First published in Culture, Patrimonialism and Religion: Revisiting Max Weber. Edited by Nazrul Islam. Dhaka: Goethe Institute. 2004. Pages 78-97. Quote accordingly.
Is
the Candle Still Burning?
Weber
and the Crisis of Democratic Transition in Bangladesh
--S. Aminul Islam
In
Spain in recent years, the two great parties, in a conventionally fixed manner,
took turns in office by means ‘elections’ fabricated from above, in order to
provide their followers with offices. In the Spanish colonial territories, in
the so-called ‘elections’, as well as in the so-called ‘revolutions’,
what was at stake was always the state bread- basket from which the victors
wished to be fed (Weber 1967: 87).
Weber, Kaesler (1988) argues, did
not develop any new sociological theory or even any theory at all. What he did,
Kaesler correctly points out, a series of concepts that encapsulated the
historically emergent social structures and the salience of human agency in
perpetuating or changing it. In contemporary sociology there are two opposing
responses to Weber’s legacy-to continue to deploy him as a living legend in
intellectual understanding of macro societal transformation or engage with him
in an effort at hermeneutic understanding of his grand narratives as part of
theoretical heritage in sociology. For
the second view Weber has no relevance for a world that has changed enormously
since his time. A third option may be to situate him in the fractured terrain of
postmodern sociological theory and make use of some of his ideas and
insights-make him selectively relevant.
Over a period of more than thirty
years sociological theory has been in a state of grave crisis (Gouldner, 1972).
It has hardly been successful in analyzing the societal trends and ills from
poverty to delinquency. Its grand narratives have come under remorseless fire
from postmodernism (Islam, 2003). Major sociologists like Jonathan Turner (1990)
have feared the death of sociology. It is in this context that Weber has assumed
renewed importance as a source of insight and intellectual roadmap. There are
strong reasons for assuming that his ideas have more relevance for developing
countries today than any other part of the world. Weber has relevance for
developing countries because he was writing and commenting on the politics at a
time when Germany was passing through a difficult period of transition to
modernity and he was concerned with politics of his country and social
transition of his time. Germany of his time provided him with the polarity of
tradition and modernity and he was centrally concerned with the emergence of
modernity in the West.
Thus it is no wonder that he
provided the leitmotif for the paradigm of modernization that blossomed in 1950s
and 1960s for the study of developing countries (Schwartz, 1972). The paradigm
was short-lived. Its articulation of ideology was great, but its theoretical
glitter little (Islam, 1985). Consequently there was a paradigm shift and
decline of Weber’s influence in the 1970s.
However, the influence of Weber
began to build up from the same period in a more restricted albeit important
area – the area of third world state-formation and its institutional forms.
Since 1968 when Guenther Roth suggested that some third world states were not
proper states, but patrimonial regimes, the term has remained in currency either
in the form of patrimonialism or neo-patrimonialism and has been used in the
context of failed states of Africa and also for several other countries.
However, the concept has been mainly used as a descriptive or pejorative
category.
In 1992 we undertook a study of the
democratic transition in Bangladesh from a neo-Weberian perspective and
predicted the current impasse of the transition process (Khan, Islam and Haque
1996). It was mainly an empirical work on the relationship between political
parties and democratic transition in the country informed by a meta theory
partly grounded in Weber. The objective of this paper is to extend that analysis
and two other brief expositions (Islam 2002, 2003) that I have made by drawing
more on Weber’s own work and moving beyond him.
There is a considerable literature
on democratic transition in third world countries. Most of this literature is
concerned with transition from authoritarian regimes. There are in general five
paradigms that inform the current scholarly engagement in this area.
The first is the old-new paradigm
that socio-economic modernization leads to the consolidation of democracy.
Lipset (1959) argued that socio-economic development in general tended to propel
countries towards democracy. He found that democracy was strongly associated
with wealth, industrialization, urbanization and education. Huntington (1993)
pointed out that among other things it was the growth of the middle class that
was critical in the emergence of the waves of democracy. However, Weiner (1987)
in an incisive analysis showed that an empirical theory of democracy had failed.
There was no empirical theory that could satisfactorily identify the causes for
the emergence of democracy. Recent works thus have been more modest. The
landmark study titled Democracy in Developing Countries by Diamond, Linz
and Lipset (1991) exemplifies this trend. The original work in three volumes
undertook to understand democratic transition in 26 countries in Asia, Africa
and Latin America. However, the work could not arrive at a theoretical framework
and instead focused upon a set of discrete factors such as political culture,
legitimacy, class structure, inequality, and political leadership as distilled
from historical analysis of each country. It provides, instead of a general
theoretical framework, country–specific dense narratives.
