Sunil Bastian: “Sri Lankan state in a changing global context” … a 2025 article presented here with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi.**
This short article emphasises the need to analyse the Sri Lankan state by placing it in the global context. This means not confining our minds within the borders of the Sri Lankan state. To emphasise this point I would like to point out that the formation of the Sri Lankan state itself was a product of a global phenomenon – British colonialism (see Bastian Sunil (2025) State formation and Conflicts in Sri Lanka. London: Bloomsbury Academic for an analysis of Sri Lankan state formation).
Under British colonialism the entire geographic space of the island was covered by a single unit of territorial power. To administer the territory, the island was divided into spatial units using the directions of a compass. In this way cartography became an instrument of British colonialism. Other techniques of state formation were establishing an administrative structure, a judicial system, a system to collect taxes, regular census and the coercive power of the state to cover the entire island.
