Democracy In Bangladesh Essay

Conceptualizing Democracy in Bangladesh

1. Introduction:

Democracy is one of the well-accepted form of political system of the present time which is the alternative to authoritarian political system. The wave of transitions away from autocratic rule started from the nineteenth century when many authoritarian political system in the West turns into democracy. There are many contributing factors that drives the authoritarian political systems to the democratic systems, such as struggle between monarchs and estates, struggle between church and state, peasants struggle against excessive taxation, the global change of commerce, technology, religious strife etc. (Held 2006, p.56).The development of democracy

With the challenges of poverty, illiteracy and corruption, economic development with democratic practice is not an easy mission for the country. To assess whether there is a democracy in the country, the institution, constitution, political practices of the country could be assessed. After the independence of Bangladesh in 1972 it has emerged as a democratic country through establishing its constitution where the core value of democracy has been enshrined as a fundamental goal and principle of state policy. The preamble of the constitution says the fundamental aim of the State is to ensure human rights, equal rights for all citizens and rule of law through the democratic process (Constitution 1972). Unfortunately, the democratic process could not sustain for a long time in the country and turns in to authoritarian system within three years. After the long political struggle of the major political parties of the country the parliamentary form of democracy re-introduced in 1991. Since then the country has observing democratic value though it faces military intervention in between this time for a term of two years. The parliamentary system of government elected every five years by the voting of the general people. Now the question is whether the country is still in a democratic process. According to Schmitter & Karl (1991, pp.83-84), the indicator for evaluating the performance of a particular regime as a democratic system are as