The second paradigm emerged from
the study of Latin American and South European authoritarianism pioneered by
O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986). It sought to understand how liberalization
fueled conflicts among strategic political actors and paved the way for free
play of political forces and overthrow of hardliners or pacts and compromises
for regime transition (O’Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead 1988; Tornquist
1999). This perspective has focused mainly upon pathways of transition from
authoritarian regimes and not much upon democratic consolidation or blocked
transition. Schmitter (1995), deploys both commonsense and essentialism in his
recent observation on the consolidation of democracy that the fourth wave of
democracy has left some countries high and dry on the beach and certain cultural
areas such as Islamic Middle East and South-East Asia have remained protected
from it.
Third, a variety of neo-Marxist
perspectives have tried to examine the nature and dynamics of the peripheral
state (Alavi 1972). In a powerful analysis Alavi explained the emergence of
authoritarianism in Pakistan and Bangladesh in terms of his notion of
“overdeveloped state” that mediated among conflicting class interests,
nature of class alliance and social composition of the military.
The fourth paradigm has been known
as patron-clientelism (see Eisenstadt and Lemarchand 1981). It refers to unequal
exchange of resources and services among political and social agents related by
moral bond as exemplified by machine politics of USA – a theme that Weber
marginally touched upon. But this paradigm is more suitable for micro level
analysis of specific aspects of blocked transition.
The fifth paradigm is grounded in
Weber and revolves around the concept of patrimonialism or neo-patrimonialism.
Van Leur (1937) seems to have been one of the earliest authors to use the
concept to analyze the 14th century Javanese state. The paradigm,
however, was sparked off by Guenther Roth in 1968. The term neo-patimonialism
seems to have been first used by Eisenstadt (1973) in 1973. It refers to the
co-existence in most third world countries patrimonialism and legal–rational
domination.
This paradigm has recently
generated a fruitful stream of research. But again most of these analyses have
remained descriptive and sketchy. It does not effectively use Weber’s insights
on the dynamics of conflict both within patrimonialism and interaction among
different types of domination as well as with the issues of agency.
Enter
Weber
It is needless to repeat that Weber
fleshed out the most comprehensive theory of domination mainly in the Economy
and Society and also in his other works. It is an extremely complex analysis
with several versions and has been interpreted in at least four different ways
(see Schluchter 1985 for details). Weber introduced three ideal types of
legitimacy upon which domination may be embedded – traditional, charismatic
and legal-rational in terms of constellations of interest (utilitarian motives)
and constellations of value (motives of duty). The basis of traditional
domination is “the authority of ‘eternal yesterday’’’(Weber 1967:78)
“belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions”(Weber 1978:215). The
charismatic domination is grounded in the “authority of the extraordinary and
personal gift of grace (charisma), the absolutely personal devotion and personal
confidence in revelation, heroism, or other qualities of leadership”(Weber
1967: 79).
The legal–rational domination
lies in the “ belief in the validity of legal statute and functional
competence based on rationally created rules”(Weber 1978:79). His theory of
domination links up different institutional realms and provides developmental
trend (Schluchter 1985). But what is not often stressed and it is necessary to
highlight that Weber saw domination as a process – as a dynamic and meaningful
interrelationship between “those
giving orders and those obeying”(Weber, 1978: 1378). The obedience resulted
both from pecuniary motives and from normative considerations. Weber shows that
concrete historical organizations rarely manifest any of the pure types of
authority (Weber 1978: 262). Most often different forms of domination co-exist
and occasionally lead to stagnation. He also discussed the issue of
non-legitimate domination and the process through which legitimacy was
constructed.
The
circular path of the Italian cities from a stage in which they were component
parts of patrimonial or feudal
structures, through a period of independence obtained by revolution with a
government of local notables and then of the craft guilds, followed by the signoria;
and finally again by a position as component parts of relatively rational
patrimonial associations—this cycle has no exact counterpart in the
Occident(Weber 1978:1322).
In Weber’s view the social bases of any
domination is always problematic and the creation of legitimacy is a process
in which forces and counter forces work out in the historical
terrain.
It is most
important, finally, to realize that historical reality involves a continuous,
though for the most part latent, conflict between chiefs and their
administrative staffs for appropriation and expropriation in relation to one
another. For almost all of cultural development, it has been crucial in what way
this struggle has worked out….(Weber1978:264).
