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What is Political Economy? How does it differ from Orthodox Neo-Classical Economics? Sumanasiri Liyanage Is political economy a branch of economics? In other words, should it be treated as categories like international economics, labor economics, gender economics and so on? In answering these issues, in many occasions, ignorance supplants wisdom and knowledge. Having overheard a discussion on the subject by some academics on the occasion of recruiting a person to teach political economy at the University of Peradeniya, I thought, as a person who taught political economy for more than three decades, it would be relevant to make it clear what the term political economy actually means. When I was a student at the University of Peradeniya, almost all my economic teachers were, in a broad sense, political economists. However, it is necessary to mention especially Prof. H A de S Gunasekera and Prof Budhdhadasa Hewawitharana, two great teachers under whom I developed my world view...

The Rule of Law: Is it worth defending? Sumanasiri Liyanage Let me at the outset thank the Transparency International for inviting me for this discussion. I was a bit hesitant to accept the invitation as I thought I would be a misfit here. Because I am not a great fan of ‘rule of law’, ‘good governance’, ‘the independence of judiciary’ and other goodies of the same kind. It does not mean that I do not see a value of these principles and practices of democratic governance. On the contrary, I believe that they are very valuable so that should be defended unconditionally in ‘normal’ situations. However, as Professor Wendy Brown has informed us, ‘democracy has historically unparalleled global popularity today yet has never been more conceptually footloose or substantively hollow’. Hence, it has become for multiple reasons an ‘empty signifier’. The argument that we should ensure that the rule of law prevails also implies that all laws generate justice. Nonetheless, there can be u...