ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION 

Development Crisis Revisited: 
Cycles of Resource Regulation and Disenfranchisment in Sri Lanka 

by KAREN N. NICHOLS 

Dissertation Director: 

Dr. Richard Schroeder 

This dissertation is a study of capitalist development dynamics in Sri Lanka. The focus is central state resource regulation in the post-colonial (post-1948) period. I suggest that regulatory institutions have evolved to promote a Western vision of capitalist development, and with the assistance of foreign financial backing and technical advice tend to perpetuate exclusive resource use patterns first entrenched in Sri Lanka by 19" century British colonizers. In examining contemporary regulatory regimes, and in particular "sustainable development" programs for exclusivity, the dissertation considers official development discourse and its underlying motives. Pro-development stories are shown to evolve over time, largely echoing Western discourses and models and providing new explanations for periodic development failures. An examination of discourse and resource regulation practice reveals the frequent use of scapegoatism, in which subsets of the Sri Lankan public are blamed for development failures. Possible motives for scapegoatism include the need to divert state legitimacy crises associated with the contradictions of capitalist development (intensifying social stratification, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation), and the need to legally disenfranchise and physically remove people to free up space for resource colonization. To exemplify these assertions, the dissertation addresses how resource management has played out in the coastal zone -a relatively new arena of regulation. While the new coastal management program has been lauded by international coastal policymakers as a model of successful "sustainable development" implementation, archival research and field studies completed in the mid-1990a suggest a more complex dynamic. Acting out a central state economic liberalization agenda, coastal managers are shown to occupy an uncomfortable position. They carry out what are at best well-intentioned ecological protection measures and at worst dubious programs designed to extend state control over the marine frontier and to provide resource access to favored members of the national and global economies. The case of coral reef protection and the consequent disenfranchisment of coral miners along the southwest coast are examined. Possible outcomes of increasing state micromanagement and capitalist investment in the coastal frontier, and of increasing local resistance are discussed.