Social Sciences
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Item SAARC in the Sea: Harnessing Regional Cooperation through Blue Economy(4th International Conference on Social Sciences 2018, Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2018) Mukherjee, P.Blue Economy will provide an extensive framework for cooperation in the field of Ocean Economy among SAARC countries for sustainable development in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean Region. It embraces mutually valuable cooperation for exploration and capacity development in the field of marine resources, green tourism, fisheries, research and development of ocean technology, exchange of experts, food security, enhanced trade and investment; enhanced maritime connectivity; enhanced diversification; job creation and socioeconomic growth, underwater energy, aquatic ecosystem, seaweed culture and other related activities. To harness the vast economic opportunities Blue Economy has opened up many ways for future regional cooperation. Since the sea offers connectivity at the domestic level and with international markets for export and import of goods Blue Economy will definitely act as the key channel of South Asian regional cooperation. Along with this, offshore mineral resources such as oil and gas covered with Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal can contribute to the economic wellbeing of SAARC Countries,. Blue economy transforms the ocean resources into development tools. The realm of Indian Ocean region and Bay of Bengal has turned into a synonym of economic and strategic connotation. Settlement of maritime boundary disputes and the propagation of potentials of blue economy prospects will lead the countries of SAARC toward economic growth. In this regard this article will seek to understand the blue economy initiatives undertaken by SAARC countries, prospect of strengthening regional cooperation through blue economy, and the China factorItem Regional Cooperation in South Asia: Problems and Prospects(4th International Conference on Social Sciences 2018, Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2018) Dr. Raju, T.N.The 21th century is a century of integration wherein man-made barriers were shattered. The significant trend of recent international relations is the trend towards regionalism. This is driven by the urgency of channelling national resources to provide a sense of protection in a divided and war-threatened world. At the same time, the necessity for regional cooperation was felt in view of the pulls and pressures exerted on nations to drive together in contemporary phase of world politics. The objective of regional cooperation is to enhance each member state’s security, economic growth and cultural harmonization. Prior to the 1950s and the 1960s, most of the Asian region was a single entity and after the end of colonialism in this region it was divided into multiple sovereign states. This new arrangement has resulted in creating tariff barriers, slow progress in intra-regional trade, continuous armed conflicts and negligible cross-cultural cooperation. But after the formation of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and dawning of the global financial crisis, and continuous onslaught of natural calamities of epic proportions, such as Tsunami and earthquakes in the region high growth in South Asia cannot be sustained without better management of natural disasters and regional public goods. Benefits of regional cooperation in water and climate change would be immense in South Asia. From the Himalayas, where glacier melt is already changing water flows in ways that remain to be understood, to the coastal floodplains of Bangladesh and Pakistan, South Asian countries need to adapt to climate change. South Asia needs to strengthen regional governance institutions. This is vital for managing the provision of regional public goods, and management of common pool resources. Regional cooperation initiatives could unlock the growth benefit of South Asia’s geography and people, consistent with improved management of regional public goods. Better regional cooperation can also contribute to reducing regional conflicts, which will remove an important long-term constraint to growth. Further, to acquire better bargaining powers vis-à-vis in world forums like the World Trade Organization (WTO), where they face steep competition from other regional blocs like the European Union (EU), the South Asian nations have to make an attempt to rise above their mutual differences and cooperate at the regional-level to have effective solutions to these problems. In the light of above, this paper discusses South Asian regionalism with its future prospects followed by its current issues and opportunitiesItem Rethinking South Asian Integration: An Analysis on Challenges and Prospects of Regional Economic Integration in South Asia.(1st International Studies Students’ Research Symposium-2017 (ISSRS 2017) ,Department of International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Abeyrathne, D.M.L.K.Regional Integration is a process of overcoming barriers that divide neighbouring countries, by common accord, and of jointly managing shared resources and assets. Essentially, it is a process by which groups of countries liberalize trade, creating a common market for goods, people, capital and services. Realizing its importance, the South Asian region has also embarked upon various processes of regional economic integration. The aim of this study is to identify those challenges and prospects of regional economic integration in South Asia which is fraught with difficulties, especially due to a lack of understanding about the very economics of regional economic integration. South Asian regional integration is seemingly confronting many challenges. Although regional integration in South Asia has adopted a kind of institutionalization, it is yet to deliver any concrete outcome. The study is basically based on secondary data collected from different reliable sources of published journals, reports and websites. Throughout the analysis process prevailing barriers have been scrutinized on the basis of which a set of recommendations have been made. Thus, this is dwells upon some of the conceptual issues pertaining to regional economic cooperation in general and specific to the South Asian region. It also documents the progress made in SAARC, the SAFTA trade liberalization and associated mechanisms alongside the nature of safeguards provided for. High-politics and the not-so-conducive regional economic structures hinder any effectual culmination. However, constructivism, as a theory, is given due credence in this study when looking for future prospects. The study highlights the issues, and attempts to offer certain policy directions by analyzing the challenges and identifying the prospects in the on-going integration process. In this respect, developmental perspectives of safeguards are put forth. Some fresh insights on the status of SAARC trade integration