kathmandu, Nepal. The analysis outlines the political rationality and technologies of government of the DBP program, and it demonstrate how the discourse constitutes a space where only those companies, who understand and identify with its neo-liberal rationality, are allowed to maneuver.