At Theoretical Crossroads; Anarchy and the Sri Lankan Crisis

 

(Image Source: Reuters)

The nation of Sri Lanka remains embroiled in crisis. The economic mismanagement propagated by the current government's policies, has led to a depletion of foreign exchange and high inflation, prompting shortage of essential imports and necessities, power cuts, and massive displeasure across the country.

Its predecessor, the Sri Lankan Civil War, in a way has always stayed at the back of my mind; vividly at times and muted at others. This probably had much to do with my environment, punctuated with political parties of Dravidian legacy, and my family’s own relationship with the language Tamil, whose cultural capital was deeply intertwined with the ethnic conflict. As I grew older, I could see the downfalls of subscribing to clear cut binaries in an anarchic state of war and the appeal of nuance. This was particularly prominent in the case of the civil war- cultural genocide and systemic oppression on one hand, and some questionable unhumanitarian choices on the other; as the conflict drudged towards its closure, the binaries melded together.  

The current crisis is not very dissimilar in this sense. There are two common narratives that presently flood reporting on Sri Lanka; 1) The corruption and rent-seeking that the incumbent Rajapaksa government engaged and continues to engage in, and 2) The predatory nature of Chinese loans and projects. The point here is not to entirely reject these two premises, but rather to think beyond these broad narratives. 

For instance, Sri Lanka had placed 65th on the 2021 Global Hunger Index, while India trailed behind at 101 out of a total of 116 countries. The tables have turned today however as India gears up to send shipments of essentials including food, to a stricken Sri Lanka. Rather than simply asking how this happened, it would also be a good idea to examine what such a position on a global index would entice. There are often multiple understandings and definitions of power, and in turn anarchy, that permeate the international order; often overwhelming any other characteristics of the international order. This is precisely where one finds the theoretical crossroads, building on anarchy, a useful tool.

Realism, liberalism, and constructivism after all, all work on the basis of the anarchy problématique.

Realism, the longest standing theoretical tradition, finds one of its defining features in anarchy; in ‘the absence of any sovereign authority above states analogous to that existing in domestic politics’ [1]. Since a realist’s primary actor is the state, any examination; be it classical or structural or even neo-classical, would put Sri Lanka center-stage. The realist frame of analysis however does not stop there. It becomes vital to observe the reactions of other state actors to Sri Lankan instability; at the end of the day, there is ‘no one to call on’. Even requests for aid are rooted in emphasizing rationality over morality. 

 For instance, despite the Chinese policy to establish Beijing as a source of dependable loans to developing nations, it has presently refused to restructure Sri Lanka’s debts. This rational choice comes after repeated requests from Colombo to roll over the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) loans; analysts suggest that China is instead seeking to facilitate a debt-to-equity swap and instead secure land in Sri Lanka, when the government fails to pay back its loans. Every other source of aid as well, is rooted in eventual repayments, including India’s establishment of a credit line to source essentials.

Another interesting observation on realist lines is that, while dealing with the domestic instability by facilitating economic growth and perhaps military development, Sri Lanka would eventually set itself back onto the global stage; of power balancing, despite being unable to establish a practical timeline at the moment. One of its two fronts is after all internal.

In my previous post, I wrote about my anxieties of restricting myself to a particular theoretical tradition only (in spite of having more of a leaning for critical perspectives). The realization that a realist approach only focuses on the state, very much must stay nagging at the back of one’s head. A liberal take on the crisis, while still accepting the reality of anarchy, provides a bottom-up construction of the world order. It is generally individuals and groups who dictate interests, rather than the merely  representative state. In Sri Lanka the typical tenets of protecting the individual citizen’s liberty however fails as a Hobbesian narrative about the ‘state of nature’ [2], emerges through the rent-seeking of the Rajapaksa family.

While the idea of rational domestic actors has been tainted by the nepotistic constitution of the government; perhaps best reflected in Moravscik’s framing of asymmetrical relationships [3], liberalism on an optimistic note does believe in overcoming anarchy by solving collective action problems and acquiring platforms through liberal institutions. A world government does not exist, but economic interdependence and presence of global governance, prompted Colombo to instead reach out to the IMF.

Constructivism holds on not just to anarchy, but rather to a ‘continuum of anarchies’ [4]. Since actors and structures must be mutually constituted, the range of definitions available expands rampantly. Wendt for instance wrote, ‘anarchy is what states make of it’ [5]. The state of Sri Lanka, primarily its political representatives, believes that the country’s crisis stems from the Ukraine-Russia war and the resultant hike in oil prices. The people of Sri Lanka themselves feel intersubjectively threatened by the incumbent state; a failure of liberal institutional values. The West and India on the other hand, have attempted to restate the predatory nature of Chinese credit and frame it as the primary catalyst of the crisis, predictably as a response to their ‘threat perception’ towards China.

This narrative creation becomes an instance of discursive power, as much as the DMK government in Tamil Nadu’s attempt to establish positive connections with the Sri Lankan Tamil community, by pushing for aid programmes. The Dravidian legacy’s ontological security after all partly derives from connections to the Tamil diaspora. The creation and eventually the failure of discursive power is also reflected in the inconsistencies between Sri Lanka’s ranking in the global indexes and its actual state. This is also a reminder that constructivism recognises not just the importance of discursive power, but also material. 

The anarchy problématique, as one can see, primarily is characterized by a diverse instrumentalization of the concept itself across different theoretical traditions. To some extent, there exists a mental barrier when talking about Global South countries especially in terms of anarchy since it feels very great power oriented; this is precisely why post-colonial and other critical perspectives become important. Regardless, the anarchy problématique that exists at the crossroads of these three theories, when applied, is useful to extract and attempt to overcome the various power asymmetries and binaries that exist in world order.  

Bibliography

Dasgupta, Saibal. "China's Global Image Under Strain as Sri Lanka Faces Debt Trap." April 25, 2022. https://www.voanews.com/a/china-s-global-image-under-strain-as-sri-lanka-faces-debt-trap-/6544106.html

Global Hunger Index. https://www.globalhungerindex.org/

Hopf, Ted. 1998. ‘The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory’. International Security 23 (1): 171. https://doi.org/10.2307/2539267.

Janardhanan,  Arun. "Behind Stalin’s Lanka aid move: state rights assertion, DMK’s diaspora image makeover." May 1, 2022. Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/political-pulse/behind-stalin-lanka-aid-move-state-rights-dmk-diaspora-7894926/

Keohane, Robert. 1998. “International Institutions: Can Interdependence Work?” Foreign Policy 110: 82–96.

Mitzen, Jennifer. 2006. “Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma.” European Journal of International Relations 12 (3): 341–70.https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066106067346.

Moravcsik, Andrew. 1997. “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics.” International Organization 51 (4): 513–53. https://doi.org/10.1162/002081897550447.

Reuters. "Explained: What led to the Sri Lanka economic crisis, and who is helping?" April 19, 2022. Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/sri-lanka-economic-crisis-explained-7849208/

Wendt, Alexander. 1992. “Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics”. International Organization 2, 391-425.