Government And Politics In Sri Lanka

The island of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) was one of the few Asian colonies in which the British Empire experimented liberal state-building in the nineteenth century, and where many British colonial officials predicted that the independent state would become a liberal democratic success story. Sri Lanka has held on to much of the liberal democratic state-institutions left behind by the British Empire, including periodic elections. At the same time, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded in September 2015 that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Sri Lanka committed serious international crimes against the Tamils. Such accusations are usually levelled against authoritarian states; it is unusual for a democracy to face such charges. This book analyses where Sri Lanka stands as a state that has in place liberal democratic state-institutions but exhibits the characteristics of an authoritarian state. Using Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, the author argues that Sri Lanka enacted racist legislations and perpetrated mass-atrocities on the Tamils as part of its biopolitics of institutionalising and securing a Sinhala-Buddhist ethnocratic state-order. The book also explores the ways that, apart from military action, power relations produce the effects of battle, and thus the way that peace can often become a means of waging war. The author provides fresh insights into Sri Lanka’s postcolonial policies and the system of government that it has in place. A novel approach to analysing Sri Lanka’s postcolonial policies and the system of government, this book will be of interests to researchers in the field of Political Science, Asian Politics and International Relations.

Tamil Nadu has been playing its legitimate role in the inter-government relationship on the Tamil issues. The magnitude of the state politics in the problems of Sri Lankan Tamils has reached its Zenith during the past one decade as a result of the eruption of ethnic violence in Sri Lanka. Since Tamil Polity has been fully dominated by ethnic political parts, each one has been trying its level best to project itself as the Vanguard of Tamil Nationalism. This book traces the approaches of the political parties and especially ethnic political parties towards the Sri Lankan Tamil issues. It also analyses to what extent the pressure extended by the ethnic political parties has been taken into account in foreign policy making of Indian Government during different periods. Significantly this work touches a very important aspect that to what extent the support extended by the political parties to help themselves to establish firm roots in provincial polity. This study sheds light on the ambiguous stand of the political parties in Tamil Nadu over this issue which ultimately has weakened the cause of the Tamils and mislead the Indian Government which adopted a tough stand without heeding to the plea of the majority of the Sri Lankan Tamils.

Mr. MacDonald, an apartment super, turned his building into a four-story farm with hot and cold running sweet potato vines, ceiling carrots, carpets of cabbages, and other farm produce and animals that prompted the tenants to move.

The present book uses Sri Lanka’s failed attempt at negotiating peace with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to examine the politics of state and market reforms towards liberal peace. Sri Lanka is seen as a critical case that demonstrates key characteristics and shortcomings of liberal peace, vividly demonstrated by internationally facilitated elite negotiations and donor-funded neoliberal development.

This book is a result of years of research on the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis. It gives a vivid description of the crisis, analyses the numerous factors that influence it, and explains a way to end it by democratic means. Sri Lankan Ethnic Crisis: Towards a Resolution is a unique book among those written on the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis for a number of reasons. It is the only book on the market that looks at the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis in a comprehensive manner. Every other book written on the subject focuses only on some selected aspects of the crisis. At the same time those written before do not help the reader understand the present intricacies of the crisis. A close look at all the books so far written on the subject reveals that Sri Lankan Ethnic Crisis: Towards a Resolution is the first book to: reach readers in both the academic and non-academic environments; help the reader fully understand the historic context of the ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka; discover and discuss in a co-ordinated manner the hidden factors that influence the crisis; expose the disguise of the elite and dynastic-type post-colonial rule as democracy, and the unbuddhist influence of some Buddhist monks on the ethnic crisis; remind the British, the last colonial power of Sri Lanka, of their responsibility for the present predicament of the Sinhalese peasantry and "stateless" Indian Tamils; suggest a complete solution to the crisis with a new democratic model of governance, which is equally applicable in principle to other countries suffering from ethnic strife; and Outline a way to implement the solution in the present political climate. This is the first time a person outside social science academia and the journalistic world has written a book on the subject, giving the citizen's point of view on the ethnic crisis combined with a democratic solution. In his solution, the author suggests a new, bottom-up approach to the crisis, with the people at the centre of the decision making process, instead of the top-down approach that has so far failed. The Sri Lankan Ethnic Crisis: Towards a Resolution is a book of 85,000 words. It also includes a number of explanatory maps, tables, and charts. It is an easy-to-read, concise and up-to-date book that has the answers to the burning questions raised by those committed to finding a lasting solution to the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis. It is a book of interest to everyone everywhere interested in the phenomenon of identity politics, and in matters of democratic processes to ensure the civil, human and political rights of the entire citizenry. Sri Lankan Ethnic Crisis: Towards a Resolution has five chapters. The first chapter introduces the reader to the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis and the objectives and organisation of the book. The second chapter gives a historical background to the crisis. It takes the reader through three phases of Sri Lankan history: pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial. It is useful for the reader to know the historical background of the crisis to fully understand its present complexities. The third chapter identifies the root cause of the crisis and explains 10 main factors that have contributed to its escalation into a separatist war since independence in 1948. The fourth chapter stresses the importance of a new political beginning for Sri Lanka as a multiethnic independent nation, and explains eight basic factors that should constitute the foundation for such a new beginning. Then it discusses the varied governing systems developed in other democracies in the world, and proposes a new democratic governing model for Sri Lanka. The model addresses the ethnic issues in Sri Lanka and formulates a way to establish genuine democracy in the country, giving the power of self-determination to all its peoples. This chapter also explains how the country would be able to implement such a new mo