ABSTRACT
Sri Lanka confounds much of the common wisdom about civil wars. A functional democracy with well-established government institutions, the country boasts a literate population, low birth rates and economic growth for much of the past four decades. There is a written constitution, a functional court system, regular elections, and a competitive party system; most other post-conflict countries can only aspire to these formal institutional arrangements. Indeed, creating a bureaucracy that functions as well as Sri Lanka's is often the end goal of many international peace-building efforts. Beneath the surface, however, the country's institutional framework exhibits several severe pathologies that threaten to unleash a third round of domestic bloodletting. A closer look sheds light on how corruption can remain endemic and detrimental to peacebuilding efforts, even in contexts where the formal institutional setting is relatively robust.
