Democracy, development and the executive presidency in Sri Lanka

• Published in: Third world quarterly 2015-04, Vol.36 (4), p.670-690
• Main Author: Venugopal, Rajesh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Commitments; constitutional change; Democracy; Development; Economic growth; Institutions; Legitimacy; Parliaments; Presidency; Presidentialism; Sri Lanka
• ISSN: 0143-6597; 1360-2241
• DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2015.1024400

This paper examines the developmental causes and consequences of the shift from a parliamentary to a semi-presidential system in Sri Lanka in 1978, examining its provenance, rationale and unfolding trajectory. Drawing on a wide range of sources, it sets out an argument that the executive presidency was born out of an elite impulse to create a more stable, centralised political structure to resist the welfarist electoral pressures that had taken hold in the post-independence period, and to pursue a market-driven model of economic growth. This strategy succeeded in its early years, 1978-93, when presidents retained legislative control, maintained a strong personal commitment to market reforms and cultivated alternative sources of legitimacy. In the absence of these factors, the presidency slipped into crisis from 1994-2004 as resistance to elite-led projects of state reform mounted and as the president lost control of the legislature. Between 2005-14, the presidency regained its power, but at the cost of abandoning its original rationale and function as a means to recalibrate the elite-mass power relationship to facilitate elite-led reform agendas.