Premium
From ethnic outbidding to ethnic conflict: the institutional bases for Sri Lanka's separatist war 1
Author(s) -
DeVotta Neil
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/j.1354-5078.2005.00196.x
Subject(s) - ethnic group , tamil , ethnic conflict , dialectic , sri lanka , state (computer science) , politics , political economy , political science , power (physics) , development economics , sociology , law , ethnology , south asia , economics , philosophy , linguistics , physics , epistemology , algorithm , quantum mechanics , computer science
. Beginning in the mid‐1950s Sri Lanka's politicians from the majority Sinhalese community resorted to ethnic outbidding as a means to attain power and in doing so systematically marginalised the country's minority Tamils. This article consequently argues that institutional decay, which was produced by the dialectic between majority rule and ethnic outbidding, was what led to Tamil mobilisation and an ethnic conflict that has killed nearly 70,000 people over the past twenty years. It also analyses the influence informal societal pressures exerted on formal state institutions and how this contributed to institutional decay. Evaluating the relations that ensued between social organisations and the Sri Lankan state shows how institutions can prescribe actions and fashion motives even as it will make clear how the island's varied institutions generated a deadly political dynamic that eventually unleashed the ongoing civil war.