The Politics of Local Policy-Making in Urban Bangladesh: The Case of Rajshahi City Corporation

Some of the contemporary writings provide a different outlook in adopting institutional analysis by claiming that society-rooted politics is foremost in shaping the third world's political institutions. This paper, drawing on an empirical study, puts special emphasis on understanding the nature of society rooted politics in designing the local government system in Bangladesh and how it has shaped local policy-making. By focusing on the policy-making of a municipal corporation, this paper identifies the actors and factors and their roles in the urban local governance process in Bangladesh.     

Patron-Client Politics and Its Implications for Good Governance in Bangladesh

Currently, good governance is a major concern of all politicians, administrators, academics, the international donor agencies and even common people. It is now increasingly being realized that without good governance, developing countries have little chance to progress. While its importance cannot be over-emphasized, many developing countries are facing difficulties in implementing the good governance agenda. Therefore, the factors constraining the good governance initiatives have to be carefully identified and analyzed. This paper identifies patron-client politics as a critical factor in the analysis of good governance initiatives in Bangladesh. In this paper, it is argued that patron-client politics is very much entrenched in Bangladesh and it has had a constraining effect on the institutionalization of good governance initiatives.     

Democratic Culture and Participatory Local Governance in Bangladesh

The government of Bangladesh has introduced several initiatives seeking to develop participatory governance at the local level in order to maximise the outcomes of aid-assisted development projects. This article examines the impact of these initiatives and demonstrates that participatory local governance faces a number of challenges in Bangladesh, in particular, absence of democratic culture and tradition and disengagement of citizens, asymmetric distribution of patronage and weak institutions. In theory, political elites and bureaucrats in Bangladesh advocate democracy, accountability and local-level participation, but in practice, they have an affinity for power and centralised authority. Their reform initiatives seem half-hearted and disjointed restricting the growth of democratic culture and participatory local governance at the local level in Bangladesh.     

Civil Society and Good Governance in Bangladesh

Many of the recent ideas and concepts of ‘good governance’ and ‘civil society’ in Bangladesh have been generated by the international aid agencies and their ‘good governance’ policy agenda in the 1990s, but there are also local meanings to the terms derived from the independence struggle and the construction of a Bangladeshi state. This article aims to obtain a clearer analytical understanding of the processes and institutions of civil society in Bangladesh that can develop workable strategy to improve governance for helping the poor and moving beyond the patron–client relationships on which they have depended historically. It also focuses attention and debate on those aspects of civil society which can enhance the quality of governance and democracy by overcoming the western top-down approach; and can strengthen the role of civil society organisations to further enhance their impact on better governance for fair distribution of public goods and ensuring social justice for the poor.     

The Toxic Politics of Bangladesh: A Bipolar Competitive Neopatrimonial State?

In order to understand the structural dimensions of the problems concerning democratic governance in Bangladesh, this article seeks to explicate whether or not Bangladesh is a neopatrimonial state. This article examines contemporary Bangladesh politics with a particular focus on the notion of neopatrimonialism and with special reference to the personalization of state power. The concept of neopatrimonialism has great utility in explaining leadership behaviour in a dysfunctional democracy such as Bangladesh, where personalized exchanges, exploitation of bureaucratic and state mechanisms and political scandals are common. I argue that Bangladesh is a special variant of the neopatrimonial state, which I suggest to be bipolar neopatrimonialism. I contend that since independence, successive governments and political leaders always attempt to monopolize state power in various ways. The patron-client society of Bangladesh helps political leaders to personalize the state power they possess. To monopolize state power, the political elites of Bangladesh create networks and alliances, relying on exchanges to meet their objectives. In this regard, state elites use elements of the state and political system to mediate these exchanges.     

An exploratory analysis of governance dynamics,institutional reforms and development: a comparative study of India and Bangladesh

Governance has become a prominent issue over the last three decades or so in the intellectual and practical domains of public administration. Significant debates have proliferated about the significance, domains and types of governance and their implications for democracy and development, particularly in developing countries. Amidst the debates on the relationship between governance and development, political settlements analysis has become quite prominent that focuses on the implications of political settlement for reforming and enforcing institutions leading towards negative/positive economic development. This article aims to examine how the interlocked relationships among the members of the dominant power coalition in the governing system help reform the institutions, distribute privileges, maintain stability and affect economic development with particular reference to India and Bangladesh.     

