This book is a culmination of ideas from the third and fourth International Bangladesh Development Initiative (BDI) Conferences at the University of California, Berkeley, USA in 2013 and 2015. This book dwells on two major areas, namely, politics and government, and gender and development.
The contributions in the first part present analytical perspectives on the transformation of political regimes, heterogeneity of identities and their complexities, and the causes and consequences of pre-election violence. This part also scrutinizes the relationship between external remittances and democracy at local levels, how politics impacts economic issues, and finally examines Bangladesh’s place in South Asia as a region.
Essays in part two explore issues relating to human rights. The papers in this section include analyses on the role of childhood exposure to violence and the state’s role in ensuring protection and fairness to female litigants in domestic dispute-resolution cases. These essays also discuss cultural and anthropological perspectives on patriarchy in the context of gender equality, difficulties faced by the urban poor in accessing low income housing, and finally, the state’s failures in this regard.
Contents
Part I: Politics and Government
Chapter 1 The Nature and Quality of Democracy in Bangladesh (1991-2013): An Assessment
Chapter 2 Fractured Nation, Fractured Identities: Question for a National Reconciliation in Bangladesh
Chapter 3 Bangladesh and the Burden of History
Chapter 4 How Political Relations Affect Output Responses in South Asia: A Case with Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan
Chapter 5 Does Remittance Affect Local Democracy in Developing Countries? Evidence from Local Elections in Bangladesh
Chapter 6 Lalbagh and Shahbagh: Of Robin Hoods and the Gunda Raj Part II: Gender and Development
Chapter 7 Intergenerational Transmission of Domestic Violence in Bangladesh
Chapter 8 Compromising Cases: An Examination of Dispute Resolution through Special Tribunals for Women and Children in Bangladesh
Chapter 9 Gender and Development in Bangladesh: Two Future Challenges
Chapter 10 Urban Poor Housing in Bangladesh – Rights, Policy, Program and Prescription
Editors
Ahrar Ahmad is Professor Emeritus, Black Hills State University, Spearfish, South Dakota. He is currently associated with the Gyantapas Abdur Razzaq Foundation in Dhaka.
Navine Murshid is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Colgate University.
Akhlaque Haque is Professor and Director in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Rahim Quazi is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for International Business Education, Prairie View A&M University, Texas.
