 Imagined Statehood: Wartime Rebel Governance and Post-war Subnational Identity in Sri LankaYuichi Kubota World Development, 2017, vol. 90, issue C, 199-212 Abstract: This paper investigates the link between the wartime governance of rebel groups and post-civil war civilian identity. Focusing on Sri Lanka, it explores why and how individuals’ wartime experience continues to influence their affinity to subnational entities in post-war society. Analyzing original survey data with Structural Equation Modeling, the results show that civilians’ consciousness of rebel statehood has a positive effect on the formation of a subnational identity in the aftermath of civil war. The legacy of rebel governance persists and retains an impact on civilian identity in the post-war context. The findings suggest that those charged with the task of post-war reconstruction need to take into account the long-lasting influence of rebel statehood in order to successfully rebuild integrated communities. A post-war regime cannot simply implant a new national identity if it dismisses this influence because post-war identity is a consequence of civilians’ experience of governance by non-governmental but de facto state actors. Keywords: civil war; identity; Asia; Sri Lanka (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:90:y:2017:i:c:p:199-212 DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.09.007 Access Statistics for this article World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes More articles in World Development from Elsevier |
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