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.

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

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

ARTICLES

(2010) Politics and Power in a Market Economy.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a framework to understand how politics and power operates within the market oriented economy of Sri Lanka. The chapter consists of five sections. The first section creates the background for the discussion that follows by analysing the social composition of the political class that rules Sri Lanka today. It discusses how the political power enjoyed by the English educated, westernised colonial elite was diluted due to the impact of electoral politics. It also shows how their influence continues through the control of key levers of power.

Beyond Liberal Peace (2019)
A critique of liberal peace ideas that have dominated international interventions in Sri Lanka. By focusing on a historical analysis of what has happened in recent past, the article shows limitations of these ideas and argue for the need to go beyond them if Sri Lanka is to achieve peace.

(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.

Sri Lanka Ideological battles (2018)
One of the key features of post 1977 political economy of Sri Lanka was development of a political consensus among political elite on economic policies as well as how to deal with the war. The main turning point was PA government after coming to power in 1994 shifting the ideology of centre-left parties accept neoliberal direction in capitalist transition and direct negotiations with LTTE supported by international mediation. After coming into power of Rajapakse regime this consensus changed both in relations policies of capitalist transition and how to deal with the war. With regime change in 2015 there is another shift. These ideological battles are bound to characterise Sri Lanka's capitalist transition and state formation process.

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.