Politics and Governance in Bangladesh: Uncertain Landscapes

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: contesting political space: who governs in Bangladesh
	Agrarian legacy: from feudal deference to mastaanisation
	Institutions and organisations: the reality-rhetoric gap
	Bengali or Bangladeshi? The foundations of present political contention
	Deep structures: the social and cultural prison
	Chapter outline
1 Party dysfunction and homeostasis in Bangladesh: the old disorder restored (or not)
	Democracy’s trajectory in Bangladesh
	Rules of the dysfunctional game
	The caretaker interregnum and the elections of 2008
	The old (dis)order restored
	Breaking away from homeostasis
	Misperceived homeostasis?
	Prognosis
	A third scenario
	Conclusion
2 Where are the drivers of governance reform?
	The challenge
	A paradigm for state building
	How does Bangladesh fit the paradigm?
	The potential drivers of governance reform
	Donor support for governance reform
	The way forward
3 Citizen-centered governance: lessons from high-performing Asian economies for Bangladesh
	Introduction
	Governance and development
	Lessons of development from high-performing economies with special reference to Singapore
	Democracy and development
	Future directions: a blind alley or a rising sun?
4 Governance, rights and the demand for democracy: evidence from Bangladesh
	Introduction
	Governance in Bangladesh between frustration and hope
	Methods
	Support for democracy: ambiguous democrats and ambiguous theocrats
	Ambiguity around governance: a question of being pragmatic
	Conclusion
5 Deconstructing the natural state? Is there room for de Tocqueville or only Gramsci in Bangladesh
	Introduction
	Significance of the natural state for civil society
	The concept of permeability
	Apparent and hidden behaviour
	‘Natural, limited access states’ applied to Bangladesh
	Social origins of present deep structures
	The surreal context for civil society
	The demand side role of civil society
	Holistic and marginal risk: sustaining the demand side
	The PMUS case
	Conclusion
6 When things go wrong in NGOs: what can be learned from cases of organisational breakdown and ‘failure’?
	Introduction
	NGOs in Bangladesh
	Narratives of NGO decline, disintegration and ‘failure’
	Case study: Comilla Proshika
	Making sense of ‘things going wrong’
	What can we learn from all this?
	Conclusion: ‘failure’ as process and progress
7 The significance of unruly politics in Bangladesh
	Introduction: why political rule- breaking matters
	Motivations
	Some ideas about unruly politics
	Unruly politics in Bangladesh
	Conclusions: what unruliness means for the governance agenda
8 Governance challenges in Bangladesh: old wine in not so new bottles?
	Introduction
	Using governance to understand political developments in Bangladesh
	Bangladesh: a brief governance update
	Peeking into the future
References
Index