Polity 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, with critical content on politics, political economy, history, women, ethnicity, sexualities, religion, labour studies, agrarian relations, nationalisms, violence, ecology, and much more.
Women’s Labour Force Participation: Choice Versus Necessity
Ranmini Vithanagama
The benefits of women’s labour force participation (LFP) have been broadly discussed along two strands. The first is...
Outline of a Redistributive State in the Southern Periphery
Devaka Gunawardena
A clear line against political repression is beginning to emerge within democratic opposition forces in Sri Lanka, or...
Economic Crisis and Resistance in Batticaloa, Eastern Sri Lanka
Thavarasa Anukuvi
IntroductionThe question whether ‘the people’ of the North and East should or could protest in solidarity with the...
Solidarity among Women in Politics in Sri Lanka: Potentials and Challenges
Nadine Vanniasinkam and Viyanga Gunasekera
IntroductionWomen politicians and political aspirants in Sri Lanka share certain patterns of marginalisation within...
‘The Writing Was on The Wall’: Debt Distress and Ways Forward in Sri Lanka
Jayati Ghosh
In the fourth in a series of talks organised by Polity magazine of the Social Scientists’ Association and the Women...
‘The Writing Was on The Wall’: Debt Distress and Ways Forward in Sri Lanka
Jayati Ghosh
In the fourth in a series of talks organised by Polity magazine of the Social Scientists’ Association and the Women...
Current Issue
Out Now! Vol. 13, No. 1 (2025), LKR800 from the Social Scientists’ Association and LKR1000 from Barefoot and Vijitha Yapa bookshops.
170 pages of analysis, commentary and perspective: the implosion of liberal internationalism; aspirations for, and appraisal of, the NPP government; the long march of the JVP from subversive to sovereign; feminist statements demanding action against misogyny and male violence; the May 2025 local government election and axes of polarisation; US and Lankan narratives on culling USAID; the thriving and prosperous national security state, and its gaze on queers; Richard de Zoysa’s short life, long death, and literary legacy; Asoka Handagama’s Rani and memory against forgetting in struggles against enforced disappearances; avatars of privatisation in higher education; continuities and concerns in AKD’s first budget; anatomization of an economy in permanent crisis; retrieving the political economy of SBD de Silva; an IMF poster-child in the crosshairs of Trump’s tariffs and the Washington Consensus; combating corruption in market mode; caricaturing gay representation in mainstream media; celebrating Bapsi Sidhwa’s itinerary and oeuvre; Indian and Pakistani women speak out against war and hate; the performance of Tamil nationhood in and after war; international law facts and fictions in Filastin; and Iranian voices against Israeli-US warmongering and state repression. Front cover art by Minal Naomi Wickrematunge.
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Archive
Pravada (1991-2002) and Polity (2003-) back issues available here.
Social Scientists’ Association
The Social Scientists’ Association (SSA) was founded in 1977, at a turning point in Sri Lankan politics, economy, and society, marked by among other aspects: the ‘open economy’ market reforms; deepening ethnic conflict; and the growing concentration of executive power. Its initiators were academics from public universities, seeking an autonomous space to grapple with these shifts; and to promote progressive political, economic, and social change.