Politics and policy in achieving participatory governance in a developing country context

In recent years, "participatory governance" has emerged as an impor-tant concept within the governance domain. It is a policy that insinu-ates participation of local citizens to implement locally basedpropeople development initiatives. International aid agencies havebeen pursuing this agenda with an aim to provide greater legitimacyto development projects for economic growth in developing countries.In response, the government of Bangladesh has been trying to imple-ment participatory governance policies for aid-assisted developmentprojects for the last three decades. However, empirical studies revealthat the level of participation of local citizens in development projectshas hardly been improved despite such attempts. Relying on six aid-assisted project-based case studies, this article explores the reasonsof such a failure and has found out that the dysfunctional politicalsystem and corruption in Bangladesh have compromised the role ofthe state in ensuring any meaningful participation of ordinary citizensin local-level development activities.