IDEOLOGY, INSTITUTIONAL FRAGILITY, AND EARLY STATE-BUILDING: GOVERNANCE ARCHITECTURE IN POST-LIBERATION BANGLADESH (1972–1975)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29121/shodhkosh.v7.i9s.2026.8008Keywords:
Bangladesh State-Building, Post-Liberation Governance, Institutional Formation, Post-Conflict GovernanceAbstract [English]
The emergence of Bangladesh in December 1971 created one of the most compressed episodes of post-conflict state formation in modern South Asia. Between 1972 and 1975, the government of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman attempted to translate an ideological vision grounded in nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism into operational governance institutions under severe structural constraints. While previous studies have examined constitutional design, economic nationalization or 1975 political transformation separately, few analyses integrate these dimensions within a unified state-building framework. This study addresses this gap through a mixed-methods historical review combining PRISMA-guided literature synthesis with historical institutional analysis. Drawing on 25 key scholarly works and primary policy sources, research evaluates institutional formation across constitutional design, economic governance, administrative reconstruction and crisis management between 1972 and 1975. The findings indicate that early Bangladeshi state-building achieved rapid constitutional institutionalization but faced persistent implementation challenges due to administrative fragility, fiscal scarcity and external economic shocks. The 1974 famine exposed significant coordination failures within food governance institutions, while constitutional restructuring of 1975 represented a crisis-driven institutional recalibration rather than a purely ideological shift. Comparative analysis with Algeria, Tanzania and Vietnam demonstrates that executive centralization under post-liberation stress is a common structural pattern, though Bangladesh’s early commitment to constitutional pluralism and civic secularism represented a distinctive institutional experiment. The study contributes to state-building theory by illustrating how ideological ambition interacts with structural constraints during early post-conflict governance formation.
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