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.
Call for Urgent Action by the Sri Lanka Women’s NGO Forum (SLWNGOF) to alleviate the suffering of the people of Sri Lanka
Call for urgent action: Nominate women and men who have no allegations of corruption, and hold a vision and a...
Federation of University Teachers’ Association speaks up on current crisis
The current momentWe are witness to an unprecedented happening in the postcolonial history of this country....
The Argentinian (2001) and Sri Lankan (2022) Financial Crises: Ways Forward from a Feminist Perspective
Corina Rodriguez
In response to Sri Lanka’s ongoing economic crisis, and the consensus across the political spectrum and even social...
Statement from the Social Scientists’ Association on Sri Lanka’s Current Crisis
Sri Lanka is currently experiencing the worst economic crisis in its post-independence history. Foreign reserves of...
The democratic moment today: A call for action and reflection
We are witness today to events that are unprecedented in our postcolonial history. Hundreds of thousands of people are...
The #GotaGoHome Protest Movement: Significance, Potential, and Challenges
Jayadeva Uyangoda
After 31st March, 2022, Sri Lanka’s politics is no longer what it has been. It seems to have entered a qualitatively...
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.