Negotiations in a globalized world
Sunil Bastian (2008)
Sunil Bastian argues that it is important to understand the negotiations between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE that began in 2002 in relation to the government's strategic response to the economic crisis. The Wickremasinghe government's strategy combined extensive liberal economic reforms, a ceasefire agreement and negotiations with the LTTE, and a framework to institutionalize the role of external actors in the negotiation process. He poses four reasons for the failure of the strategy: a failure to take into account the political battles within the Sinhala community; the electoral fallout of economic reforms; the LTTE's difficulties with the international dimension of the strategy; and a lack of coherence in external actors' approaches towards the parties.
