THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND GOVERNANCE IN BANGLADESH: CHANGES AND CONTINUITY

This article evaluates Bangladesh’s political institutions and governance trajectory since the restoration of parliamentary democracy, emphasising both change and continuity into the mid-2000s. It explores electoral competition, caretaker arrangements, parliamentary practice, judicial activism and the civil service’s role in policy delivery. The study also considers decentralisation experiments and anti-corruption drives, identifying capability gaps that persist despite reforms. It argues that while institutional design improved procedural legitimacy, entrenched patron-client ties, polarisation and capacity constraints continued to undermine effective, accountable governance.

The body begins with a brief institutional history from the 1991 transition, outlining constitutional amendments and the logic of caretaker governments as confidence-building devices. Section One assesses parliament’s performance—committee oversight, budget scrutiny and backbench autonomy—relative to party discipline and boycott politics. Section Two analyses executive-bureaucratic relations, highlighting recruitment, postings and politicisation that shape incentives within the administration. Section Three reviews the judiciary’s expanding role, including public interest litigation and separation of the lower judiciary, weighing gains in rights protection against implementation hurdles. Section Four addresses local governance, examining Union Parishads and urban municipalities, fiscal decentralisation and donor-supported capacity building. Section Five studies integrity institutions—the ACC’s evolution, procurement reforms and audit follow-up—identifying bottlenecks in enforcement and coordination. The conclusion argues for iterative reforms that strengthen meritocratic administration, cross-party norms in parliament and results-based management, pairing institutional redesign with investments in human capital and digital service delivery to shift from episodic fixes toward durable governance quality.