About The Book/Author :

This book details the manner in which Sri Lanka has missed numerous opportunities to secure peace between its two principal ethnic communities and how the intractable ethnic conflict has placed the country in a dire state. It provides an institutionalist explanation to the conflict, examines the Sinhalese-Tamil divisions that were exacerbated due to linguistic nationalism, and evaluates the extent to which the island’s political structure encouraged ethnocentrism. It also makes clear how such ethnocentrism has contributed to illiberal democracy and political decay. Furthermore, the book analyzes how both military and political strategies have failed to end the ethnic war and provides a structural explanation for the LTTE’s resistance to accept a negotiated peace, which would require the group to step back from its stated goal of creating a separate state. India’s shifting policy vis-à-vis the conflict is also examined in the context of its contrasting responses and postures—intervention in the 1980s and non-intervention currently.


P. Sahadevan (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor in South Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Book Review Editor of International Studies (Sage, New Delhi). He held visiting fellowships at the University of Kent at Canterbury (U.K.) and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame (USA). He is the author of Coping with Disorder: Strategies to End Internal Wars in South Asia (2000) and India and Overseas Indians: The Case of Sri Lanka (1995); and editor of Conflict and Peacemaking in South Asia (2001). He has contributed about 45 research articles/chapters to various edited volumes and journals, including International Negotiation, International Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, and International Journal of Group Tensions.

Neil DeVotta received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Texas at Austin and is presently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Hartwick College, New York. His research interests include South Asian security and politics, ethnicity and nationalism, ethnic conflict resolution, globalization and its impact on developing societies, and democratic transitions. He is the author of Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004) and co-editor of Understanding Contemporary India (Boulder: Lynn Rienner Press, 2003) and has also published articles on South Asia and Sri Lanka in a number of peer reviewed journals, including Journal of Democracy, Contemporary South Asia, Pacific Affairs, and Asian Survey.