Papers by Ramya Jirasinghe
Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences, 2018
This paper examines the key global debates on liberal peace and peacebuilding and their nexus wit... more This paper examines the key global debates on liberal peace and peacebuilding and their nexus with the Sri Lankan conflict, the efforts to resolve the conflict and the ensuing local discourses. The end of the cold war heralded the possibility of a liberal world order. This triumph of the liberal order underlined a normative assumption of "the end of history", not as a static closure, but as embodying an ideology with the potential for delineating the optimal form of governance for a state, its economy and citizens 1. Since the end of the cold-war, liberal peace has become the main policy framework that has been used by the International Community (IC) to engage with and intervene in conflict ridden states as a means for creating global peace by stabilising states and strengthening global markets 2. However, the liberal peace thesis and the attendant liberal peacebuilding interventionist frameworks for local and global peace have spurned a critical discourse that questions the validity of the thesis and the effectiveness of its policy and practice outcomes. Sri Lanka mirrors the global debates and policy impact of the ideological framework of the global thesis, as it has a history of liberal governance (traceable to the 19 th century) and liberal peacebuilding (traceable to the 20 th century).
The International Community’s Intervention during the Conclusion of the War in Sri Lanka
Strategic Analysis, 2016
Abstract This article explores the backdrop of the engagement between the International Community... more Abstract This article explores the backdrop of the engagement between the International Community (IC) and the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) over the conduct of the military during the last stages of its engagement with the secessionist Tamil militants which (especially from January to May 2009) led to a humanitarian crisis. The efforts of the IC to persuade the GoSL to halt the military operations and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to concede defeat, to ensure human security, were a failure. This article discusses the IC’s engagement with the GoSL, which followed an ambivalent posture—advocating a political solution as a means of ending the war while supporting the GoSL’s military engagement—and explores how such deliberate ambivalence enabled the GoSL to subvert the authority of the IC and consolidate its position both locally and globally, to take the military engagement to a decisive conclusion. Furthermore, the paper contends that the GoSL could successfully, albeit temporarily, resist the IC’s efforts at intervention to safeguard human security in the war zone, which led to a humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka.
Tin disulfide (SnS 2) has gained a lot of interest in the field of converting solar energy into c... more Tin disulfide (SnS 2) has gained a lot of interest in the field of converting solar energy into chemical fuels in light-assisted electrochemical water splitting due to its visible-light band gap and high electronic mobility. However, further decreasing the recombination rate of electron-hole pairs and increasing the density of active states at the valence band edge of the photoelectrodes were a critical problem. Here, we were successful in fabricating the super-thin SnS 2 nanostructure by a hydrothermal and solution etching method. The super-thin SnS 2 nanostructure as a photo-electrocatalytic material exhibited low overpotential of 0.25 V at the current density of −10 mA•cm −2 and the potential remained basically unchanged after 1000 cycles in an H 2 SO 4 electrolyte solution, which was better than that of the SnS 2 nanosheet and SnS/SnS 2 heterojunction nanosheet. These results show the potential application of super-thin SnS 2 nanostructure in electrochemical/photo-electrocatalytic field.
A Coxian Critical Reflexive Lens as a Methodological Tool for Analysis in Liberal Peacebuilding Research in Sri Lanka
Colombo Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Research
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Papers by Ramya Jirasinghe