Top Highlights

• Its general profile can be drawn from five parameters: cultural identification, national independence, and tradition of consensus, synthesis capacity, and the role of hereditary monarchy
• Bhutan has inherited a philosophy of life which is deep rooted in its religious traditions and institutions. Basic values like compassion, respect for life and nature, social harmony, compromise, and prevalence of individual development over material achievements have had direct impact on policy making
• Achieving a "balance between spiritual and material aspects of life, between Peljor Gongphel (economic development) and Gakid (happiness and peace)" 5 is both a cultural imperative and a political objective
• What can be described as a "customs of negotiation and contestation"11 has resulted in the building of a system where consensus is a mode of government
• More formally, a case can be put to a village headman to negotiate a compromise settlement outside the court system

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