Neil DeVotta received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Texas at Austin and is presently an Associate Professor of Political Science at Hartwick College. His research interests include South Asian security and politics, ethnicity and nationalism, ethnic conflict resolution, globalization and its impact on developing societies, and democratic transitions. He is the author of Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), co-author of Politics of Conflict and Peace in Sri Lanka (New Delhi: Manak Publications Ltd., 2006), and co-editor of Understanding Contemporary India (Boulder: Lynn Rienner Press, 2003) and has also published articles on South Asia and Sri Lanka in a number of peer reviewed journals, including Nations and Nationalism, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Journal of Democracy, Contemporary South Asia, Pacific Affairs, and Asian Survey.