People’s Political Participation: A Theoretical Exposition and Reality in Case of Bangladesh

People’s participation is one of the central things in a parliamentary democracy. An effective democracy cannot be imagine without people’s participation. In this respect, this research investigated the people’s political participation in Bangladesh. For that the theories or models related to people’s political participation are reviewed first. Then people’s political participation in Bangladesh is analysed to see whether any theory or model best fit to explain it or not. The empirical analysis and findings are based on primary data collected using a field survey conducted in February-April 2018 using a structured questionnaire in the Rajshahi City Corporation area. In the case of theories related to people’s participation, five models were found in the literature. They are the Civic Voluntarism Model (CVM), the Rational Expectation Model (REM), the Social Psychological Model (SPM), the Mobilization Model (MM), and the General Incentive Model (GIM). It is found that each of the models has some strengths as well as weaknesses to explain people’s participation. On the basis of the framework we get from different models it is found that the Civic Voluntarism Model to some extent explains the people’s participation in Bangladesh. This research provides an explanation of people’s political participation in general as well as in Bangladesh.