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Book part
Publication date: 17 October 2023

S. Janaka Biyanwila

The peoples’ movement was a movement to deepen citizenship and democracy by demanding actual participation in representative politics. It was a non-violent democratic movement…

Abstract

The peoples’ movement was a movement to deepen citizenship and democracy by demanding actual participation in representative politics. It was a non-violent democratic movement based on independence from political parties, collective informal leadership and multi-level horizontal networking and coordination. It was strengthened by the activists from the student movement, trade unions and working-class parties. It foregrounded issues related to debt and development, Global North–South dynamics, narrowing of representative politics and the role of democratic social movements. The peoples’ movement, ‘Aragalaya’, illustrated that solidarity, cultivated across multiple cultural, economic and political differences, while engaging locally with a global sense, can influence authoritarian militarised governments. In effect, the struggle for democracy and citizenship aimed at transforming representative politics also accompanied alternative notions of well-being and pleasures involving ‘living well together with others’ in harmony with nature.

Details

Debt Crisis and Popular Social Protest in Sri Lanka: Citizenship, Development and Democracy Within Global North–South Dynamics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-022-3

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 17 October 2023

S. Janaka Biyanwila

The popular uprising (Aragalaya) combined a protest movement with a movement towards commons or a solidarity economy. The popular uprising from March to August 2022 was a reaction…

Abstract

The popular uprising (Aragalaya) combined a protest movement with a movement towards commons or a solidarity economy. The popular uprising from March to August 2022 was a reaction to the authoritarian heteropatriarchal Rajapaksa regime, which drained public revenues instigating an economic crisis. The Aragalaya was based on non-violence, independence from political parties, participatory democracy, collective leadership, politico-aesthetic strategies (art activism) and collective learning. While there were multiple contradictions, along with state repression, the Aragalaya expressed new forms of solidarity, strengthening struggles for democracy and citizenship.

Details

Debt Crisis and Popular Social Protest in Sri Lanka: Citizenship, Development and Democracy Within Global North–South Dynamics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-022-3

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 11 December 2023

Devaka Gunawardena and Ahilan Kadirgamar

The popular uprising in Sri Lanka on July 9th, 2022, led to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing the country. It represented a stunning culmination of a wave of protests during…

Abstract

The popular uprising in Sri Lanka on July 9th, 2022, led to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing the country. It represented a stunning culmination of a wave of protests during the recent past. The proximate cause of the uprising was the worst economic crisis that Sri Lanka had experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The breakdown was long in the making since the island nation became the first country in South Asia to take the neoliberal turn in the late 1970s. The dramatic collapse was catalyzed by a sovereign debt crisis with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Nevertheless, like all great revolts, it has led to a counter revolution by the ruling class, including the reconfiguration of the old regime.

We examine the tremendous consequences of recent events, both in terms of Sri Lanka's long history of struggles involving working people and the global unravelling underway. We explore whether Sri Lanka is a harbinger of more global political economic changes to come. The process includes the possibility of systemic resistance to financialization in the scores of countries in the Global South experiencing tremendous debt distress. In this regard, we ask whether Sri Lanka's revolt could yet become a revolution. To frame the potential implications, we turn to a deeper interrogation of classic Marxist theories and concepts.

Book part
Publication date: 17 October 2023

S. Janaka Biyanwila

The popular uprising, the Aragalaya, was a response to a debt crisis as well as a catharsis of accumulated public discontent, which overlapped with the pandemic. A key lesson from…

Abstract

The popular uprising, the Aragalaya, was a response to a debt crisis as well as a catharsis of accumulated public discontent, which overlapped with the pandemic. A key lesson from the pandemic was the need to strengthen state social provisioning capacities to protect the health status of citizens. In addition, enhancing local economies and sustainable livelihoods is central to avoiding the vulnerabilities of international migrant labour and tourism. The limitations of representative politics highlight the need to strengthen democratic social movement politics. Along with cross cultural alliances, building multi-class alliances is central for strengthening politics of redistribution. In a context of integration of party politics with criminal networks, demilitarisation as well as the abolition of prisons is indispensable for democratisation. In a global scale, democratising financial markets and platform economies suggests regulation and regional experiments not simply by the state but also multiple publics. In demanding participation in representative institutions, the Aragalaya combined a protest movement with a sense of commons. In turn, it pointed towards the possibilities of a public-driven economy based on the democratisation of the state as well as markets. In framing this movement as a ‘struggle of love’, it revitalised the realm of life politics and alternative pleasures of life.

