Caretaker Conventions in Australasia: Minding the Shop for Government

Menzies, Jennifer; Tiernan, Anne-Maree

doi:10.22459/cca.10.2007

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Mandated by convention or law, the practice is designed to mitigate against undue advantages of incumbency in elections and ensure an orderly transfer of power. In other instances, the caretaker option has been used as a transition mechanism in times of political crises in numerous countries such as Iraq, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Kosovo (Ahmed, 2004; Tiernan & Menzies, 2011). In Bangladesh, the caretaker technique has been adopted during the transition to democracy, amid crises of democratization, and as a conduit for emergency rule.…”

Section: Methodological Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking Exception to Norm: The Caretaker Governments in Bangladesh

Khan

2023

Constellations

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But that events should happen in a republic which have to be dealt with by extraordinary measures, is not desirable; for though the extraordinary measures may be good at the time, the precedent thus established is bad, since it sanctions the usage of dispensing with constitutional methods for a good purpose, and thereby makes it possible, on some plausible pretext, to dispense with them for a bad purpose.-Niccolò Machiavelli (2003) INTRODUCTION 1The crises of democracy in the new millennium shed critical light on the prevailing approaches to democratization. In recent years, the triumphalist liberalism of the late 20th century has given way to "a large number of attempted democratizations stalling, reversing, or failing to consolidate" around the world (Hobson, 2012). New classifications such as "hybrid regime," "delegative democracy," "competitive authoritarianism," and "illiberal democracy" have proliferated to explain the challenges facing new democracies. The constraints of democratization accentuate the need to look beyond the electoral and cultural models of liberal democracy that dominate academic and policymaking approaches to "democracy promotion." Recent studies point to the diverse ways in which liberalism and democracy have combined in the past and call for the inclusion of different conceptions of popular, participatory, social, radical, and deliberative democracy, as well as those of dictatorship, in considering the ideals and trials of democratic consolidation (Hobson, 2012;Kurki, 2010;Landemore, 2017).In Bangladesh, a series of unelected regimes endowed with extraordinary powers to conduct elections reveal the recurrent crises and challenges that have plagued the political system since the restoration of democracy in 1991. 2On the other hand, the diverse origins of the "caretaker governments" in popular movements, party politics, regime changes, constitutional amendments, civil society, and states of emergency provide useful references to the manifold sites and agencies that inform the prospects of democracy. This essay provides a historical and conceptual account of the significant but questionable role of the caretaker phenomena in ensuring the continuity of democratically elected governments in Bangladesh over the course of two decades. The aim is to decipher the benefits and limitations of the disparate regimes grouped under the nomenclature in order to trace their singular and cumulative effects on

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Section: Methodological Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking Exception to Norm: The Caretaker Governments in Bangladesh

Khan

2023

Constellations

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“…The latter also focus on international obligations (4), new initiatives from parliament (5) and even new initiatives from the government itself (6). Especially the prominence of this last category makes Belgium an exceptional and deviant case from other countries (Davis et al, 2001;Hloušek & Kopeček, 2014;Tiernan & Menzies, 2007).…”

Section: Caretaker Governments and Actual Policymakingmentioning

confidence: 99%