South Asia Faces the Future: Back and Forth in Bangladesh

Issue Date January 2002
Volume 13
Issue 1
Page Numbers 76-83
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Recent parliamentary elections showed the continuing strengths and weaknesses of Bangladeshi democracy. Although the country does have strong political parties and a decade of democratic elections, the intense antipathy between government and opposition will continue to cause problems well into the future.

About the Author

Howard B. Schaffer, U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh from 1984 to 1987, is deputy director and director of studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University. He spent most of his 36-year career in the Foreign Service in South Asia and in South Asia policy-making positions in Washington. He served twice as deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia and was political counselor at the U.S. embassies in India and Pakistan. He is the author of Chester Bowles: New Dealer in the Cold War (1993).

View all work by Howard B. Schaffer

Further Reading

Volume 31, Issue 4

The Bangladesh Paradox

Despite impressive achievements in socioeconomic development, Bangladesh has struggled with establishing democracy and is now effectively under one-party rule.

Volume 16, Issue 2

The Rise of “Muslim Democracy”

The incentives created by competitive elections in a number of Muslim-majority countries are fueling a political trend that roughly resembles the rise of Christian Democracy in twentieth-century Europe

Volume 25, Issue 2

Shifting Tides in South Asia: Bangladesh’s Failed Election

After two decades of elections that produced a number of alternations in power, an impasse over “caretaker government” crippled the 2014 contest and has made single-party rule all too real…