Businessmen’s political participation influences democracy

Capitalists influence the functioning of democracies by direct participation in politics, such as financing elections to seek favourable policies, lobbying governments to tilt decisions in their favour or even by coming to occupy positions of power directly, a researcher has said in a presentation.

The economic actors get what they want whether they actively seek it or not, but since they control key economic levers in any capitalist society, politicians must take into account the preference of business actors to secure economic growth and their political futures — developmental legitimacy, it also said.

Senior Research Fellow of BRAC Institute of Governance and Development Dr Mirza M Hassan made the observations in the paper presented at an annual conference of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (Sanem) in Dhaka’s BRAC Centre Inn on Sunday.

The presentation is titled “State-Business Relations and the Nature of the Evolution of Capitalism in Bangladesh: Some Tentative Observations.”

Regarding the evolving nature of business power in Bangladesh, he said in the paper that there is increased participation in the party process, as an individual, but the process itself is largely controlled by dynastic politics, charismatic leadership and constrained political empowerment of the business.

He also said that individual and collective businesses are willing political clients of ruling political elites in the last instance and clientelistic incorporation is the dominant strategy.

Dr Mirza said political capitalism is emerging in Bangladesh but the state lacks the degree of autonomy as in China. The relation between capital and political logic is in flux and it is difficult to say what kind of equilibrium will emerge.

The contingent nature of the political order will significantly determine the nature of capitalism’s evolution in Bangladesh, he added.

At the panel, Centre for Policy Dialogue’s (CPD) Distinguished Fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya said the country since the 1990s has been getting huge capital from the share market. It has also been getting huge capital from foreign-funded projects since the country’s independence.

“We have repeatedly suggested that the government reform all financial institutions and sectors in the last five years. But the government agreed only after IMF wanted them. It seems like Bangladesh is becoming a hostage to IMF,” he added.

CPD Distinguished Fellow and Board of Trustees member Professor Rounaq Jahan, who chaired the panel, said at present, the number of businessmen in parliament is more than before and they get major representation. After independence, when the National Assembly was formed in 1973, there were also businessmen in it but the percentage was 24-27.

There were other professionals too. The number of businessmen in parliament is still increasing. In the ninth parliament, 56 per cent of the lawmakers were businessmen, she said.

They pass laws in favour of their business interests and influence the government’s decision-making in various ways, which increases the suffering of common people, she added.