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Stabilising a victor's peace? Humanitarian action and reconstruction in eastern Sri Lanka
Author(s) -
Goodhand Jonathan
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7717.2010.01212.x
Subject(s) - sri lanka , legitimacy , sovereignty , politics , humanitarian aid , insurgency , political science , state (computer science) , political economy , nationalism , action (physics) , development economics , sociology , south asia , law , ethnology , physics , algorithm , quantum mechanics , computer science , economics
This paper focuses on the ‘Sri Lankan model’ of counter‐insurgency and stabilisation and its implications for humanitarian and development actors. The Sri Lanka case shows that discourses, policies and practices associated with ‘stabilisation’ are not confined to ‘fragile state’ contexts in which there is heavy (and often militarised) international engagement—even though exemplars such as Afghanistan and Iraq have tended to dominate debates on this issue. Rather than being a single template, the ‘stabilisation agenda’ takes on very different guises in different contexts, presenting quite specific challenges to humanitarian and development actors. This is particularly true in settings like Sri Lanka, where there is a strong state, which seeks to make aid ‘coherent’ with its own vision of a militarily imposed political settlement. Working in such environments involves navigating a highly‐charged domestic political arena, shaped by concerns about sovereignty, nationalism and struggles for legitimacy.