@SOASDevelopment Professor. I write and post about accountability, the politics of development, & Bangladesh, but don't let that put you off
Aug 10 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
What might the interim government of Bangladesh do to restore democracy? (🧵).
As merely organizing an election is self-evidently insufficient to bring 🇧🇩 back to democracy, most observers believe some kind of political and institutional reform is likely to be necessary. 1/
Political and other institutional reforms were attempted in the 2007-08 non-party caretaker government - a system that closely resembles what is currently in place in Bangladesh. So we can definitely learn from that experience. 2/
Aug 1 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I always say, if you don't understand the politics of development in Bangladesh, then you don't understand the politics of Bangladesh.
A key point re. the student protests: these are not desperate hungry people fighting for bare survival. 1/
What they are doing is making an explicit critique of an ideological devotion to a form of developmentalism that depends on corruption, crony capitalism, and their best friend, autocracy. 2/
Oct 23, 2023 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Is anywhere as good as Bangladesh at learning from disasters? ‘Never waste a good crisis’ is virtually official policy. So when COVID19 hit, amidst great fear & uncertainty, the GoB quickly grasped that it needed to learn how to listen to its citizens better. 🇧🇩 1/
Over the past year, a team from @AcctResearchCtr @BIGD_bracu Rajshahi & Jahangirnagar Universities & @ManusherJonno studied whether and how the Bangladesh government listened and responded to its citizens during COVID19.
1. Bangladesh is in lockdown again from Monday. It looks sadly essential - & in fact overdue #Bangladesh#bangladeshlockdown 🇧🇩 2. But will anyone comply? CAN people stay home when so many live on what they can earn day to day?
Nov 12, 2020 • 10 tweets • 6 min read
50 years ago today was the Bhola cyclone, one of the deadliest tropical storms in world history. It killed up to half a million people in what was then East #Pakistan, and triggered the #Bangladesh liberation war
The Pakistani authorities were negligent & frankly unconcerned about the devastation in their eastern wing. (A bit like President Trump's response to #hurricane Maria in #PuertoRico). Weeks later they held the first democratic election in #Pakistan's history