Draft Working Paper 2016: Not for

Citation without the author’s consent. 1

IDENTITY BEYOND INSTRUMENTALITY:

BUDDHIST NATIONALIST ORDER, STATE
FORMATION AND CONFLICT IN SRI LANKA
AND MYANMAR
DR. DAVID RAMPTON, LSE
Introduction
This chapter focuses on the significance of socially diffuse ethnic and nationalist identity dynamics
in Si Lanka and Burma, arguing that the historical hegemonisation of variant forms of majoritarian
Buddhist rationalism in each of these contexts has played a major role in the reproduction of violent
conflict dynamics, with crucial implications for the prospects for pace in these societies. It engages
way that these globally and locally generated identity dynamics are historically reproductive of
governmental, territorializing social order building and state formation dynamics that have
simultaneously energized reterritorialized resistance from insurgent movements seeking autonomy
or secession on the basis of minority homeland claims. Key also to the chapter is an emphasis on
the mainstream disqualification in the contemporary period of the significance of identity
dynamics in conflict processes. This is a result of the overwhelming influence of dualist
frameworks in the mainstream social sciences (Flyvbjerg 2001; Kapfere 2012, Rampton 2012).
Dualism divides understanding of the social world into a hierarchy in which the actual dynamics
of war and violent conflict are perceived as located in the universal, material, objective, structural
and rational spheres, in for instance, economic globalization, state formation, development and the
predatory behavior and interests of state apparatuses and ruling and rebel elites. Ethno nationalist
thought and practices are then relegated to the particular, subjective, and ideational spheres as the
surface manifestation of instrumental rhetorical strategies utilized by predatory political elites in
order to achieve their 'real material, objective and rational interests in securing state power,
economic resources and legitimacy.
In the contexts of Sri Lanka, Burma and elsewhere, this has led o e relegation of identity discourses
and the grievances these dynamics generate, to a second order, cosmetic and predominantly
instrumental role in explanations of cycles of war and violent conflict (Malešević 2008:107). The
subsequent emphasis in peace building approaches on the predatory, authoritarian nature of states
and elites, subsequent state weakness and the lack of democracy in these contexts, has led to a
continuing preoccupation with further democratization and liberal statebuilding as the necessary
route to peace, establishing an effective social contract and ties of accountability responsibility
and legitimacy between elites and the wider populace. Such a model still dominates mainstream
policy despite widespread critiques indicating the connection between liberalization,
democratization and violence including nationalist
This is a working draft of a chapter commissioned by the Berghof Foundation for an edited volume on War
Peace Transitions in South and Southeast Asia. Many thanks to Norbert Ropers and David Brenner for comments
on a lengthier version of this paper and to Mathew Walton for advice on the Burma/Myanmar context.