Jayadeva Uyangoda
is Proessor and Head, Department o Political Science and Public Policy, University oColombo, and Treasurer and Council Member, Social Scientists’ Association, Sri Lanka.
Sunil Bastian
is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre or Ethnic Studies, Colombo.The Social Scientists’ Association (SSA), established in 1978, is a leading civil society institution in Sri Lankacommitted to the production and dissemination o critical knowledge in the areas o political economy,gender, social and political change, conict and peace processes. The SSA is also engaged in communityeducation and advocacy. Among its regular publications is Polity, a monthly journal on current critical issuesconcerning Sri Lanka.www.ssalanka.org/
The
Confict, Security and Development Group
is a leading international resource or research, analysis,training and expert policy advice on issues at the intersection o security and development. CSDG wasestablished at King’s College London in 1999 with the aim o bridging the academic and policy communities.Its core mandate is to deepen understanding about the development challenges conronting societies in Arica,Asia and Latin America, and to help translate this knowledge into practical agendas or change at local, national,regional and international levels.CSDG’s
Governance and Security
programme is concerned with how international assistance in the securitydomain (notably the SSR agenda) can be better tailored to the political context and the needs o aid recipients.Conict, Security and Development GroupSchool o Social Science and Public PolicyKing’s College London Tel: +44(0)20 7848 1984Strand, London Fax: +44(0)20 7848 2748WC2R 2LS, UK www.securityanddevelopment.org
About this study
Security sector reorm (SSR) has moved rapidly up the international aid agenda during the past decade. There isgrowing recognition that SSR is undamentally a political activity and that, to be eective, external assistancemust be careully tailored to the political and institutional context in which it is being delivered.This Sri Lanka study was part o a comparative research project (which included Nigeria and Uganda) whichhad two aims: frstly, to enhance understanding about who makes decisions about security, the actors whichinuence decision-making, and the consequences or the security o people; and secondly, to suggest ways oincorporating such knowledge more eectively into UK SSR programming.The study was conducted by the Conict, Security and Development Group at King’s College London in collabo-ration with the Centre or Democracy and Development in Nigeria, the Social Scientists’ Association in Sri Lanka,and the Centre or Basic Research in Uganda.
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