The erosion of social capital in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Until the 1970s, Sri Lanka was often seen as a model for a third world democratic welfare state. However, its image as a model of development and democracy has been rapidly and severely tarnished over the 1980s and the 1990s. Recently, a number of studies have attempted to explain the reasons for Sri Lanka's fall from grace. According to these studies, Sri Lanka's recent history of underachievement and economic crisis can be attributed to the country's 25-year-old war, policy mistakes, an inefficient large public sector, and poor governance. In this study, I propose to argue that the erosion of 'productive' social capital has also played an important role in the sorry tale of development in Sri Lanka. To this end I investigate how its accumulated stocks of productive social capital have been eroded.