Paper Abstract

50 Years of Bangladesh > Paper Abstract

Bangladesh in a Changing World Order: Responding to Changing Geopolitics

One may point out that in the 18th century, China was the largest economy in the world, while undivided India was the second-largest, and Bengal was the wealthiest province in the sub-continent.

Fifty Years of Development Experience of Bangladesh: An Employment and Labour Perspective

The basic purpose of this paper would be to take a fresh look at the narrative of economic growth in Bangladesh and its outcome from the perspective of an important factor of production – labour. This will be done in three parts.

Bangladesh Environment since Independence: Internal Dynamics and External Challenges

At its birth in 1971, Bangladesh inherited major environmental legacies of floodings and cyclones, upended by widespread arsenic contamination in the 1980s. Since the turn of the century

Shahbagh, Shapla Chottor and Bangladesh’s Meandering, Contending Mindscapes

My paper will look at sites of ideological affirmation as well as contestations in Bangladesh in the last fifty years. We have witnessed in these years in a thrice-partitioned country, created after a seemingly decisive parting of ways from religion-based nationalism

The Changing Faces of Culture: Notes from a Time of Crisis

If culture is understood to be a network of signification through which “a social order is communicated, reproduced, experienced and explored,” as the Marxist culture critic Raymond Williams maintained (Culture, 1981:13) then the new trends in Bangladesh’s culture

Building Bangladesh: From Pavilion-form to Landscape-form

Bangladesh played a critical role in the history of mid modern architecture of the world, but it is a story that is poorly narrated, and also less known than the high modernist adventures in Chandigarh and Islamabad in the 1950s.

Understanding Civil Society in Bangladesh: Evolution, Issues and Challenges

The difficulty in defining “civil society” explains how complex the idea is, particularly in the context of Bangladesh. Dominant theoretical approaches and their diverse variants have been found inadequate…

Contentious Empowerment?: Women, Development and Change in Bangladesh

In the last 50 years, Bangladesh has achieved remarkable progress on gender equality gains, starting from a lower base compared to other countries in the region.

Fifty years of human development in Bangladesh: achievements and challenges

The fundamental objective of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy a long, healthy and creative life.

Democratizing the ‘middle income’ dream: The coming challenge for Bangladesh at 50

At independence, the dominant concern of citizens and observers alike was about the economic future of the country. Five decades later, a poverty-stricken, disaster-prone…

Inequality and human development: the Bangladesh perspective

As regards to the concept of Inequality – two questions are important – inequality of what and inequality among whom. Inequality must be measured across a dimension – for example, income, wealth, access to social services etc. 

Contemporary Poverty Dynamics in Rural Bangladesh

The paper provides new evidence on the poverty dynamics in Bangladesh in the 2010s using the three rounds of a large-scale rural representative panel survey. Set in the backdrop of evolving poverty trends during the last 25 years

Bangladesh’s Economic Transformation: Institutional Challenges

Bangladesh’s economic growth and development performance over the past few decades have been impressive. Despite these successes, the sustainability of Bangladesh’s development model, in which growth has been largely driven by a single sector

Synergies and Tipping Points: Policy Actions, Market Responses and Economic Growth in Bangladesh

This paper provides an explanation of Bangladesh’s remarkable post-independence growth performance in terms of the synergy between policy actions and market responses.

Bangladesh Transitioning From LDC to Post-LDC Future

Bangladesh is expected to graduate out of the group of LDCs in 2026. The country became a member of the LDC group in December, 1975 and it is slated to make this crucial transition after five decades.

State-making, Violence, and Political Muscle: Bangladesh as Polycratic State

The paper traces phases in forms of political violence in Bangladesh from Independence in 1971 till today. The material focuses on Barisal in the south of the country.

Islamist Politics in Bangladesh: the nature, scope, and the pathway

This paper explores various strands of Islamist politics in Bangladesh, defined as ‘a form of instrumentalization of Islam by individuals, groups and organizations that pursue political objectives.’

Evolution of the State-Society Relations in Bangladesh: An Analytical Narrative

In this paper I attempt to provide an analytical narrative of the evolution of state-society relations in Bangladesh during the last five decades.