At the launch of ‘Factum Foreign Policy: A Vision for a New Sri Lanka’ on 19 September, State (and then Acting) Foreign Minister Tharaka Balasuriya, while being appreciative of the publication and its underlying theme of making Sri Lanka’s foreign policy more reflective of Sri Lankans, nevertheless argued against outsourcing foreign policy beyond “the experts”.

By the latter, Balasuriya meant the Foreign Affairs Ministry, as well as the many academics who are part and parcel of the Government’s policy making process.

What, however, did Balasuriya mean by outsourcing foreign policy? He would have meant either of two things: privatising foreign policy or making it more consultative. Since the publication in question had been based on a series of consultations Factum organised last year, Balasuriya probably meant the latter. 

The bottom line in his argument seems to be that a country’s foreign relations should only be crafted or laid out by intellectual and political elites working in unity: this, of course, is the very basis of a meritocracy, which the Sri Lankan Government likes to portray itself as being to the outside world.

For the record, there is no solid argument for the State’s monopoly over a country’s foreign affairs. If the State is constitutionally reflective of the people and the will of the people, then foreign policy cannot be left to private organisations. 

The non-governmental sector can, and should, contribute towards making foreign policy more meaningful. Ultimately, however, it is the State that should take the initiative. 

Time to change course

Think-tanks are important, they have become an indispensable part of civil society, and at a time when public coffers have dried, they can make a substantial contribution in terms of policy insights. But such outfits lack the required public mandate to take over the policymaking process from the State.

Sri Lanka is currently at a crossroads, however. It has been more than one year since the country witnessed the disposal and resignation of its President. There was a massive outcry against the way things were being done and handled on behalf of the public, a backlash against political elites that has not died down and will not die down.

Against this backdrop, how wise would it be to overlook the most important function of a State, of making policy more relatable to the public?

A year ago, people were clamouring to make their voices heard, to ensure that the policies enacted in the country were representative of their wishes and their aspirations. This included foreign and economic policy, especially the latter.

The simplest riposte to the Minister’s remarks is not that people are the true beneficiaries of State policy, but that years and decades of leaving foreign policy “to the experts” have not borne fruit, either because the experts have been obstructed by political elites or – and I am inclined towards this view – the experts have been in cahoots with those elites throughout.

Logically, if this approach has not worked until now, the call of the hour should be to change course and think of a fresh approach. This approach cannot include the same old people and the same elites that foreign policy in Sri Lanka has involved for the past many years. It should include the views and wishes of the people, the public.

There is fundamentally no contradiction between this view and the view that a country’s external relations must be the purview of the State. If the State is reflective of the will of its people, then it must incorporate the people’s wishes. 

Agents of change

This is not as hard as it may seem. It doubtless would include holding consultations across the country and incorporating a cross-section of the population. The process itself would have to be free of bias – it should engage with all stakeholders, including trade unions, community leaders, and religious clergy.

The experts should be involved in this: they should be given the task of getting people involved and they should be made to conduct themselves as agents of change.

The problem with Sri Lanka’s intellectual elites, as they stand, is that they tend to make pronouncements that can easily be twisted and turned in the Government’s favour. The recent statement by a former Central Bank Governor that elections can “distract from the path of recovery,” for instance, are hardly in line with calls for political change.

People are calling for elections, calls which just cannot be seen as secondary to economic imperatives. Political credibility can never take a backseat, behind anything. 

In that light, the view that experts and experts alone should be in charge of formulating policy seems questionable. In the least, the failure of such approaches over the last few decades should alert officials, from the President down to academia, to the need for a radical reset.

Three obstacles

Unfortunately, three things stand in the way of any meaningful reforms in this regard. 

The first is the Sri Lankan State’s historical obstinacy to such reforms. The present regime’s lackadaisical attitude to protests and the proposed passage of the Draft Online Safety Bill tells us that it is viewing itself in opposition to the people. 

The second is the bureaucracy’s and the academic establishment’s complicity in the culture of corruption and impunity that the government has entrenched. This includes, it must be admitted, individuals associated with certain think-tanks who are now parroting the gospel of economic stability. 

The third is the State’s tendency to view itself in opposition to civil society. Unlike countries like India, where think-tanks contribute to policy making, in Sri Lanka such institutions refrain from such contributions or are discouraged from doing so by the State.

Against that backdrop, including Sri Lankans in discussions about foreign policy and making foreign policy more consultative may seem like wishful thinking. Yet such an ideal must be pursued and realised. 

This is so because people tend to be cynical about Government policy, be it economic reforms or the country’s external relations. This cynicism is ultimately what will bring the Government down, unless it resolves the disconnect, as palpable now as it was a year ago, between the regime’s actions and the people. Neither the regime nor the experts linked to it will get this right, unless the people are brought in.

(The writer is a freelance columnist who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com. He is the Chief International Relations Analyst at Factum, an Asia-Pacific focused foreign policy think tank based in Colombo and accessible via www.factum.lk)