International Journal of Political Science and Development

Vol. 9(2), pp. 105-113, March, 2021. 

DOI: 10.14662/IJPSD2020.305

ISSN: 2360-784X

 

Full Length Research

 

Agreement and Consensus between Government and Rebellions during War Politics:  A Study of Sri Lanka

 

Dr. Athula Withanawasam

 

Department of Political Science, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. E-mail: withanawasam@gmail.com

 

Accepted 19 November 2020

ABSTRACT

 

This article is about the agreement and consensus between government and rebellions during war politics with reference to politics in Sri Lanka. The article argues war causes transforming normal pattern of politics if we perceive of war as power struggle. The article further argues that to understand politics and power struggle during war requires conceptualization of war politics. Therefore, this article has attempted to conceptualize war politics and apply it to understand the nature and content of war politics in Sri Lanka during its protracted civil war. The data for the study was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary information is extracted from the extensive field work carried out by the researcher while secondary data was collected from desk analysis. The above data was descriptively analyzed and presented in this paper as quotations, summaries of arguments and author�s interpretation. This study has found that war causes dual power making civilians and offices becoming clueless on whose orders were to be obeyed because war resulted in crisis of the state. The study has also found that war politics results in syndromes of incapacitated, establishment of dual power and existence of reciprocal understanding between government and rebellions during war. The study concludes that there is a probability of an emerging agreement and consensus between actors of governmental politics and war politics during wars to achieve their strategic objectives. 

 

Key Words: War politics, civil war, dual power, normal politics, militarized politics, war economy, Sri Lankan state, LTTE

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Cite this article as: Withanawasam, A. (2020). Agreement and Consensus between Government and Rebellions during War Politics: A Study of Sri Lanka. Int. J. Polit. Sci. Develop. 9(2) 105-113