Political-Administrative Relations in Collaborative Environmental Management

One of the central ideas of liberal democracy is to ensure broad-based citizen participation in the governance process that goes beyond simply voting. However, evidence shows that on many occasions it has been failing to do so both in the developed and developing countries. As such, this paper, based on an empirical study, analyzes the scopes, forms, and nature of citizen participation in the urban local governance process in Bangladesh. It is found that citizen participation has been nominal in the local governance process due to a number of social, political, and institutional factors, for example, electoral politics, limited citizen’s accesses to various decision-making bodies, the existence of clientelistic politics and the presence of a weak civil society.     

"Global Civil Society" and the Political Depoliticization of Global Governance

Activists, officials, and academics alike have often linked observations about an emerging global civil society to an incipient democratization of world politics. Global civil society is assumed to bring public scrutiny and "bottom-up" politics to international decision making "from outside" formal political institutions. Based on an analysis of uses of the concept of global civil society in 1990s global governance discourse (especially related to the major UN world conferences), this paper argues that the presumed democratization of world politics is better understood in terms of a double movement: on the one hand, "global civil society" depoliticizes global governance through the promotion of "human security" and "social development"; on the other hand, the emerging international public sphere (in the UN context) operates as a subsystem of world politics rather than opposing the system from outside. Practices of depoliticization are thus part of the political logic of (neo-)liberal global governance. The argument draws on Luhmann's systems theory and Foucault's analysis of governmentality.     

DEMOCRATIC SUBJECTIVITIES IN NETWORK GOVERNANCE: A Q METHODOLOGY STUDY OF ENGLISH AND DUTCH PUBLIC MANAGERS

Network forms of governance enable public managers to exercise considerable agency in shaping the institutions through which government interacts with citizens, civil society organizations and business. These network institutions configure democratic legitimacy and accountability in various ways, but little is known about how managers‐as‐designers think about democracy. This Q methodology study identifies five democratic subjectivities. Pragmatists have little concern for democracy. Realists regard networks as one of a number of arenas in which the politics is played out. Adaptors identify the potential for greater inclusiveness. Progressive Optimists think that network governance will fill the gap between the theory and practice of representative democracy, while Radical Optimists focus on its potential for enabling direct dialogue. Institutional design alone is not sufficient to enhance the democratic possibilities of governance networks. The choice of public manager is also salient. Adaptors or, preferably, Progressive or Radical Optimists should be selected for this role.     

Who governs? Religion and order in postcolonial Africa

Abstract

This article explores how mutually productive intersections between religion and governance constitute international political order in sub-Saharan settings. Asking ‘who governs’, I propose religion–governance entanglement as a means of analysing these intersections and rethinking governance, order and religion in Africa. Existing literatures typically characterise the public reliance on religious actors and institutions as being part of a uniquely ‘post-secular’ moment in contemporary world politics or a wider ‘post-Westphalian’ shift in modern governance. Enduring dynamics between postcolonial states and the Global North problematise these framings. In sub-Saharan Africa, religion has a protracted history in postcolonial hybrid governance, overlapping the regional presence of international non-govermental organisations following decolonisation. Using the example of South Sudan, I build on recent analyses of religious-political activities that leave their collective implications under-theorised.     

Distrust as a hindrance to democratic governance in South Korea

This article focuses on the concept of trust and its implications for democratic governance in South Korea. Trust is an elusive concept that is often discussed using such synonyms as confidence, trustworthy, reliance, or anticipation of goodwill. Trust in interpersonal relations is different from trust in institutions. The case of South Korean politics and administration shows that the absence of trust hampers the process of building a mature democratic society and hinders the development of democratic governance. The article concludes by stressing the need to enhance trust in society, government, policy‐makers, and public administrators.     

