ABSTRACT
Until recently Bangladesh had received very little attention in the growing literature on democratic backsliding. This chapter discusses the country's political history since it started its democratic journey in 1991 and argues that diverse sets of data (for example, on political participation and freedom of expression) show that Bangladesh is experiencing autocratization. The chapter shows the autocratization score of Bangladesh, as documented by the V-Dem Institute, has exponentially increased since 2011. Moreover, the country has now become a classic case of democratic backsliding of “The Third Wave” democracies.
