ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Bangladesh’s efforts to achieve the dual goals of moving up the development hierarchy while achieving the promise of democratic governance. It explores how class pressures, and those from the aid regime, shape decisions regarding development of the energy sector, as exemplified by open-pit mining in Phulbari and Rampal. Citizen protests at these sites that persisted for more than a decade expose the challenge of balancing resource extractive growth with the interests of those most affected by these policies. And the democratic backsliding, revealed in the government’s autocratic response, lays bare the contradiction between pressures for neoliberal economic reform and democratic participation.
