සමාජ පාදඩකරණය
Starting from P.B. Jayasekera’s first novel, whose hero is a former rebel of the second JVP rising turned political fixer, Ivan traces how a lumpen class has come to dominate Sri Lankan society. A black economy existed before 1977, but the executive presidency, the open economy and patronage let thugs, criminals and politicians form an alliance, strengthened by the private militias of the 1988–89 terror and the war. The LTTE was defeated, he writes, yet violent crime has become an everyday event, and he asks where the country is heading.