This is also entailed in his notion
of routinization of charisma. Charismatic domination is inherently unstable and
is transformed either into traditional domination or legal-rational domination.
More centrally for Weber is the contrast between traditional
domination and legal-rational domination. Patrimonialism is one variant of
traditional domination that emerged with the acquisition of an administrative
staff and military force and control over a territory.
The ruler or master has all the authority, which is his
personal right/possession. The administrative staff and military force is purely
his personal instrument. All offices are considered “part of the ruler’s
personal household and private property.”(Weber 1978:1028-9). “ The
patrimonial state offers the whole realm of the ruler’s discretion as the
hunting ground for accumulation of wealth”(Weber 1978: 1099). The ruler uses
his discretion in decision making, especially in recruiting his staff within the
broad confines of tradition. The administration is based on a system of
favorites. The patrimonial officials are related to the ruler through personal
ties of subordination and loyalty as kinsmen, clients, dependants and so on. The
administrative staff lives on benefices, taxes or fees or fiefs granted by the
ruler. Administrative decision-making depends upon personal consideration and
upon “purely personal
connections, favors, promises and privileges”(Weber 1978:1041). There is a
clear distinction between the ruler and his subjects. Although the ruler is
bound by custom, he can show a high degree of discretion and arbitrariness in
his use of resources, decision-making and dealings with his subjects. When this
type of domination moves towards an extreme development of discretion, it is
called “sultanism”. But powerful groups in society often resist it. China is
a classic example of a long–drawn conflict over two millennia between
sultanism and the literati. As a consequence the patrimonial regime tends to
collapse suddenly due to palace coups, elite conflicts and so on.
Weber upheld that patrimonialism was a serious institutional
obstacle to the development of formal rationality, modernity and good
governance. This type of regime creates fiscal arbitrariness of such magnitude
that it allows growth only of capitalist trading, capitalist tax farming, lease
and sale of offices, capitalist state enterprises and plantation economy. It
thus gives rise to what Weber called capitalist or booty capitalism.
Traditionalism and arbitrariness deeply affect development of capitalism because
the ruler or his officials seize the opportunity for acquisition, discourages
development of market forces. The ruler’s arbitrariness does not allow
development of procedural predictability (Weber 1978:1092-5). Its institutional
rules are antithetical to the development of modern capitalism.
In his extremely insightful analysis in the Religion of
China, Weber highlights some of the aspects of patrimonialism, which are
possibly more useful in understanding rent seeking behaviour in many
contemporary third world countries than the paradigm of new political economy of
development (Cf.Toye 1993) Every official act had to be paid in gifts (Weber
1964:57). Each official in turn had to pay gifts to superiors who could
influence his fate. In China trade and money economy reinforced traditional
culture by providing “ special profit opportunities for the dominant
stratum” and “the rentier mentality.” With advance of money economy, there
was a simultaneous prebendalization of state income and as a consequence an
ossification of social structure (Weber 1964:61).
In contrast the legal-rational domination as exemplified in
modern bureaucracy is grounded in enacted laws. There is a complete separation
between household and office. The recruitment to bureaucracy is based upon merit
and technical competence. Each official has hierarchically arranged and legally
defined range of power and delimited sphere of duties, responsibilities and
action. The business of the bureaucracy is conducted impersonally in terms of
official rules and procedures. There is a clear chain of command and each
official has allegiance only to impersonal rules and procedures. All
administrative decisions are made on the basis of written records. Thus rational
bureaucracy does not leave any space for personal discretion or arbitrariness.
It symbolizes the epitome of formal rationality (Weber 1978).
Patron-clientelism
Weber also provided a wealth of examples of patron-clientelism
from different societies of his time. He found that all struggles of political
parties were struggles for patronage. It was the case for Germany, Spain,
Switzerland and many other countries. In France the deputy controlled all
patronage in his district and used it for his re-election. In USA unprincipled
political parties were merely job hunters and opposed one another only for
patronage. The President controlled 300,000 to 400,000 jobs down to the mailman
for distribution among his favorites. Weber provided an interesting analysis of
the machine politics in USA. The party boss was a critical figure for financing
the election as he collected contributions, received bribes and tips in exchange
for a variety of legal or illegal favors (Weber in Gerth and Mills1967).
The problems of democracy in the West
Weber initiated an interesting analysis of the development of
democracy, and the growth of party leadership, party structure and interest
groups that accompanied the process of democratization. His analysis was mainly
concerned with the situation in Germany. But he also provided illustrations and
data from other western countries. This analysis is insightful and is highly
relevant for contemporary Bangladesh.
