Balancing and bandwagoning: explaining shifts in Sri Lankan foreign policy

Abstract

Analysis of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy over three decades (1977–2015) reveals a pattern of shifts from balancing to bandwagoning, and then back again to balancing. The more salient foreign policy issues during each administration fall broadly within the economic or security spheres. What are the key drivers of small state foreign policy–do systemic factors preside in general, and domestic factors prove inconsequential? Or are domestic factors able to play a decisive role under certain circumstances, within broader structural parameters? Three primary arguments are made in this regard. First, an interplay of system- and domestic-level factors best explains this pattern of foreign policy change. Second, in the domain of foreign economic policymaking, domestic imperatives and actors appear to play a decisive role, although within the broader structural preconditions. Third, systemic factors maintain predominance over domestic-level factors in shaping foreign security policy.