State formation, the politics of capitalist transition and conflicts – by Sunil Bastian Given the wars and conflicts that engulfed the world at the end of 2023, peace and conflict studies have become even more important as we welcome 2024. This short article is based on the experience of Sri Lanka. Using the example of Sri Lanka, its aim is to show the importance of taking into account the politics of capitalist transition when studying conflicts. But getting into this specific discussion, it is necessary to explain the foundational concepts underlining this note. This is based on the idea of studying conflicts as a question of state-society relations. State formation and conflicts The conventional idea of the state treats it as a self-contained entity that has attained a final status. The legal notion of sovereignty strengthens this idea. Those who control the state, and their ideologues, always try to convey this ...
Blog Archives
Home ⁄ Tag Archives: Sunil Bastian
Reflections on state formation by Sunil Bastian This short article explains a framework for analysing Sri Lankan state formation and understanding the current challenges that the country is facing. My interest in state formation began when trying to make sense of the data on political violence and state repression that I had collected from 1977. I realised that I could easily expand this data base to cover the entire post-colonial period. It was also clear that this violence was not an abberation or exception, but a systemic characteristic of Sri Lankan society. The data collected largely consisted of numbers and reports of individual events. It just touched the surface of the problem. To understand the impact of political violence and state repression in Sri Lankan society you need to go deeper, preferably using a case study method. This is a task for future researchers. The dominant essentialist categorisation of the ...
Jan 28, 2023
Posted by eLanka admin In
Articles
Tagged socio- economic, Sri Lankan society, Sunil Bastian
A few thoughts on Sri Lanka to begin 2021 Sunil Bastian These are few thoughts on characteristics of the Sri Lankan state and state formation in the post-war period. It is difficult to make sense of contradictions of the state formation process at present without taking into account what happened after the general election held in July 1977. In other words, focusing on current events without this historical context is not useful. It is only this context that gives meaning to current developments. What we saw in 1977 was the beginning of a new period of capitalist transition that emphasised markets, the private sector and openness to global capitalism. This also changed Sri Lanka’s international relations by strengthening links with developed capitalist countries of the West, Japan and multilaterals. It meant integrating the Sri Lankan state to a greater degree with a neoliberal political project that included economic, political and ...
