The Feedback State? How the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Bangladeshi state to listen to its citizens

Did the pandemic change how states engage with their citizens? This paper brings together recent theorizing about the determinants of diverse state responses to the novel coronavirus with theories deriving from the political history of disaster management in Bangladesh to propose that the pandemic is likely to have induced innovation in how the Bangladeshi state acts to protect its citizens. The COVID-19 experience was visibly marked by a substantial investment in feedback mechanisms, particularly digital systems, designed to enable the state to hear about and respond to citizens’ concerns and needs. How should we understand these shifts? This paper provides a theoretical framework for analysing the political-sociological changes induced by the pandemic, and tests it in the Bangladesh setting through a mixed-methods study involving policy process tracing, in-depth case studies, and a national survey. The implications are relevant to broader questions about the ways in which the pandemic has impacted on governance, in particular the lessons and limitations of digital mechanisms for citizen-state engagement.