Beyond the liberal paradigm: the constitutional accommodation of national pluralism in Sri Lanka
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Date
02/07/2015Author
Welikala, Asanga Sanjiv
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Abstract
This thesis concerns the theoretical issues that arise in the application of the
constitutional model known as the plurinational state, developed through the
experience of such Western liberal democratic states as Canada, Spain and the
United Kingdom, to non-Western contexts of national pluralism through the case
study of Sri Lanka. There are two closely intertwined and complementary objectives
to the thesis. Firstly, to provide a fresh analytical and prescriptive framework of
understanding and potential solutions to the constitutionally unresolved problem of
national pluralism in Sri Lanka that has so far only generated protracted conflict.
Secondly and more importantly, to contribute in more general terms to the theoretical
literature on plurinational constitutionalism by way of the comparative insights
generated through applying the model to an empirical context that is fundamentally
different in a number of ways to that from which it originally emerged. In this latter,
comparative, exercise, there are three key empirical grounds of difference that are
identified in the thesis. Firstly, the difference between the sociological character of
nationalisms in the two contexts, defined at the most basic level by the civic-ethnic
dichotomy; secondly, the different meanings of democratic modernity in the present,
determined by colonial modernity and post-colonial ethnocracy; and thirdly, the
differences in the substantive content of democracy as between liberal and nonliberal
democracies. The thesis argues that the plurinational state may be adapted to
have a role and relevance beyond Western conditions, by addressing the theoretical
issues that arise from these divergences. In doing so, it seeks to demonstrate that
ethnic forms of nationalism are not necessarily inconsistent with the plurinational
logic of accommodation; that an exploration of pre-colonial history reveals
indigenous forms of the state that are more consistent with plurinational ideals than
the classical modernist Westphalian nation-state introduced by nineteenth century
colonialism; and that plurinational constitutions may be based on a broader
conception of democracy than political liberalism. Building on these discussions, the
principal normative contribution of the thesis is the development of a constitutional
theory for the accommodation of national pluralism that is based on the norm of
asymmetry, as distinct from equality, between multiple nations within the territorial
and historical space of the state.
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