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Following the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010, the Sri Lankan political system has seen the rise of a ‘one-party dominant state’ and a ‘hybrid regime’. This new political order consists of a mix of democratic and authoritarian elements largely seen in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. This essay examines the social and political changes introduced by the highly militarized regime led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, which has slanted towards a Kautilyan ideology and authoritarian constitutionalism. It is argued that Sri Lanka needs a glasnost, marking a new political and social ethos based on the principles of accountability, openness, transparency, freedom and justice.

Introduction: Contextualizing Australia in Asia Several commentators have seized upon Aus tralia's recent entry to the inner sanctum of East Asian Summit as a turning point in Australia's relationship with its regional neighbours. This goes to the heart of what I have termed the 'Austral ian-Asian Connection', or as others have called it, Asian Engagement or Enmeshment. We indeed have come a long way since the historian John La Nauze dismissed Australia's proximity to Asia as something for the future. As we ponder the significance of joining the East Asian Summit, many questions come to mind: does this signify a radical change in Australia's view of itself? Is this the answer or a clue to the critical question of whether Australia sees itself as an Asian nation' with a firm link to an Asian regional hegemony, or that Australia now embraces more firmly a duality i.e., as an Asian nation as well as a European nation'. If, indeed there has been a change in how we comprehend the Australian-Asian connection, what underlies this sudden embrace of an Asian future' by none other than John Howard who in the past was forthright in his criticism of the regional policies in the Hawke and Keating era? This becomes a perplexing query, particularly when one recalls that Foreign Minister Downer has stated that Australia had no wish to be part of a new regional ism such as that portrayed by Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia and others. Downer went on to describe this as a form of'cultural regionalism' which Australia rejects. By contrast he identified a 'Practical Regional ism' as the model to which Australia was committed. The difference between these forms of regionalism was that one is built on 'commonalities of history, of mutual cultural identity', and the other strictly on the mutual benefits of cooperation in the pursuit of common objectives. In this context, does Australia's not just willingness, but even eagerness, to be a member of the East Asian

Australia, being a settler society, an immigrant-receiving country from its inception, was until recently, firmly committed to an ideology of settlement which ensured racial and cultural homogeneity. The firm belief in ‘one country, one nation’, was achieved by a strong insistence on ‘anglo-conformity’, embodying the cultural mores and national characteristics of the early settlers, the charter groups. This close link between immigration and settlement has become problematic with the influx of waves of immigrants from non-traditional source-countries and the accompanying new philosophy of settlement, based on cultural pluralism and commonly labelled ‘multiculturalism’. The ongoing public debate and controversy in Australia1 about immigration has drawn attention to the problematic nature of the disjunction between policies of recruitment and settlement, and equally to the dilemmas confronting multiculturalism as a philosophy of settlement, and a ‘policy regime’ (Rein, 1976). In a world increasingly engulfed in ethnic conflicts and tensions arising from migration, the way in which this new policy of ‘multiculturalism’ developed in the short space of less than two decades represents a success story of migrant settlement worth recounting (see Jayasuriya, 1987; Castles et al., 1990; Foster and Stockley, 1988)).