5 B. Non-state actors

1. Political parties — the transmission belt between society and state (Unit 6); 2. Civil society and NGOs — civic associations, professional bodies, human-rights organisations: Alexis de Tocqueville's "schools of democracy"; 3. Media — the "fourth estate": information, scrutiny, platform for debate (freedom of the press, Art. 19); 4. Trade unions, chambers, student bodies — interest articulation and aggregation; 5. Private sector — employer, taxpayer, agenda-setter; 6. Religious and community institutions — social capital (and, unmanaged, vehicles of polarisation); 7. International actors — UN bodies, election observers, donors, neighbours: monitors and influencers of democratic quality. Nepali illustration: every recent democratic inflection has been a state–society joint product — 2046 BS and 2062/63 BS movements (parties + civil society + students toppling autocracies); the Constituent Assembly elections (2008, 2013) run by the EC with domestic and international observation; day-to-day governance shaped by a dense NGO sector and a vigorous (if troubled) media.