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Paper short abstract

Bangladesh's 2024 revolution was one of the largest in history, yet in many ways doesn't seem to have changed much. Why is this?

Paper long abstract

The student movement that became a mass movement and toppled Bangladesh’s longstanding and authoritarian Awami League government, has become known as a ‘mass uprising’, a ‘Monsoon Revolution’ or ‘July Revolution’. Quickly after events of August 2024, students called for a New Republic and spoke of ‘Bangladesh 2.0’. What has become clear however is that while the face of the old regime has crumbled, the state machinery behind it, and criminal politics on the street, both largely continue. This was one of the largest political revolutions in history but doesn’t really seem to have changed much. Why is this? This paper will offer three explanations. First, the basic structure of Bangladesh’s political economy, organised as syndicates, is a deeply entrenched form of organisation that reflects the country’s decentralised forms of political authority. The revolution will likely reaffirm rather than undermine this. Second, despite the discourse of a ‘Bangladesh 2.0’ the imaginations of a possible state and politics are largely better versions of what already exists. The intellectual horizon about possible futures is (very understandably) limited, and there seem few plausible and significant routes to engineering positive change within that, at least in the short term. Third, the wider structural conditions that drove this revolution (such as youth unemployment) are colossal challenges requiring huge change to address. And yet without huge change, more uprisings or revolutions are a very real possibility.