Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the state of democracy in Bangladesh since 1991 and argues that it displays emblematic features of hybrid regimes and that a variant of delegative democracy has emerged.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is premised on two elements of the system of governance in Bangladesh, firstly, Bangladesh is considered a 'democratic' country; and secondly, regime changes have taken place periodically through competitive elections since 1991. However, the non-functioning of the parliament, absence of the rule of law, politicization of the judiciary, unabated extra judicial killings, and a growing phenomenon of enforced disappearance points to the fact that democratic consolidation have remained elusive. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon and argues that Bangladesh displays emblematic features of 'hybrid regimes' (Larry Jay Diamond, "Thinking about Hybrid Regimes", Journal of Democracy, 13 (2):21-35, 2002). I utilize the definition expounded by Hans-Joachim Lauth that suggests that hybrid 'regimes [that] are neither a subtype of autocracies nor of democracies but a regime type on their own, encompassing those political systems that on plausible grounds cannot be classified as either autocracy or democracy'. Further exploration of the nature of the democracy in Bangladesh, this paper concludes that Bangladeshi democracy bears the defining characteristics of 'delegative democracy' - a system which 'rest[s] on the premise that whoever wins election [...] is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees fit, constrained only by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited term of office' (Guillermo A. O'Donnell, "Delegative Democracy", Journal of Democracy, 5 (1): 55-69, 1994).