Dr Moore's enterprising book focuses on an apparent paradox: the failure of Sri Lanka's highly politicized smallholder electorate to place on the national political agenda issues relating to the public distribution of material resources. Sri Lanka has more than fifty years' history of pluralist democracy and such issues directly affect the interests of the smallholder population. Yet successive Sri Lankan governments have pursued economic policies favouring food consumers and the state itself at the expense of agricultural ...
Read More
Dr Moore's enterprising book focuses on an apparent paradox: the failure of Sri Lanka's highly politicized smallholder electorate to place on the national political agenda issues relating to the public distribution of material resources. Sri Lanka has more than fifty years' history of pluralist democracy and such issues directly affect the interests of the smallholder population. Yet successive Sri Lankan governments have pursued economic policies favouring food consumers and the state itself at the expense of agricultural producers. In exploring the features of Sri Lanka's history, geography, politics and economy which explain this paradox, the author looks in detail at some of the dominant features of contemporary Sri Lanka: the political consequences of the plantation experience; the persistence of elite political leadership; and the causes and consequences of ethnic conflict.
Read Less
Very Good. Size: 5x1x8; Hardcover. No dust jacket. Shelf wear. Scuff mark to spine. Pages unmarked. Study of the political behavior of peasant farmers and their relations with the state in Sri Lanka-analyses their failure as an interest group to press for better agricultural price and other benefits; examines the historical background to public land alienation, land reform, pricing and the provision of services, etc.; discusses cultural factors, political aspects and sociological aspects which explain the absence of a proper peasantry, social conflicts between ethnic groups, and nature of the political Elite.
