BOOKS

Devolution and Development in Sri Lanka
(1994) Editor, Devolution and Development. New Delhi: Konark Publishers.

Can democracy be designed?
(2003) Co-editor, Can Democracy be Designed? London: Zed Books.

Sustaining a state in conflict: Politics of foreign aid in Sri Lanka, Colombo:ICES, (2018)
This study focuses on politics of foreign aid to Sri Lanka from developed countries of the West, Japan and multilateral agencies during the period 1977 to end of the armed conflict in 2009. This period is characterised by economic policies that emphasised liberal economic policies and an armed conflict resulting from the Tamil demand for a separate state. The study looks at politics of foreign aid in this context. Foreign aid played a dual role. It helped to sustain a state engaged in an armed conflict, while at the same time trying to promote a negotiated settlement. Therefore it was neither a do-gooder that liberals tend to believe nor a 'foreign devil that Sinhala nationalists like to see.

The politics of foreign Aid in Sri Lanka
(2007) Politics of foreign aid in Sri Lanka, Promoting markets and supporting peace. Colombo: International Centre for Ethnic Studies.

ARTICLES

(1997) Development NGOs and Ethnic Conflict, some conceptual challenges. Nethra, Vol.1, No.3, April-June, ICES.
This paper is concerned with the politics of „development NGOs. in the context of a protracted struggle in Sri Lanka for self governance by the Sri Lankan Tamil minority. This is what is meant whenever the term „ethnic conflict. is used in this paper. By „development NGOs. we mean those organisations of the fast growing NGO sector whose primary concern has been production and distribution of resources and social development. Generally these organisations have the objective of improving the lot of the poorer sections of the population through their projects.

(1999) Poverty Alleviation through Smallholder Agriculture – Fighting a Loosing Battle?
This paper is a contribution to a study on the experience of the Self-Help Support Programme (SSP) which is a project of Intercooperation, a development agency from Switzerland. The project has been in operation in Sri Lanka since 1987.

Post-war Sri Lankan state – Challenges for progressive politics
Analysis shows how to understand the current context in Sri Lanka and challenges for progressive politics

State formation, the politics of capitalist transition and conflicts
An interpretation of the recent economic crisis, protests and state repression in Sri Lanka

BLOG

Post 2015 Presidential Election-Some thoughts
An analysis of policy implications in the aftermath of the 2015 Presidential Election. The author argues aginst reductionist approaches that look for 'one big answer' to the problems faced by Sri Lanka. The article points out the need to focus on three areas of policy - strengthening the plural character of Sri Lanka, building the autonomy of the state, and an economic policy that integrates social dimensions into the growth strategy.

Post-war capitalism
A key issue in understanding the political economy of contemporary Sri Lanka is how we characterise the period after the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009. I would call it 'post-war' rather than 'post-conflict'. A better way is to look at what happened in May 2009 as a point of historical transition, where there is a continuity and discontinuity with the preceding period. Probably we have seen an end to the period of violent challenges to the state that began in the early seventies.