What is it about?
The aims and objectives of this paper are to: (i) find out the trade-off between ethnic conflict and economic growth in Sri Lanka. (ii) compare and contrast the defence expenditure with the social expenditures of Sri Lanka. (iii) compare and contrast Sri Lanka’s defence expenditure within the South Asian region and with selected internal conflict-ridden countries in the developing world. (iv) discuss the cost-effectiveness of the labour-intensive military strategy pursued in Sri Lanka.
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Why is it important?
The results are that: (i) the trade-off between ethnic conflict and economic growth in Sri Lanka may be higher than hitherto acknowledged by other researchers. (ii) the defence expenditures have overtaken social expenditures consistently since 1995. (iii) Sri Lanka’s defence expenditures, as a proportion of the national income, is the highest in the region (bar Pakistan) and among selected internal conflict-ridden countries in the developing world. (iv) the labour-intensive military strategy pursued in Sri Lanka is economically costly.
Perspectives
It is believed that Sri Lanka is an exceptional country, because despite a protracted ethnic conflict it has achieved respectable rates of economic growth. The latest proponent of this view is O’Sullivan (2001). Although these researchers concur that the growth of the economy would have been greater if not for the war, nevertheless they commend the average growth of about 5% during the 20 years between 1981 and 2000 despite a deadly civil conflict (for example, see Arunatilake, et al, 2000: 5; Gunatilleke, et al, 2001: 5; Rankaduwa and Cooray, 1999). However, I beg to differ with the proponents of this view. The overall argument of the paper is that high economic cost of the civil war in Sri Lanka is unsustainable in the long run, and therefore peaceful resolution of the conflict is sine qua non for economic prosperity of the country.
Dr Muttukrishna Sarvananthan
Point Pedro Institute of Development
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This page is a summary of: Economic imperative for peace in Sri Lanka, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1016/s1572-8323(08)05011-x.
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