Is Local Government Fragmentation Politically Motivated? An Empirical Study on Bangladesh

Recent literature suggests that administrative fragmentation can be politically motived. This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the determinants of administrative fragmentation at the subnational level of a unitary country- Bangladesh. The study conducts a panel data analysis at the district level covering the period from 2001 to 2010 and tests some conventional theories of distributive politics. The objective is to identify whether ‘political motive’ or ‘administrative need’ plays the key role in the local government unit creation process. Two alternative indicators of fragmentation- Units per district land area and Units per district population were regressed against the political variables (district’s core vote share for the ruling party, number of ministers, and the number of MPs aligned with the ruling party) and the conventional indicators of fragmentation (e.g., land area, population, poverty level, administrative convenience). Spatial regression analysis (applying both Spatial Lag Model and Spatial Error Model) was conducted to capture the impact of the possible spillover effects in the unit creation process. Results show that the conventional determinants do not fully explain the fragmentation process. However, political patronage, captured by the number of ministers in a district and local MP’s political alignment with the ruling party in the government plays a significant role in determining the number of local units at the district level of Bangladesh