Civil Society and Good Governance in Bangladesh (original) (raw)

2022, Civil Society and Good Governance in Bangladesh

Civil society is nonpolitical sphere and individual made voluntary organization widely understood as the space outside the family, market, and state. It is associated for welfare of state on the ground of civic knowledge, civic education, and civic virtue. Civil society works and plays its role in the democratic regime. Democratic regime operates based on democratic norms and values. Civil society plays roles in the democratic society relating to maintaining, promoting, and strengthening good governance. It plays various roles like participating, mediating interest, mobilizing counter knowledge, influencing policy making, building commitment for public good, giving impetus to community building projects, motivating citizens, government towards cooperation , etc. It can play the communicative role, protective role, control role, socialization role, service delivery role and the global citizenship role in different cases. Major areas of good governance are democracy, rule of law, proprietary rights, corporate governance, human rights, welfare state and labor institution. And in these areas civil society can perform their respective roles. Civil society action is thought to be a prerequisite for good governance, as well as an indicator for it. The assumption of a positive correlation has guided many development interventions. However, considering political synergies, frameworks of accountability and mobilization of communities to claim their entitlements as key elements of how civil society and governance interface, we find this hypothesis to be problematic.