ISAS Working Papers

Bangladesh has a rich legacy of establishing and promoting local government institutions, but the actual roles and contributions of these institutions to augment citizens’ participation and consolidate democratic practices have often been marginal - due mainly to the overwhelming central interference, and abuse and manipulation by authoritarian regimes to perpetuate their power. This study takes a retrospective look into the evolution and functioning of decentralised local governance in Bangladesh with a view to eliciting the major trends, characteristics and challenges. Such a reconnaissance exercise may be particularly relevant in consideration of the fact that there has, of late, been renewed emphasis on decentralized local governance by the government and civil society alike, and a number of structural and legal reforms have been made.