In his analysis of the crisis of democracy in Germany he was
particularly concerned with the role of the parliament. He found that the German
Parliament was impotent. It only represented what he called
“negative politics.” “The tendency towards merely negative politics
of our parliament is reflected in the most minute details of the agenda and
conventions of our Reichstag and the parties”(Weber 1978:1414).
Again “ The whole structure of the German parliament has
been oriented toward negative politics: critique and complaint, the
deliberation, modification and passing of governmental bills”(Weber
1978:1416). No serious politician would enter it because he had little role to
play there. (Weber in Gerth and Mills 1967).
But the parliament was of vital importance for the protection
of masses. Weber deplored the political immaturity of the country and tendency
of German politicians for decorative speeches in the parliament. A steady and
strenuous work in a parliamentary career was necessary for deepening of
democracy. Democracy requires working parliament and close cooperation between
politicians and civil servants and the political education of both leaders and
the citizens (Weber 1978:1420).
The political
parties were a “guild of notables”. There was an absence of real political
leadership. The political parties were characterized by “ soullessness of
following”(Weber in Gerth and Mills 1967).
In Germany there was demagoguery and the “pressure of the rabble
without democracy, or rather because of the absence of an orderly
democracy”(Weber 1978:1451). Political parties were mainly concerned with
petty subaltern job patronage and they did it through veiled relationship with
the bureaucracy. Political competition was a struggle for material and personal
interests (Weber 1978:1447). But parliamentary patronage and other forms of
patronage, which flowed from old boy network to the recommendations of the big
business led to corruption.
Similarly, in France Weber found an atypical case and almost
echoed Marx (1978) in suggesting that it was a product of “strong
petty-bourgeois and especially rentier , character” of its
population(Weber1978:1443).
Neo-patrimonialism
In developing countries today most often three types of
domination analyzed by Weber tend to co-exist. The charismatic phenomenon and
two opposing institutional structures create a complex tension within society,
which has hardly been analytically developed or empirically mapped by
sociologists and political scientists since Weber’s time.
One theoretical direction towards this end has been taken
within the framework of neo-patrimonialism. Medard(1982) points out that in some
African states the ruler tends to view public resources as his personal wealth
from which his kinsmen could draw as they wished. Lemerchand (1995) found that
most African states were neo-patrimonial and the hallmark of neo-patrimonial
regimes was vertical dependency relationships between the ruler and his
underlings’ personal loyalty cemented by material rewards. The key structural
feature of society was patron-clientelism. In this type of state the
rent-seeking behavior was pervasive and public office was the main source of
rent. But the literature on neo-patrimonialism is sketchy and descriptive. It
has failed to achieve the analytical depth that Weber exemplified.
Enter Bangladesh
Political History
Bangladesh began its journey as a liberal democratic nation
in 1971 through protracted mass movements against the internal colonialism of
Pakistan and a War of Liberation that cost countless lives and massive economic
losses. The nationalist movement was spearheaded by the Awami League and its
charismatic leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. However, in the context of war
ravages, ideological context of the time and other reasons – factors which
have not been explored objectively and adequately, the charisma of Sheikh
Mujibur Rahamn became routinized or transformed in the direction of
patrimonialism – in the form of one-party rule of BKSAL (Bangladesh Krishak
Sramik Awami League). But very soon the regime was overthrown by a military
coup, which led to a period of military and civilian rule. The fall of Ershad
regime in 1990 through a series of mass movements put an end to authoritarianism
and the country was once again on the wave of formal democracy through the
general election of 1991.The build up of the two-party system and the concept of
care-taker government, regular holding of general elections and lawful transfer
of government as well as public resilience have strengthened the process of
consolidation of democracy. Yet this consolidation has been delayed due to the
persistence of many of the features of patrimonialism and it has even created an
impasse in the process of democratic transition.
The anatomy of the middle class
One critical factor that sustains
blocked transition is the nature of middle class, which has been shaped more by
political windfall than by performance in the market. During the colonial period
Bengali Muslims suffered from uneven development and remained deprived.
Anthropological research suggests the rise of a new rural elite after 1947. An
educated middle class and trading groups also grew up from this period. These
groups have flourished mainly through political connections and protection and
can be broadly described as a rentier class. It has achieved windfall profit or
rapid social mobility through its connection with the state or politics. Thus
the dominant tendency of this class has remained rent seeking rather than
performance in the market. This is not only true for the business and industrial
groups, but also for the salaried categories and trade union leaders. The main
structural feature of this class is that it is punctuated by extended family and
kinship network; locality ties and political connections, which tend to create a
maze of patron-client cartels (Shahidullah 1985).
