Post-colonial orthodoxy

Ethnic Conflict and Security Crisis in Sri Lanka

by S.S. Misra

Kalinga Publishers, Delhi, 1995

176 pages

Most of the ongoing 60 wars in the world are internal and. in most cases, ethnic. Whereas the Cold War conflicts had been managed, with relative success, through balance of power, detente and dialogue, ethnic conflicts defy political and economic rationality familiar to political science. Ethnicity is beyond strategising, that theoretical basis of Cold War scholarship. When ethnic conflicts challenge the very notion of nation-state, ethnicity poses a serious challenge to political science That is where help has to be sought from anthropology, the discipline which has long been ignored as a "tool" for colonial administration.