The impact of populist politicization on corrupt practices in the bureaucracy of Bangladesh

Along with numerous bureaucratic problems like red-tapism, mistrust, and politicization, corruption is the most protruding hindrance to our bureaucracy which is yet at its steady rise, and it is quite impossible making the bureaucracy convenient to the citizens without removing this sinking barrier. Populism is an idea that leads politicians to act like being charming, benevolent, and kind-hearted to middle-class service recipients, leaving a vacuum in the mindset that is more often derision to job descriptions. Politicians and bureaucrats nowadays, are observed to behave like populist leaders in their attitude in the service of the citizens. Again, politicization in the bureaucracy is always observed and yet being continued en masse. Thus the combination of the duo, populism and politicization, creates severe interferences for the administrative machinery to run in, and to lead forward. And, that's why the causes and consequences of such conditions of populist practices, cynicism, and corruption seriously claim to be identified and analyzed. This research is an attempt to identify and analyze this problem, taking both primary and secondary data and qualitative methodologies to inspect and analyze the data. The result explores the general scenario of Politicization and Corruption in the administrations of Bangladesh with particular concentration on the “populist approach” of the bureaucrats.