Parliament and the streets
Although in 1991 Bangladesh started with a West Minister type
democracy with the parliament as the heart of all political voice, it soon
turned out that the ruling BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) and the major
opposition party AL (Awami League) totally disagreed on some major political
issues. Initially the AL played a very constructive and positive role in the
parliament. But soon the differences began to surface. The AL found that the
ruling party had introduced the dictatorship of the Prime Minister who did
rarely attend the Parliament and most of the bills were introduced as ordinances
rather than bills in the parliament (Hasanuzzaman, 1998). In AL’s perception
the ruling party was not interested in making the parliament focal point of
political contest. So it resorted to more and more street agitation and mass
mobilization for reforming the constitution, banning the fundamentalist
politics, improving the law and order situation, the alleged riggings in
bye-elections and for introducing the caretaker government. The BNP saw it as
the usual negative politics of AL. The AL and its allies in their turn began to
walk out frequently from the parliament, boycotted it for a total of 300 days
and finally resigned on 28th December 1994. A general election was held without
participation of the major opposition parties. The opposition mounted strong
street agitations including gheraos and hartals. In the process
many civil servants publicly joined the cause of the opposition. In the face of
it the BNP government had to leave power.
Soon after, the AL came to power through the general election
held on12th June 1996. But from the beginning of the parliamentary session it
was apparent that a partnership between the ruling party and the opposition for
the parliamentary process could not be worked out. The BNP found that the AL was
intolerant and oppressive and began to stage walkouts and boycott of the
parliament. It resorted to street agitations and hartal to press for its
demands. In the opposition BNP was playing the same role as AL had played while
it was in the opposition. So the seventh parliament was largely ineffective due
to the lack of participation by the opposition.
Later, in the general election of 1st October 2001
the AL suffered “an unprecedented debacle in its 53 – year history”(Daily
Star, October3, 2001). The AL rejected the election as rigged and has continued
to demand the resignation of the BNP government. Although it joined the
parliament initially it has largely boycotted it and gone for hartals and
agitations against the government. It has now stuck to one point programme for
ousting the government. The BNP and
the four-party alliance, on the other hand, have adopted oppressive measures
against the AL and the opposition. A recent front-page commentary by the editor
of the leading Bengali daily highlights the point.
The kind of intolerant and revengeful attitude specially the
policy of repression against the opposition groups and individuals of different
opinions that the Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and her BNP-Jamat alliance
government have adopted in the political arena recently is unprecedented. The
shameless activities of this government in repressing the opposition parties and
individuals of different opinions are worse than such activities of the
autocratic regimes of the past…. We are also witnessing that not only the
police forces, but also the student front, gundas and terrorists are
being deployed for such repression…. We have not seen examples of such
malevolent activities before. And through all these activities a Fascist
character of the government is being revealed. It is becoming increasingly clear
that such intolerant attitude of the government is pushing the country towards
restlessness and uncertainty….People are now witnessing that the government
has totally failed in governance and enforcing law and order. ..The country has
become a heaven for terrorists…there are many complaints that ministers and
members of parliament themselves have plunged into corruption. ….On the other
hand the parliament is totally ineffective. Not only the opposition members, but
members of the ruling parties also do not attend it and in majority of sessions
there is a lack of quorum. At the root of all these lie the one-sided policy of
the government that ignores the opposition and behaves towards it in malevolent
way. It is as if their main task is to repress the opposition parties and
opposed opinion. …Such a policy of the government, lack of trust in democracy
and malicious attitude towards the opposition parties are leading the country
towards a destructive political situation. The state-terrorism is pushing the
country towards a politics of revenge and counter revenge (Rahman, 2004).
What is interesting about this commentary is both the
ferocity of the attack on the leaders of the third force and scathing response
that the daily mounted against the government. It is unlikely that a
neo-patrimonial regime can be sustained upon such a tradition of political
protest.
It is not the BNP alone, but the Awami League during its time
in office also showed intolerant and malicious attitude towards the opposition.
Thus the two of the largest political parties behave in the same way when they
are in power as well as when they are out of power. They also fail to realize
that their political strategies are in the end self-defeating.
