Globalisation and social protection reforms in Sri Lanka

The explosive social and economic consequences of the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s forced governments, international financial institutions (IFIs) and scholars to reconsider the role of social protection regimes in the process of globalization. In this paper, the manner by which the globalization process has interacted with the social protection regime established in Sri Lanka after independence is exlored by employing the framework developed by Esping-Andersen as modified by Gough. It is shown that the capacity of Sri Lanka to sustain its 'welfare first' program has been weakened by shifts in the global terms of trade and by the pressure exerted by donor countries and the IFIs and that as a consequence the country's major political parties remain wary of introducing further cuts to government expenditure on social protection.