process in a dynamic setting are also brought out. The study also highlights the potentials for deeper economic integration in the region. Finally, the study makes an objective assessment of the regional integration process and identifies certain structural constraints that have important policy-implications.Item The Growing Need for a SAARC-ASEAN Platform: South Asian Perspective(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Wijesinghe, H.Despite the fact that, today we are living in the Asian century, and the center of global economic gravity is shifting towards the Asia, not adequate effort has been made at all levels in understanding and discovering the possibilities and prospects of constructing a common platform on which SAARC and ASEAN as two regional setups can work collectively for realizing common objectives. As both the regions are on the track for attaining greater political stability and economic success, efficient and effective SAARC-ASEAN cooperation would provide an ideal multilateral mechanism for member states of both ASEAN and SAARC to pursue their political, economic and social gains and to attain a powerful position in the international arena. From a South Asian perspective, increasing ties with the ASEAN member states would be a golden opportunity for the South Asian countries to expand its regional scope and yield better results. Can these two regional setups, which are at different levels of regional integration join hands and be on a common platform? What are the main challenges to be overcome if such platform is to be created? And how South Asia would be benefitted through such a platform? These are the main questions which would be attempted to answer through the study. The study consists of two main objectives. First, the study attempts to analyze the prospects and challenges to be overcome in the context of creating a SAARC-ASEAN platform for greater political, economic, social and cultural cohesion. Secondly, the study shall look into how such a platform affects South Asia as a region. In order to gain the in depth knowledge required for the study, a comparative study of SAARC and ASEAN is done with interviews with individuals having a greater bearing on the foretold objectives. In order to attain the first of the foretold objectives, the study has made a SWOT analysis where it looks into strengths which could be strengthened further, weaknesses to be rectified, opportunities to be grabbed and work on and threats to be deterred in the context of strengthening SAARC-ASEAN relations. Basically, the study results reflect the fact, despite the inadequate enthusiasm shown and efforts made, there is a wealth of opportunities and space for creating a common platform what would mutually benefit both the groups and especially for SAARC it would also be a learning curve for strengthening relations among its member states.Item The applicability of adopting European Union’s integration model in South Asia: A comparative analysis of EU and SAARC(Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Gunasena, T.The European integration is three decades older than the South Asian integration. At present European Union (EU) stands as an outstanding regional body with huge success in the world. South Asian integration has not yet completed the basic premises of economic integration and the aim of this paper is to comparatively analyze the two regional integration processes and to identify how far is it appropriate to adopt the European integration model to accelerate the South Asian integration in the future. One specific objectives of this paper is to identify the core differences between the two regional settings and next objective is to determine the theoretical relevance of certain existing theories in describing the two integration processes. Another specific objective is to evaluate the suitability of adopting EU model in South Asia and then to recommend the necessary reforms for South Asia to attain better integration. To that end the data triangulation method has been used to accumulate secondary data from multiple sources available in electronic and printed form including books, journals, web, reports, historical records and treaties. Qualitative content analysis has been used since this is a documentary analysis and Content analysis evaluate document texts and to test theoretical relevance to understand data more comprehensively and scientifically. It will test prevailing theories in different contexts when compare the categories of different settings. Key findings depicts that there is a sharp diversity between the EU and South Asian region in terms of trade, economic development, human development, industrialization, urbanization, trade liberalization, income levels, poverty alleviation and political integration. Amidst these differences the applicability of adopting the European model proves to be a failure due to many factors. The democratic nature of the countries and their practice of free market economic policies along with the successful resolutions for political tensions in Europe significantly caused the long term success of European integration whereas South Asian countries are suffering from huge diversities in economic, geographic, cultural, trade and military terms within the region and hesitate to cooperate with one another due to these differences. Indo-Pakistan political tensions blended with smaller states’ fear psychosis of Indian hegemony is the greatest constraint for better integration in South Asia. South Asia required rearranging the structure of its regional organization and opening avenues to discuss contentious issues among member states and needing to establish real democracies in their countries apart from building strong and reliable interactions among people to people contacts while adopting more comprehensive free market economic policies domestically.Item ASEAN 5 founding nations and SAARC nations: A comparison(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Jayanthakumaran, K.This paper intends to compare intra-ASEAN’s (of the 5 founding nations) exports and income with intra-SAARC’s (of the 7 founding nations) performance. Intra- ASEAN’s three different historical policy interventions are: the introduction of Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) in 1977, the unilateral liberalization following the severe recession of the mid-1980s and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) formation in 1992. Intra- SAARC’s three different historical policy interventions are: the adoption of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 1985, the introduction of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Preferential Trading Agreement (SAPTA) in 1995 and the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) formation in 2004. Findings indicate that the ASEAN-5 countries’ economies are moving together through time and emerged as a powerful integrated area as a consequence of all of the above three interventions, but not those of SAARC member countries.