Enduring Policy Ideals and Practices - Evidence from Bangabandhu’s
Speech at the United Nations and Bangladesh’s Voting Records at the
Assembly: 2001-2017
Abstract
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s historic speech at the 29th session
of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) was the first ‘strategic
communication’ by the father of the nation at the Assembly following
Bangladesh’s admission to the United Nations. Apart from the well-known
and much-to-be-proud of fact that the speech was delivered in Bangla,
the content of this speech stands out as a key document, begging to be
studied from an international relations perspective and the enduring
ideals it enunciates and has been in practice by Bangladesh. This paper
seeks to answer: to what extent has Bangladesh remain seized supporting
the enduring ideals on key global issues enunciated by Bangabandhu in
his speech at the United Nations? Accordingly, the paper carries out a
(i) content analysis to identify the enduring ideals (ii) comparison of
Bangladesh’s positions on the 1,284 UNGA resolutions that were put to
vote between 2001-2017 to assess country’s support to those ideals. The
paper finds that, except for the politically sensitive country-specific
human rights resolutions, Bangladesh has consistently remained seized in
supporting Bangabandhu’s ideals in all thematic categories (between
92-100% ‘yes’ votes). It demonstrates that Bangabandhu’s emphasis on
the primacy of the United Nations to build a peaceful and just world,
non-alignment, peaceful co-existence, economic emancipation and global
solidarity has become much more relevant in the Covid-19 era and the
current geopolitical context of South Asia. The paper opens new avenues
to use a novel methodology to conduct evidence-based research on the
policy ideals and its practices.