Conclusion: European Governance in a Changing World: Interests,Institutions, and Policy-Making

ABSTRACT

This article concludes the special issue by outlining the author’s perspective on 40 years of research on interests, institutions, and policy-making in sub-national, national, and supranational settings. The first part of the article five general comments is developed on 1. the relationship between politics and policies, 2. vertical widening in terms of multilevel European policy-making; 3. horizontal widening with regard to New Modes of Governance; 4. democratic legitimation in multilevel governance; and 5. methodological considerations. The second part of the article substantiates the five comments and relates them to the other articles in the special issue. The overall picture which emerges is that European governance has expanded and transformed significantly over time which has led to a complex system in need for democratic accountability and legitimacy.     

Modernism's Legacy: Dialogue,Objectivity, and Justice in Mark Bevir's Democratic Governance

This article looks at Mark Bevir's ideas on the changing nature of the modern state, as expressed in his book, ‘Democratic Governance’. In the book, the author argues that recent developments in the theory and practice of politics have their intellectual roots in wider trends in the academic study of society and politics. In particular, he argues, the rise in what he and others have called ‘the new governance’ – that is, the shift in Britain and elsewhere away from centralised policy making and implementation by state institutions toward policy networks in which the state is merely one actor among many – has emerged as a direct consequence of the rise of ahistorical, universalist social science methodologies.     

Culture Governance: Governing Self‐Reflexive Modernity

Political and administrative analysis is today said to be taking a narrative turn: to learning by telling and listening to the different stories that constitute political life. However, this new approach to studying the decentring of politics and policy as multiple discursive practices carries a new grand narrative too. A new connection between political authority and political community is taking shape outside the spheres of modern government and representative democracy. Political authority is becoming increasingly both communicative and interactive in order for it to be able to meet complexity with complexity. It is employed for reforming institutions by opening them towards the culture and by tying them to the political attributes and capacities of self‐reflexive individuals and to the transformation and self‐transformation of their conduct. I call this development culture governance. Culture governance is about how political authority must increasingly operate through capacities for self‐and co‐governance and therefore needs to act upon, reform, and utilize individual and collective conduct so that it might be amenable to its rule (Bang 2003; Dean 2003). Culture governance represents a new kind of top‐down steering; it is neither hierarchical nor bureaucratic but empowering and self‐disciplining. It manifests itself as various forms of joined‐up government and network governance and proclaims itself to be genuinely democratic and dialogical. This I shall show by a study of local Danish politics and policy in Copenhagen. Culture governance, I shall argue, constitutes a formidable challenge and threat to democracy, in attempting to colonize the whole field of public reason, everyday political engagement, democratic deliberation, and so on, by its own systems logic of success, effectiveness or influence. It seeks to take charge of the working of the more spontaneous, less programmed and more lowly organized politics of the ordinary in political communities, thus undermining the very idea of a non‐strategic public reasoning as founding the practices of freedoms.     

Islamism,secularism and post-Islamism: the Muslim world and the case of Bangladesh

This paper provides a historical overview of the emerging post-Islamist phenomenon in the Muslim world and discusses the scope for sustainable democratic politics in Bangladesh. In the process, a model is proposed that purports to exhibit a level of compatibility with the perceived political landscape in Bangladesh. The model adopts a version of the Hotelling–Downs principle of democracy and sets it within the ‘post-Islamist’ paradigm in such a way that, if it can be implemented, even if only partially, may lead to the sustained political stability of Bangladesh. The paper highlights illiberal and undemocratic practices of the two dominant Bangladeshi political parties as a major feature of the present status quo. These practices dominate Bangladeshi politics through the continuous attempts of their exponents to impose monopolistic views on the various symbols of national identity, despite the multi-racial, multi-religious nature of Bangladesh society. The paper concludes that a democratic system of politics, which accommodates aspects of secularism, language, Muslim identity and post-Islamist ‘Islamic ethical–moral–legal codes’, remains the feasible political discourse for forming and consolidating the country’s multi-racial, multi-religious national identity over the long run and its survival as a sovereign state.     

