Category: Sri Lanka

Is partisanship driving pandemic polarization?

     

Reuters Institute analyst J. Scott Brennen draws on sample of 225 pieces of misinformation rated false or misleading by fact-checkers, drawn from a collection maintained by First Draft, to explain… Read more »

Explaining Asia’s turn to illiberal democracy

     

The return of the Rajapaksa brothers to power in Sri Lanka highlights a broader and more alarming trend: the rise of illiberal democracy in South Asia as Sri Lanka joins… Read more »

South Asia’s trajectory shows how to fortify liberal democracy

     

By some measures, South Asia is more stable and democratic than it has been in decades, notes Paul Staniland, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Violence and… Read more »

Sri Lanka turmoil points to China’s ‘new colonialism’

     

The surest way to lose an election in south Asia is to be too enthusiastic about China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Wherever Chinese influence has grown, governments have turned more… Read more »

Time to resist China – ‘fueling corruption & autocratic behavior in struggling democracies’

     

Western-style multi-party democracy is inappropriate for Asia, the Chinese state-controlled Global Times said Monday. An op-ed titled “Multi-Party System Misfit in Asian Nations” suggests that pluralist democracy is inherently divisive, and that polarization… Read more »

Transitional Sri Lanka: Workers in Post-Civil War Jaffna

     

Sri Lanka continues to recover from a long and brutal civil war (1983–2009) between the ruling Buddhist Sinhalese and the primarily Hindu Tamil minority. During the conflict, which penetrated all… Read more »

Sri Lanka ‘lost in transition’?

     

  In January 2015, Maithripala Sirisena (left) surprised the world when he defeated his old boss Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka’s presidential election, analyst Taylor Dibbert writes for Foreign Affairs: His… Read more »

Democratization a ‘key focus for Obama’s final year’

     

President Obama will seek to consolidate his ­foreign-policy legacy this year by traveling widely and working with allies to combat extremism and foster the rise of emerging democracies, said deputy… Read more »