Bangladesh Society, Economy, and Governance: Adjusting to the post-COVID-19 World

Abstract

The ‘Post-COVID-19 world’ is likely to witness a return of ‘state protectionism’, and disappearance of ‘brick and mortar’ facilities in favour of ‘online’ services (with shorter hierarchy and larger span) creating flat-lined organisations with reduced pay structure. At the personal level, erosion of trust, due to personal ‘entrenching’, is likely to erode social values, creating chaos manifested in digital piracy or troll. Due to the reshaping of society and economy because of the above scenarios, states will require efficient governance, in particular e-governance. This piece is an analysis of possible trajectories in Bangladesh in terms of structure, process, and relationships highlighting the drivers, probable scenarios, and possible theoretical remedies. As such, It may apply to other states, in Africa and Asia, in particular. For example the analyses on ‘Society’ is divided into ‘Mutually Supporting to Mutually Entrenching People’, ‘Uniformity with Diversity to Conformity without Diversity’, and ‘Population Boom to Groom’. The analyses on the economy deals with ‘Restructuring of GDP, not just Nominal Growth’, ‘RMG Manufacturing: Labor Coordinator to Industry’, and ‘FDI as the lifeline in the post-COVID-world’. The analyses on governance is divided into three parts: ‘Accountability: As a Process, not Outcome’; ‘Absence of accountability and Corruption’; and ‘Transformation of Public Governance to e-Governance’. The discussion on ‘public governance’ is particularly extensive with certain essential features and tools of governance that are to be based on specific principles. It suggests that ‘structure’ of ‘public governance’ must be principled on ‘other regarding’ (as opposed to ‘self-regarding’) and ‘equity’ or fairness as opposed to inequity. Three essential factors of ‘other regarding’ like ‘inclusiveness and tolerance’, ‘political integrity and reciprocity’, and ‘preservation of citizen desires’ may be achieved through ‘tools’ like ‘Flexible political structure with freedom of belief’, ‘Honesty and competition in (political) organisations’, and ‘Free and fair representation’. The discussion on e-governance highlights problems of ‘digital divide’ or cognitive, economic, or physical differences in ‘entry or access’ to ICT. But argues that ICT as a tool of creating competitive advantage, with the creation, distribution, use, and manipulation of information as important economic activity may become the foundation of e-governance in the post-COVID19-world, to create efficiency in agriculture marketing or reduce corrupt practices because of wider surveillance. The work uses evidence only from the World Bank and other international agencies, government agencies in Bangladesh, and scholarly literature as cited appropriately.