How “Civil” is Civil Society? Authoritarian State, Partisan Civil Society, and the Struggle for Democratic Development in Bangladesh

Fostering Civil Society to Build Institutions: Why and When

“…Edwards (2004) quotesMcClain and Fleming (2000).13 Consistent with our view of civil society,Quadir (2003) argues that civil society was ineffective in Bangladesh exactly because NGOs took on a partisan role, not the more neutral perspective of civil society. 14Mungiu-Pippidi (2005) provides an interesting example of a non-partisan effort to increase transparency, deliberation, and debate on corruption in Romania, an effort strongly promoted by aid donors.…”

International Aid, Local Ownership, and Survival: Development and Higher Education in Rural Haiti

“…This was especially the case when those principals mistrusted the capacities of the authorities involved, for either ideological or capacity-related reasons, including fears of widespread corruption. The neoliberal distrust of governments as effective economic actors and genuine representatives of societal needs has been echoed by scholars from very different theoretical and political positions (Kaldor 2003;Quadir 2003;Richmond 2011), seeking to discover an alternative to the shortcomings of representative democracy as a valid way of expressing popular demands. Those adopting this framework have embraced the idea that local and global civil society organizations and social movements are (or have the potential to be) honest brokers of citizen's needs and a valid alternative to both local governments and internationally directed development policies.…”

Politicized Civil Society in Bangladesh: Case Study Analyses

“…NGOs actually created a public resource distribution system outside the nation state (Nobusue 2002, p 34); in this way, civil society in Bangladesh has supplemented the state development policy. However, it is also fact, that civil society influenced by conflicting political parties often has become polarized, corrupt and ineffective in democratic terms (Quadir 2003). Moreover, CSOs, including the development NGOs in Bangladesh, appear to have entered the long patron-client chains running from top government leaders down to the periphery of Bangladesh; similarly, NGOs have often been accused of becoming new patrons for the poor (Lewis 2004;White 1999;Hashemi 1996).…”

“…Although Bangladesh is ethnically homogenous and casteless, its society is vertically constructed and politically polarized. Here, civil society, instead of forming bonds and bridging social capital among different groups, helps sharpen existing political divisions (Quadir 2003), which have their origins in historical circumstances and have been strategically used and generated by political parties (Tasnim, 2007). Thus, in Bangladesh, civil society has been behaving in the opposite dimension of what is ideally expected from it in relation to democracy.…”

“…However, the political system is still struggling with a poor economy and, as a fledgling democracy, is marked by confrontation and violence. The vibrant civil society is often criticized for its weak contributions to democracy (Lewis2004 ;Quadir 2003;Ahmed 2011). The case of Bangladesh forms a stark contrast to the Neo-Tocquevillean assumption that a strong civil society fosters democracy, holds the state in check, and contributes to development (Howell and Pearce 2001, p. 40).…”