Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the political role of the radical NGO sub-sector that emerged in Bangladesh to challenge the marginalization of subordinate groups and strengthen democratic processes.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the political role of the radical NGO sub-sector that emerged in Bangladesh to challenge the marginalization of subordinate groups and strengthen democratic processes. It first reviews their activities during the military government up to 1990 and subsequent period of electoral democracy, identifying some important achievements, but also the many failures that have eliminated most of them, leaving behind a sector dominated by credit and service delivery organizations. It then explains this decline by focusing on three inter-related factors: (i) an institutional setting dominated by clientalistic structures that have undermined efforts to build horizontal alliances among excluded groups in civil society, or links between NGOs and political parties; (ii) a shift in donor support from mobilization to market-based service delivery agencies; and (iii) internal structures that have generated legitimacy and accountability problems by encouraging elite capture, co-option and personalised leadership in the radical sub-sector in particular. It concludes with some brief reflections on the implications of these failures.