Abstract:
This study analyses state–minority contestations for power and domination in Sri Lanka. The study also
reviews the process of state formation and the attempts at state reconstitution with the intention of
shedding light on the centralised unitary nature of the state that has prevailed during the post-colonial
period. This assessment provides insights into the character of the present state-in-society approach, if
such a distinct approach exists, and determines why this new approach is critical in the context of Sri
Lanka. The study is a qualitative analysis based on text analysis. The study makes two major
contributions, achieved by extending the state-in-society theory to cover the two aspects, ‘militant social
forces’ and ‘post-civil war state and society’. The first contribution is to expand the state-in-society theory
by including a strong militant group as a social force, which was excluded in Migdal’s approach. The
second contribution is to expand the state-in-society theory to study post-war state and society
transformation and how they reconstitute each other. Both contributions are highlighted in the paper.
