Abstract
Discussions and debates about global social policy have been mostly inspired by the past and recent experiences of developed Western countries. Various welfare state models discussed in the literature have also been derived from the experiences of these countries (cf. Esping-Andersen, 1990). At the same time, the developing world has not remained unaffected by the experiences and developments of other countries, in particular those in the developed world. The Western colonialism that impacted most of today’s developing countries also facilitated the transmission of ideas, including those connected with social policy, across the world. While such social policy ideas themselves were wide-ranging, the conditions prevailing in different parts of the world also shaped the processes of assimilation and adoption of ideas in the context of public policy-making. In this regard, the impact of colonialism on subjugated societies was critically important, though the impact itself varied widely depending on a whole range of circumstances, such as the nature and the type of colonial occupation and the specific social, economic, political and ideational conditions prevailing in the indigenous society. The developments following political independence in ex-colonial societies have also varied widely with significant implications for public policy-making. The post-colonial period, in most cases, has already extended over five to six decades, and the former colonial countries have again diverged widely in terms of their subsequent social, economic and political developments.
The present state of social policy and social development in much of the developing world has to be viewed against this background. In this contribution, I provide a brief account of the present state of social policy in Sri Lanka. Though Sri Lanka shares much with similarly placed developing countries, its development trajectory after independence has some peculiarities, due to both specific endogenous and exogenous conditions that the country had to deal with in order to pursue its post-independence path of development.
As Jayasuriya (2010) has convincingly argued, Sri Lanka’s pre- and post-independence endeavours in the area of public policy-making, in particular social policy development, have been critically influenced by British colonial rule. On the one hand, there is a significant connection between social policy development in the United Kingdom in the early decades of the 20th century, and social welfare legislation and social policy development in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) from the 1930s onward. On the other hand, subsequent demographic, social, economic and political developments in Sri Lanka have shaped continuing social policy developments in significant ways.
Three important points can be made. First, the structure of the post-colonial economy was a major determinant of public policies pursued by post-independence regimes. Second, the demographic expansion after independence exerted considerable pressure on resources, in particular land, leading to important policy challenges. Third, rising ethno-nationalist sentiments towards the end of the colonial rule militated against the rise of a collective national identity or social citizenship – leading to significant divisions among citizens.
The mostly agrarian character of the country’s economy at the time of independence encouraged post-colonial regimes to introduce land reforms in order to address the issues of poverty, unemployment and landlessness. Employment-based social protection measures were largely irrelevant in such a context, and successive governments sought to provide relief through universalistic measures such as free health care, free education and food subsidies. Though attempts were made later to establish import substitution industries in different parts of the country in an effort to diversify the economy, the country remained largely agrarian, making formal-sector wage employment the exception rather than the rule.
Significant public investments in general and higher education led to the expansion of an educated, youthful population with aspirations for upward social mobility. The policy of promoting a state-centred economy after political independence led to an increasing dependence on state-sector employment on the part of upwardly mobile youth. The state, in turn, became the main source of relief for the poor, the unemployed, the landless and other underprivileged sections of the population. On the other hand, an increasing population pressure on scarce state-controlled public resources created greater competition among citizens. While patron–client politics became the key mechanism by which the resources were allocated, political divisions, including ethnic divisions, became the basis for the ensuing competition. Various competing groups sought to shape public policies in their favour, in order to have privileged access to resources. The politics, in turn, became increasingly conflictual, making wider social solidarity an almost unattainable goal.
Sri Lanka’s first few decades following political independence in 1948 were characterized by increasing tensions between ethnic groups, in particular between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. The highly centralized state, dominated by the majority Sinhalese community, was increasingly perceived by minorities as discriminatory towards them. Increasing agitation by a section of the Tamil minority for greater political autonomy eventually led to a bitter armed conflict between the state and a militant Tamil separatist group, the LTTE. The conflict came to an end in 2009 when the Sri Lanka security forces defeated the LTTE separatists, but the ethnic tensions continue to affect national politics, and in particular, centre–periphery relations.
The state-dominated economy that rested on a vast, smallholding peasantry and a large number of state-run import substitution industries faced a major crisis in the mid-1970s under the weight of a growing population, high unemployment, widespread poverty, a widening trade gap and the increasing cost of oil imports. The country was ripe to respond positively to the emerging new economic dogma of neoliberalism. The adoption of a liberal economic agenda by the newly elected government in 1977 was the consequence. The impact of the reforms has been far-reaching: growing income inequality, widespread poverty, decline or stagnation of real wages, steady devaluation of the local currency, growing rural–urban disparities, widening of the gap between public and private services. At a macro-economic level, the contraction of the state sector was not necessarily compensated by the expansion of the private sector. The increasing casualization of employment ran contrary to the persisting aspirations of the unemployed for state and pensionable jobs in the formal sector. Steady devaluation of the local currency has led to growing economic pressure on low-income groups, compelling many of them to migrate overseas for employment. Overseas migration of labour has become a major social phenomenon, rising to about 25% of the labour force in recent times.
The impact on public finance has been as significant. The widening trade gap has forced governments to rely on foreign borrowing. An increasing debt burden has reduced the capacity of the state to increase social spending. While the quality of public services deteriorated, higher-income groups steadily moved away from such services, while low-income groups have no choice but to rely on poor quality services. The result was social polarization and a clear decline in social solidarity. An income transfer programme was introduced in the late 1980s in response to increasing poverty in the country, but inadequate financing and an antipathy towards subsidies have reduced the level of income support to poor families. Similarly, the attempts to introduce old age pensions to informal sector workers have also failed due to the same reason.
What has been attempted in this short essay is an outline of the changing macro-socio-economic conditions in a developing country under different economic regimes in order to call attention to the complexity of the social policy development process. What is evident is that the gap between the desired social policies, on the one hand, and their actual realization, on the other, remains so wide that the prospects for narrowing it under the prevailing socio-economic circumstances are not very promising. In an increasingly market-driven economic environment where the state has decreasing control over national wealth, securing public resources for formulating and implementing social welfare policies has become more difficult. On the other hand, managing macro-economic issues, such as the growing budget deficit, a widening trade gap and mounting public debts, both local and foreign, have become far more pressing priorities for the Sri Lankan state than developing and implementing sound social policies aimed at improving the quality of life of vulnerable segments of the population.