This book examines the politics of crafting liberal peace in contemporary intrastate conflicts using Sri Lanka’s failed attempt to negotiate peace with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The present book uses Sri Lanka’s failed attempt at negotiating peace with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to examine the politics of state and market reforms towards liberal peace. Sri Lanka is seen as a critical case that demonstrates key characteristics and shortcomings of liberal peace, vividly demonstrated by internationally facilitated elite negotiations and donor-funded neoliberal development.

List of Illustrations; List of Contributors; 1. Liberal Peace in Question: The Sri Lankan Case - Kristian Stokke; 2. Travails of State Reform in the Context of Protracted Civil War in Sri Lanka - Jayadeva Uyangoda; 3. Fallacies of the Peace Ownership Approach: Exploring Norwegian Mediation in Sri Lanka - Kristine Höglund and Isak Svensson; 4. The Politics of Market Reform at a Time of Ethnic Conflict: Sri Lanka in the Jayewardene Years - Rajesh Venugopal; 5. From SIHRN to Post-War North and East: The Limits of the ‘Peace through Development’ Paradigm in Sri Lanka - Charan Rainford and Ambika Satkunanathan; 6. Buying Peace? Politics of Reconstruction and the Peace Dividend Argument - Camilla Orjuela; 7. Women’s Initiative in Building Peace: The Case of Northern Sri Lanka - Doreen Arulanantham Chawade; 8. Liberal Peace and Public Opinion - Pradeep Peiris and Kristian Stokke; Notes; References

The present book examines the internationally facilitated peace process between the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in order to provide critical insights on contemporary attempts at crafting liberal peace in intrastate conflicts. The general argument is for a broadened political perspective on conflict resolution, extending the focus from the narrow confines of formal peace negotiations and elitist crafting of liberal peace, to the contextual politics of state reforms for group rights and power-sharing and the associated politics of economic reforms for neoliberal development. In examining the contextual politics of state and market reforms in Sri Lanka, the book highlight the tensions between liberal peace and Sinhalese and Tamil nationalisms, demonstrated in the contestations over political exclusion vs. inclusion in peace negotiations, individual human rights vs. group rights, territorial power sharing vs. state sovereignty and neoliberal development vs. social welfare.