This study examines the nature of the state in Bangladesh and its role in the economic development of the country until President Ziaur Rahman's assassination in 1981. Two basic questions have been of central importance: who controlled the apparatus of the state? and was the state "relatively autonomous" or simply an instrument of the dominant class(es)? The study argues that the state in post-colonial Bangladesh has not, contrary to Hamza Alavi's position, followed a single uniform direction. Initially, nationalist political leaders, mostly belonging to the intermediate class, controlled the state apparatus, which can therefore be described as an "intermediate state." However, subsequently, both "overdevelopment of the bureaucracy" and "socio-political dynamics" enabled the civil-military bureaucracy to assert dominance over the state apparatus, which can consequently be characterized as an "administrative state." Since the nature of the state has varied, it has played a changing role--autonomous or instrumental--in the economic development of Bangladesh, with the "intermediate state" working as an instrument of the dominant intermediate class and the "administrative state" playing a "relatively autonomous" role.

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