Migdal’s Theory of the State-in-Society in the Context of Sri Lanka: A Critical Review

This study analyses state–minority contestations for power and domination in Sri Lanka. The study also reviews the process of state formation and the attempts at state reconstitution with the intention of shedding light on the centralised unitary nature of the state that has prevailed during the post-colonial period. This assessment provides insights into the character of the present state-in-society approach, if such a distinct approach exists, and determines why this new approach is critical in the context of Sri Lanka. The study is a qualitative analysis based on text analysis. The study makes two major contributions, achieved by extending the state-in-society theory to cover the two aspects, ‘militant social forces’ and ‘post-civil war state and society’. The first contribution is to expand the state-in-society theory by including a strong militant group as a social force, which was excluded in Migdal’s approach. The second contribution is to expand the state-in-society theory to study post-war state and society transformation and how they reconstitute each other. Both contributions are highlighted in the paper.