Polity is a magazine which aims to advance democratic consciousness, gender equality, state reform, and social change in Sri Lanka, while interested in South Asia and the World.
As its predecessor Pravada (1991-2002), Polity is published by the Social Scientists’ Association in Colombo (since 2003), with critical content on politics, political economy, history, women, ethnicity, sexualities, religion, labour studies, agrarian relations, nationalisms, violence, ecology, and much more…
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Noura Erakat. Stanford University Press, 2019
Kiran Grewal
Introduction A direct and consequential outcome of the past 19 months of hell experienced by the people of Gaza is...
System Stability not Change: The NPP abandons populism for liberal democracy
Pradeep Peiris
Judging by its record over the past six months, the National People’s Power (NPP) government arguably stands as one of...
Performing Sovereign Aspirations: Tamil Insurgency and Postwar Transition in Sri Lanka. Bart Klem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024
Sakuntala Kadirgamar
War and peace have remained unsettled business in Sri Lanka. Performing Sovereign Aspirations: Tamil Insurgency and...
Made in Sri Lanka, Taxed in America, and Failed by the IMF
Taniya Silvapulle
Introduction On 2 April 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, imposing trade...
The Revival of the JVP after 1989
Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri
What follows is a brief account of the history of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) from 1990 to the election...
Budget 2025: Playing A Bad Hand
B. Skanthakumar
Introduction ‘Budget 2025’ – delivered before parliament on 17 February by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) in...
Current Issue
120 pages of analysis and perspective including: Sri Lanka’s elections, politics, and parties; ‘settler tourism’ in the wake of the Gaza genocide; the spaces of the Aragalaya; child marriages and their miseries in the East; gendering climate-adaptation projects in agriculture; the ‘hidden politics’ of critical agrarian studies; Europe’s far right and its battery of women’s rights; Martin Wickramasinghe and the Sinhala short story; trans-gendered lives amidst war, violence, and displacement; South Asia’s debt crisis is missing collective action; India’s general election; race, class and multiculturalism in Hanif Kureishi’s work; and some favourite books in 2024.
Vol. 12, Issue 2 (December 2024) is now available for LKR 500, from the Social Scientists’ Association and Barefoot bookshop, Colombo 3.
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Archive
Pravada (1991-2002) and Polity (2003-) back issues available here.
Social Scientists’ Association
The Social Scientists’ Association (SSA) is an organization working to investigate the way in which social change is contouring the multiple realities faced by communities in Sri Lanka and South Asia. The SSA is deeply committed to promoting a culture of knowledge production that informs and undergirds interventions aimed at achieving social emancipation for marginalized communities.