Demand groups and politics of agitation
According to Weber, interest groups
play a vital role in democracy. But in countries of South Asia politics gives
rise to what Rudolph and Rudolph (1987) call demand groups in contrast to
interest groups in institutionalized democracy. In a stable democracy demands
are articulated by interest groups on the basis of professional expertise and
lobbying skills within defined areas of public policy. Demand groups rely more
on symbolic and agitational politics. Fed by indigenous political tradition such
demand groups tend to operate in the political space outside the boundary of
institutional politics. Demand groups tend to assume that there is no
institutional mechanism for redress of grievances. So they must stage a great
spectacle of protest to bring about regime or broad policy changes. Strikes in
educational institutions, hartals and bandhas are major forms of
protest by demand groups. Thus hartal has shown phenomenal growth from
1991 and become a part of political culture of Bangladesh. There were 216
hartals between 1991 and 1994. During the next three years the number of hartals
went up to 279. The country entered the new millennium with a record number of
hartals totalling 332 between 1999 and 2002. These hartals have telling effects
on the economy and institutional discipline (Islam, forthcoming).
Political parties
Political parties in Bangladesh are far from rational
organizations. They are mainly coalitions of factions embedded in kinship ties,
localities and personal loyalties and often are unstable due to internecine
conflicts. These factions can be held together only by charismatic leadership.
The relative stability of both Awami League and BNP is due to the fact that they
have been headed by routinized charisma. Routinized charisma entails deep
emotional commitment and often moves in the direction of patrimonialism. In the
above cases the charisma has been partly routinized in the direction of
patrimonialism. This and other factors make political parties leader-centered.
The leaders often resort to discretionary and arbitrary decision-making.
In one survey (Khan, Islam and Haque 1996) of
political leaders of 11 major political parties of the country more than 55
percent of the respondents thought that there was an absence of political
leaders with high ideals – which was the key point for Weber in his analysis
of the problems of democracy in Germany. About 42 percent of them found that
leaders had a low level of loyalty to their parties. About 47 percent of them
indicated that party activities were highly dominated by top leaders. About 80
percent of leaders interviewed held that regionalism and nepotism were either
widespread or widespread in political parties. Nearly 90 percent admitted that
there were mastans in political parties (Khan, Islam and Haque 1996).
Even a former law minister told a seminar that now- a -days mastans,
robbers and people without ideals join politics. One who becomes a member of
parliament by spending three crores of taka remain busy with tadbir (lobbying)
for his business (Hannan 2000: 921) than going to the parliament.
Bureaucracy
For Weber the pre-colonial Indian society was predominantly
patrimonial. It also exemplified sultanism-an extreme form of discretionary
rule. But colonialism had introduced bureaucratic administration in the country
(Weber, 1978).
The British rule, observes the noted Indian political
scientist Kothari (1999) created a modern and efficient bureaucracy in India
based on unified structure, merit and competition. But it was partly modeled
upon the Mughal administration (Kothari, 1999). It represented in Macaulay’s
word a “ firm and impartial despotism”(cited in Worsley 1967:58). The white
authority was both paternal and divine (Worsley 1967). “It was a despotism”,
writes Philip Woodruff (1964:15), “tempered by …liberalism.” But in
practice the young district magistrate was the “monarch of all he surveyed”
(Woodruff 1964:15).
This ‘invisible monster’ remained in place during the
Pakistan period (Rahman 1991:51). Between 1947 and 1964 there were 28 major
reports for bureaucratic reform none of which were implemented (Khan 1980).
One commentator has pointed out the bureaucracy in Bangladesh
is much more degraded and ethically vacuous than the colonial times and is
marked by unlimited greed (Dasgupta 1991). It represents a politically guided,
anachronistic, discretionary regulatory regime centered on spoils system. The
recruitment and promotion has been largely guided by consideration of loyalty
and patronage rather than technical competence (World Bank 1996; GOB 2000). One
author, who is himself a civil servant, talks of seven types of factionalism in
the civil service (Siddiqui 1996) which has corroded much of whatever
rationality it had in the past. After independence of the country the freedom
fighters in the civil service gained special rewards and privileges and it led
to a major conflict between freedom fighters and non-freedom fighters. A more
important division among civil servants now is between pro-BNP and pro-Awami
League supporters, which has destroyed the loyalty of the bureaucrats towards an
impartial legal order. In fact the bureaucratic behavior is guided more by
“numerous, complex and unpredictable aggregation of informal relations”
created as a consequences of intense factionalism in the service (Siddiqui
1996:18). But the most important form of these relationships is the nexus
between major political parties and the bureaucracy. The party rewards the loyal
civil servant by quicker promotion, profitable postings and important positions
in the party or party think tank or cabinet positions after his retirement. He
plays a key role as the party spokesman or in policy making. Through all these
processes the bureaucracy has increasingly moved towards the direction of
patrimonialism, which has undermined its rational basis and efficiency. Its
rigidity, lack of innovation and responsiveness, corruption and conflict among
different groups are only creation of the past, but also a construction of the
political forces of the present.
