Sri Lanka: From Turmoil to Dynasty

Issue Date April 2011
Volume 22
Issue 2
Page Numbers 130-144
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While successive post-independence governments’ ethnocentric policies undermined liberal democracy and led to Sri Lanka’s civil war, the extraconstitutional and extrajudicial strategies President Mahinda Rajapaksa adopted to defeat the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the tactics he has since pursued to perpetuate his tenure as president, and the malpractices he and his supporters have perpetrated in order to create a Rajapaksa family dynasty have ushered in a soft authoritarian dispensation that could very well lead to a hard authoritarian milieu.

About the Author

Neil DeVotta is professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University.

View all work by Neil DeVotta