Preliminary thoughts on Bangladesh

The fall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime over the summer is one of the most dramatic events in the recent history of South Asia. I’m not a Bangladesh expert, so decided my main value-added might be to wait for some initial patterns to emerge and put the case in a broader comparative perspective. My conclusions are admittedly pretty caveated and ambiguous: Bangladesh is much better positioned than a 2011 Libya or 1990 Yugoslavia to manage dramatic revolution/political change, but there are a number of serious dangers ahead that could undermine a successful democratic transition. I identify several of these dangers, as well as the open foreign policy questions at hand. There are no hot takes to be found, but hot takes are rarely helpful anyways. The piece is here with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s South Asia Program.