Keynote Speaker

Dr. Pradeep Peiris is Head and Senior Lecturer of the Department of Political Science and Public Policy, University of Colombo, and Director and Treasurer of the Social Scientists’ Association, Colombo. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2014 under the NUFU/ NOMA fellowship scheme of the University of Oslo, Norway. He is currently a Fellow in the research consortium “Reversing the Gaze: Towards Post-Comparative Area Studies, led by the Universities of Basel, Zurich and Edinburgh, with collaborators from Europa, Asia, Africa and North America. Dr. Peiris has most recently authored the book titled Catch-All Parties and Party-Voter Nexus in Sri Lanka (Palgrave Macmillan) and edited the book titled Is the Cure Worse than the Disease? Reflections on COVID Governance in Sri Lanka (Centre for Policy Alternatives). He has also published on a wide array of subjects ranging from electoral politics to opinion polling, gender, liberal economy, and the democratic discourse in Sri Lanka. He is a leading survey researcher in Sri Lanka with over two decades of experience, and is the country representative of the ‘World Association for Public Opinion Research’ (WAPOR) and ‘Democracy Barometer’. His current teaching and research engagements focus on Political Theory, the Philosophy of Science, Quantitative Research, Democracy and Democratization, and Research in the Social Sciences.

Keynote Abstract

The Economic Crisis and the Necessity of an Alternative Political Space

Sri Lanka is both literally and metaphorically a bankrupt nation. The country that was considered a model for emerging postcolonial democracies is, today, ranked as one with the fifth highest rate of inflation in the world. For the first time in its postcolonial history, Sri Lankans not only are experiencing an economic crisis of this magnitude, but also will have to brace for very painful economic reforms to resolve the crisis.

Not only social scientists but economists also recognize, though grudgingly, the political foundation of the current crisis, and advocate the need for consensual politics to overcome the crisis. However, the political class who were the culprits of the crisis and are now appearing as the agents of resolving it, seems to think somewhat differently. They are of the belief that the current crisis can be resolved mainly, if not solely, through economic reforms.

In a parliamentary democracy, people engage in rule through their electoral representatives. The political culture and the nature of political representation are dialectically related, and this relationship determines the quality of a democracy. In an ideal democracy, representatives are accountable to their constituencies, and therefore those politicians who fail to represent the interests of the people who elected them are voted out of office. However, despite the deterioration of economic conditions and political freedom over the past decades, many politicians have managed to hold on to their parliamentary seat. This calls into question the nature of representation, the nexus between political parties and voters, as well as the interests that people expect their representatives to represent.

Almost all the parties are weakly institutionalized and heavily dependent on their national level leaders. Therefore, instead of performing as an institution of representation, parties have become groups of leaders who compete for the opportunity to occupy government offices. They are organized as networks of political elites instead of autonomous institutions aggregating the interests of their supporters. Over time, the main parties have widened their network by roping in elites from business and bureaucratic classes to function as efficient patronage machines.  On the one hand, this has made the boundaries of the state’s sphere porous, encouraging intrusion from various sectors. On the other, some state officials have become part of the party programme, eroding the distance between the party and the state. Therefore, over the years, these main parties have largely shifted their attention to intrude into the state, instead of focusing on forming governments. By exploiting state resources, the main parties have managed to cultivate a network of patronage-based party-voter relationships, thus transforming elections into an opportunity for citizens to negotiate with political elites to maximize material benefits. In this context, people prefer to be voters and fulfil their private interests than be citizens who engage with common interests. Decades of such electoral practices have established a sense that democracy is an instrument through which people secure access to resources instead of rule. As a result, there is an increased tendency of viewing electoral democracy as a means by which rulers control the ruled, rather than the other way around.

Unfortunately, Parliament under President Wickremesinghe has neither the capacity nor the intention to transcend the warped political ethos that post independent politics has produced. Therefore, forming a new alternative political space is not an option but a necessity to steer the country out of the current crisis.