Enemy discourse
A key area of Weber’s concern was the basis of domination
– the issue of legitimacy. However, he did not explore the process of how
legitimacy was generated. Recent developments in discourse analysis have made it
possible to extend Weber’s analysis in an old- new direction – explore the
complex terrain of politics and culture, which lay at the heart of Weber’s
project.
In contrast the BNP has constructed
the “savior” discourse. It claims its legitimacy for saving the nation from
an autocratic regime and loss of sovereignty to the powerful neighbor – India
through the instrumentality of its charismatic leader Ziaur Rahman who, it is
claimed, announced the War of Liberation. Thus it articulates an alternative
image of nationalism—Bangladeshi nationalism tinged with Islam. It seems to
regard the Awami League as the satanical other. According to the BNP, the AL is
a fascist party and a stooge of India. It is poised to establish a dynastic
rule. Its main target is the plunder of the nation. Thus the Awami League cannot
essentially be a democratic force for the country.
In enemy discourse the
essentializing of the other persists. But its stereotyping of the other
continues, changes and gains density through multiple signifiers. The list can
be increased or shortened, but the clash of visions and conflict of ideologies
persist which has created political deadlock in the country over a decade.
The enemy discourse has intensified
neo-patrimonialism. In enemy discourse the other is devil incarnate and has to
be tamed or destroyed. The ruling party can do it by using the law enforcing
agencies for its partisan purpose. This strategy undermines the foundation of
legal-rational bureaucracy. It can also do it by deploying party cadres, which
require mastans and money. The ruling party in Bangladesh uses both these
strategies for containing the other.
But more importantly the ruling
party uses public media to highlight its performance and malign the opposition.
In the symbolic sphere the ruling party turns the state into what Clifford
Geertz (1980) calls “theater state”. The public media become an instrument
of propaganda for the ruling party. It tries to influence the private media
through its control over advertisement. Patronage is used to contain the
opposition. The opposition retaliates by mobilization politics. It tries to
undermine the legitimacy of the ruling party by political movements –by hartals,
processions and oborodh. They brave repression of the police, court
arrests and persecution by activists of the ruling party. Thus the party
activists earn future political capital – a moral obligation on the part of
the leaders for future patronage. The party becomes a moral community through
common suffering in the hand of the enemy. The idea of this moral community is
upheld and has to be rewarded through patronage when the party achieves
political victory. This, in turn, reinforces patrimonialism.
Bangladesh is now trapped in a
blocked political transition. The neo-patrimonial system has become
self-perpetuating for the time being. There are two possible courses of
political change of the country. One is towards consolidation of democracy and
performance regime. The other course is ossification of the neo-patrimonial
regime. Weber as I have indicated had stressed upon the role of human agency in
political transformation. In Bangladesh one redeeming feature is the resilience
of common people. The citizens are becoming increasingly conscious about their
political rights and entitlements. Throughout the political history of
Bangladesh the electorate have always punished the coercive and low performing
regime. Once the democratic system is in place it will be increasingly difficult
to sustain the current tempo of negative politics – both neo-patrimonial and
mobilization politics and enemy discourse. Only the leaders believe that they
can win election through demagogy and coercion. Once they become conscious of
people’s aspirations and power, they will be forced to change their
dysfunctional behavior sooner or later. They will learn how to live for politics.
The contentious politics, which has persisted since 1991, has serious
negative consequences for the country. It has perpetuated booty capitalism and
rent seeking behaviour, which has dictated a slow economic growth for the
country. It has led to a grave crisis of governance. A nearly continuous stream
of hartals and agitations has been disrupting the economy. Extortion by
political cadres has been widespread. Corruption has been pervasive. Violence is
escalating. There is lack of security for business and common people. More
ominously the neo-patrimonial regimes in its search for loyal followers are
causing an erosion of other institutional spheres of society. The creation of
loyal followers involves support through patronage, which destroys any
institutional arrangement and rules of the game based on merit, rationality and
performance. The political regime tends to infiltrate institutions from schools
to trade unions in search of resources of patronage and clients. Unless this
trend is reversed the institutional fabric of society is bound to disintegrate.