The New Mode of Public Governance and Public Accountability in Developing Countries: An Analysis with Particular Reference to Bangladesh

Public accountability is a fundamental element of good governance. All countries all over the world strive to ensure the accountability of public officials by adopting different kinds of mechanisms. Following the liberal democratic tradition, most countries in the world have relied on the legislative instruments, executive means, judicial and quasi-judicial processes, official rules, codes of conducts, official hierarchies, public hearings, interest groups, media scrutiny and so forth for ensuring public accountability. However, in recent years, the new mode of public governance has brought new dimensions to the discourse on public accountability. This new mode focuses largely on the market- and society-centered mechanisms. This article is an attempt to assess the effectiveness of these market- and society-centered mechanisms in ensuring public accountability in Bangladesh. The article has the following objectives:

(a) to explore contemporary debates on the market- and society-centered mechanisms of public accountability;

(b) to sketch the state of public accountability in Bangladesh; and

(c) to analyze the effectiveness of the market- and society-centered mechanisms in view of the contemporary socio-economic and political dynamics of Bangladesh.     

A community under siege: exclusionary education policies and indigenous Santals* in the Bangladeshi context

Abstract

This article presents and analyses the voices and responses of the research participants about the impact of exclusionary formal and informal education policies imposed on the Santal community in Palashpur, Bangladesh (Palashpur is a pseudonym for the site of my research; it is also a metaphor for contested space where the colonial power and politics of the nation state exert domination and subordination). These policies are implemented through a state-led, centralised, monolingual and exclusionary curriculum in local primary and secondary schools, schools run by the churches, and schools supported by nongovernmental organisations. The education policies in Bangladesh bear the legacy of the combined forces of cultural homogenisation and social exclusion rooted in the colonial learning structure and its objectives. Embedded in these policies are elements of the civilising mission, an ultra-religious assimilative but exclusionary nationalistic agenda, and Western values of modernity and development. In this rural context, these alien ideologies and practices in education are actively engaged in eliminating local institutions, the knowledge system of indigenous peoples, the texture of their lives, their joy of living, their spirituality and their sense of being. This article reveals how, imposed from above, education policy and practices have dispersed an indigenous community to negotiate a life that goes against the interests of the community itself and its members.     

Does Size Matter? Reassessing the Relationship between Aquaculture and Poverty in Bangladesh

Aquaculture has long been promoted by development institutions in Bangladesh on the understanding that it can alleviate poverty. Most of this attention has focused on forms of the activity commonly referred to as ‘small-scale’. This article draws on concepts from the literature on agricultural growth and elaborates a typology of aquaculture based on relations of production which suggests that, in Bangladesh, quasi-capitalist forms of aquaculture may possess greater potential to reduce poverty and enhance food security than the quasi-peasant modes of production generally assumed to do so. The implications of this conclusion are explored.     

Post-liberation Politics in Africa: examining the political legacy of struggle

This article examines the politics of African states in which insurgencies or liberation movements have taken control of the government. It analyses the impact on governance of reforms introduced by these post-liberation regimes, their relations with traditional authorities and civil society and relationships within and between competing guerrilla movements. It interrogates the nature of the state that emerges from this process. The ‘post-liberation’ state label is argued to be both meaningful and useful, as part of a larger project of exploring and explaining the post-colonial African state, highlighting debates about representation, citizenship and nation building. While post-liberation regimes have advantages in implementing state building projects, they are also subject to contestation when the new state institutions and regime incumbents become too exclusivist or predatory.     

Private Governance and the South: lessons from global forest politics

Abstract

Private governance beyond the state is emerging as a prominent debate in International Relations, focusing on the activities of private non-state actors and the influences of private rules and standards. However, the conceptual framework of governance has until recently been employed predominantly with reference to the oecd world. Despite this restricted view, a growing number of processes, organisations and institutions are beginning to affect developing countries and new institutional settings open up avenues of influence for actors from the South. In the context of a lively debate about global governance and the transformation of world politics, this article asks: what influences does private governance have on developing countries, their societies and their economies? What influence do southern actors have in and through private governance arrangements? I argue that we can assess the specific impacts of private governance, as well as potential avenues of influence for actors from the South, with regard to three functional pathways: governance through regulation, governance through learning and discourse, and governance through integration. Focusing in particular on private governance in the global forest arena, I argue that, while southern actors have not benefited so much economically from private certification schemes, they have been partially empowered through cognitive and integrative processes of governance.