Details

Debt Crisis and Popular Social Protest in Sri Lanka: Citizenship, Development and Democracy Within Global North–South Dynamics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-022-3

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 March 2022

Ahmed Hassan, Mohamed Elmaghrabi, Bruce Burton and Theresa Dunne

The purpose of this study is to provide a detailed descriptive account and analysis of corporate internet reporting (CIR) practices among non-financial companies listed on the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to provide a detailed descriptive account and analysis of corporate internet reporting (CIR) practices among non-financial companies listed on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) at two points in time – December 2010 (pre) and December 2013 (peri) political and social unrest in Egypt.

Design/methodology/approach

The study developed a disclosure index to determine the extent of CIR practices among all non-financial companies listed on the EGX in December 2010 and December 2013. The study uses ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions and isometric log-ratio transformations for compositional independent variables to empirically examine the factors affecting CIR in Egypt using a modern institutional theory lens.

Findings

The findings of this investigation suggest that listed companies in Egypt have started embracing the power of the internet as a disclosure channel, but the extent of these practices increased significantly over the investigated period, with great variations evident among the sampled companies in this regard. Such variations were chiefly dependent on the changing institutional actors over the two time frames. Additionally, the findings show that the time factor is particularly important for a given institutional field to induce a sufficient diffusion of corporate practices, especially in periods with drastic institutional change.

Practical implications

The evidence presented reflects the voluntary nature of CIR practices and the absence of a reinforced regulatory framework for organizing and monitoring such practices, with companies having discretion in terms of the amount and type of information disclosed via their websites. The results should, therefore, provide useful guidelines for regulators and standard-setters in identifying best practices, which, in turn, should allow CIR practices to become more consistent, making them easier to monitor and govern.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines CIR practices at two points in time using a comprehensive disclosure index and a modern institutional theory lens.

Details

International Journal of Organizational Analysis, vol. 31 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1934-8835

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 17 October 2023

S. Janaka Biyanwila

The political crisis related to two main factors internal to the public revenue system, namely financial markets and the commercialisation of the state, and three related external…

Abstract

The political crisis related to two main factors internal to the public revenue system, namely financial markets and the commercialisation of the state, and three related external factors, pertaining to the pandemic, popular discontent and inequality. The emphasis on financial markets since the mid-1990s expanded the commercialisation of the state while neglecting public accountability and government oversight. The efforts to shore up public finances through the tax system is increasingly undermined by the global tax architecture, enabling financial secrecy and illicit financial flows.

The pandemic revealed the significance of women’s work, paid as well as unpaid care work. The pandemic also exposed the limitations of a domestic economy, based on export-oriented development, over-reliant on tourism and remittances from migrant workers. Combining with the on-going dengue epidemic, the pandemic highlighted the urgency of climate adaptation. Meanwhile, the popular discontent conveyed an accumulation of grievances linked with cultural discrimination, political misrepresentation as well as economic maldistribution. The participation of new middle-class segments in the protests foregrounded new tendencies significant for strengthening the labour movement as well as working-class parties in their demands for redistribution, reframing democracy as well as citizenship.

Details

Debt Crisis and Popular Social Protest in Sri Lanka: Citizenship, Development and Democracy Within Global North–South Dynamics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-022-3

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 11 December 2023

Kristin Plys, Priyansh and Kanishka Goonewardena

In this introduction to the special issue, ‘Marxist Thought in South Asia’, we detail the long history of Marxist politics and theorizing in South Asia and highlight the unique…

Abstract

In this introduction to the special issue, ‘Marxist Thought in South Asia’, we detail the long history of Marxist politics and theorizing in South Asia and highlight the unique contributions and perspectives of South Asian Marxists to global Marxism. Three contributions we find particularly significant are (1) South Asian Marxists' approach to thinking about questions of capitalism, colonialism and imperialism, (2) the treatment of agrarian and feudal continuities in Marxist theories from South Asia and (3) unique South Asian contributions to theorizing caste from a Marxist perspective.

Details

Marxist Thought in South Asia
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-183-1

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 17 October 2023

S. Janaka Biyanwila

Abstract

Details

Debt Crisis and Popular Social Protest in Sri Lanka: Citizenship, Development and Democracy Within Global North–South Dynamics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-022-3

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 17 October 2023

S. Janaka Biyanwila

Abstract

Details

Debt Crisis and Popular Social Protest in Sri Lanka: Citizenship, Development and Democracy Within Global North–South Dynamics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-022-3

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