In
this paper I have argued that sociological theory faces an extraordinary assault
from postmodern epistemology. One way out from this crisis is the more efficient
use of sociological classics for mapping out a new direction in theory
construction instead of searching for their hermeneutically correct reading.
Here I have examined Weber’s theory of domination and extended it in a new
direction for understanding the crisis of democratic transition in Bangladesh.
I have shown that Weber’s theory of domination and his analysis of
Western democracy of his time are particularly relevant for a country like
Bangladesh. No other theoretical perspective is able to illuminate the political
crisis of the country today better than Weber. But Weberian analysis in itself
is not adequate. It has to be integrated with other analytical frames. These
analytical frames are implicit in this paper as it focuses mainly on Weber.
It
is important to point out that we were able to predict the coming crisis of
democracy in the country in 1992 by using a reconstructed Weberian framework. In
this paper I have tried to develop Weber’s analysis in a new direction by
combining structures, activities and discourses. It shows the political
structure of the country is an ensemble of contradictory elements of charisma,
patrimonialism and legal-rational bureaucracy held in place by a rentier class.
Its political culture is pierced through and bifurcated by an ideological fault
line created historically, which, instead of encouraging bargaining and
negotiation among elites, has given rise to contentious politics. The two
dominant political parties have been locked into this contentious politics.
There have emerged demand groups instead of interest groups. Thus it is possible
to map out two different forms of politics in the country – neo-patrimonialism
and mobilization politics. Neo-patrimonialism refers to the co-existence of
patrimonial and legal-rational forms of domination. Mobilization politics (see
Andrain 1988 for details) means a form of politics that challenges the
legitimacy of the existing political institutions through movements; agitations
and violent protests.
Patrimonialism or neo-patrimonialism cannot be sustained in a society
upon which modernities begin to impact. The political regime or the political
party, which exercises neo-patrimonial domination, is opposed by other political
agents in the country.
In
Bangladesh two dominant political parties – AL and BNP have shown common
structural and agency characteristics since 1991 or earlier. The ruling party
whether it is BNP or AL exercises neo-patrimonial domination. It distributes
state patronage to the party members, kinsmen, and loyal supporters by
subverting the legal-rational rules and procedures. As neo-patrimonialism cannot
create legitimacy to an adequate level because people have already overthrown
the authoritarian regimes in the past and are sufficiently active and conscious
political agents. So the ruling party tries to overcome the legitimacy deficit
by using public media for enhancing the charisma of its party leader and amplify
the performance of the regime. The state combines within it the apparatus of
coercion – legal and extra-legal to contain the opposition and the
instrumentality of theatre to amplify its claim for legitimacy. Against it the
opposition party deploys mobilization politics – strikes, processions, seize,
hartals and other instruments of protest to destroy the legitimacy of the ruling
party. This pattern of politics has persisted in the country since 1991 because
political leaders having their social origin in the rentier class believe that
they can cling to power by a shrewd combination of patronage, coercion and
media-based publicity. In the political history of Bangladesh this strategy of
domination has never worked. But many political leaders of major political
parties strongly cherish this antiquated belief. Thus the existence of neo-patrimonialism
justifies the launching of mobilization politics. One presupposes the other and
one reinforces the other. Thus it creates a vicious circle. Mobilization
politics opens up space for various demand groups to articulate their actual or
perceived grievances. It reinforces the process further. It has grave
consequences for the country. It erodes the institutional framework of the
society by undermining the normative order of merit, open competition,
rationality and efficiency and thus good governance. Corruption and lawlessness
becomes widespread.
The
overthrow of autocracy in 1990 raised popular expectations to a great height.
But by now democracy has failed to deliver the goods. It may eventually lead to
the loss of people’s faith in democracy. It may fail to work. But there is
also a possibility that the leaders would learn from their mistakes and change
the existing rules of the game. It is mainly because people have more
information today through different media and they will demand better services
from the state. The increasing vigor of the civil society and expansion of
mass media will generate internal pressure for change. The popular
resilience in the country is so strong that leaders at one stage or another will
have to take account of the voice of the people. The tempo of globalization will
force the local structures to follow global norms. The sooner it happens better
it is for the good of the country.
Towards
the end of his fascinating lecture ‘Politics as a Vocation’, Weber
apprehended what lay before the country was “a polar night of icy
darkness”(Weber 1967:128). But he was also hopeful. Human agents are capable
of achieving the unattainable. It requires “a trained relentlessness” – a
kind of heroism in facing the realities of life with an inward ethic of calling
to live for politics and not to live off it (Weber 1967:126). The same holds
true for Bangladesh.
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