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

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 21; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02185377.2013.823799

1750-7812

Mohammad Mozahidul Islam,

Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

AbstractIn 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.Keywords: NeopatrimonialismPatron-client PoliticsPersonalization of State PowerDysfunctional Democracy AcknowledgementI am grateful to Professor Marc Williams and Dr Duncan McDuie-Ra for their helpful discussions on the earlier draft of this article. Thanks also to three anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions for improvement of the article. I acknowledge that the main title of the article, ''The Toxic Politics of Bangladesh", is borrowed from The Economist, 13 August Citation2011.Notes[1] After independence, about 6,000 government employees including nine former CSP officers lost their jobs on charges of 'collaboration' with the Pakistani military regime (Moniruzzaman, 1979: 48). Then, as Khan (Citation2003: 401) notes, 'successive military rulers have in various ways encouraged, favoured and promoted senior civil servants who would continue to advise and support them. Servility to persons rather than to institutions and rules became the dominant feature of the day.'[2] The RAB always claims that most of the deaths had occurred in a 'crossfire' which infers that there was a gunfight between the RAB and the victim. In most cases, it is later revealed that the victim was neither a terrorist nor a criminal.[3] For instance, according to Banyan (Citation2011a), 'Legal attacks on Khaleda Zia, admittedly an unsympathetic figure, are in full flow: an anti-corruption body charged her on August 8th; the same day a court issued a warrant for her exiled elder son over bribe-taking; in June a younger son was sentenced, in absentia, to six years in another graft case; in November she was evicted from her home. Each of these steps may be legitimate; together they look like vengeance' (Banyan, Citation2011a).