Post-mortem of post liberalization SOE governance in Sri Lanka: the duality of rational-legal and feudal-patrimonial

The paper examines the post-liberalisation SOE governance and control system of Sri Lanka and argures that duality of feudal-patrimonial and rational-legal elements causes dysfuctions in the bureaucratic governance and control of organisations. Although the main aim of the paper is to theorise the formation of this duality, by definition the resulting construct will have relevance to a range of countries in the Asian region. The two specific reseach questions are (1) how did patrimonial-feudal elements of governance and control originate in Sri Lanka? (2) What were the antecedents to the transformation of the bureaucratic governance in to a duality?. Multidisciplinary in nature, the theoretical framwork used in the study draws from cultural and social anthoropology, political history, political economy and Weberian theory of bureaucracy. Emprircal evidence from previous research on Sri Lankan SOE governance and control is used to ground the conceptual framework.