Social Changes, Local Administration and Democratic Governance in Pre and Post-Independence Sri Lanka

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to explore, how the changing social structure was crucially impact on formation of local administration in the context of local democracy in pre- and post - independence Sri Lanka. The ancient administration system was highly centered and autocratic in the king domain period in Sri Lankan society. Entire administration system was completely controlled by the king and his subordinates’ class who had more privileges and civil powers than ordinary people on various social capacities. Due to this privileges and civil authorities of this elite group that people did not have sufficient opportunity to engage in administrative activities or politics on what they need to wish. This trend has been shown not only under the colonial period but also after independency as well. Therefore, a puzzle is creating regarding period of pre- and post-independence administrative and local governance process in Sri Lanka. There was a sufficient opportunity for the people with regard participate of politics and administrative functions. Also, considerable social change has been taken place by the time. There are sufficient structural changes were happened in grass root politics, yet, there was no shown proof evidence about sufficient opportunities for the people regarding participation in politics or administration in the governance activities, why? This study will depend on number of arguments and interpretations which have been given by the previous scholars regarding social changes and political transformation in pre and post colonial Sri Lanka. Therefore, this study is employs critical theory which is one of the main post modern approaches of scientific inquiry as a major methodology for the analysis of existing arguments. Therefore, research will be critically examined the existing nature of the context by using scholarly writings and interpretations. The main limitation of this research is finding relevant secondary sources documents which written by the previous scholars regarding same field. Mainly, this research has been found that class, cast and wealth as well as dominant civil power has been used for maintain and sustain of the politics and administration of local governance in pre and post independence Sri Lanka. Further, final output of this research can be used scholars who desire to do a research on same area with applying same methodology.