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Democratic Consolidation in Bangladesh: A Reality Check

This paper focuses on the effectiveness of the Executive, Parliamentary, and Judiciary functions of Bangladesh. Following the “third wave of democracy”, the number of democratic countries around the world has taken a surge. However, in terms of qualitative changes, those constitutionally transformed countries have shown little promise and liberalism has been proved elusive. Many newly democratic countries have only shifted from their early totalitarian system to elected authoritarianism in the guise of democracy where elections are merely held to validate the subsequent unconstitutional activities of the respective regimes and where little respect is being shown to liberal constitutional values. In some cases, becoming more democratic may involve completing the transition from
authoritarian to democratic rule. The overall status of legislative accountability in Bangladesh, as the Global Integrity reports suggest, is very weak. In its 2008 and 2010 reports, it suggests that Bangladesh has scored only 56 and 47 respectively, on 0 to 100 scales with 0 being the worst and 100 being perfect, which gives Bangladesh a very weak status.

Author: Zakaria, Sultan Mohammed
Type: Working Paper
Year: 2013

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