There is a peculiar ritual across Bangladesh when SSC results are announced. Families celebrate, parents post congratulations online. Behind the scene, there are also parents who paid a modest sum to ensure their child had access to examination papers beforehand. Yet, this same parent laments the country's corruption with complete sincerity.
There are the same citizens who revolt their soul out the moment someone breaks the fuel line. But this wholehearted citizenship of theirs somehow loses its way when the octane they just refilled is being poured into an empty soybean oil bottle in darkness.
Largely, this is not hypocrisy born entirely of malice. It is hypocrisy born of circumstantial essentialization as well.
Situational citizenship describes the human tendency to adjust civic and ethical conduct depending on where personal benefit lies.
The phenomenon is global, but in Bangladesh, where systemic failures have normalized bending rules as a precondition for survival, it has hardened into something more troubling. It has become an enforced pattern within the system itself.
Understanding this dynamic is not about moral judgment. It is an economic and governance imperative. Citizens who are capable of righteous indignation are simultaneously sponsors of the corruption they denounce. Until we diagnose why, reform efforts will continue solving the wrong problems.
My own situational citizenship model is inspired from the situational leadership model by Hersey and Blanchard. This attempts to map behavior across x-axis and y-axis. This creates four quadrants defining distinct citizenship types.
The four quadrants represent different citizenship archetypes. D1 (high compliance, low benefit) is the principled citizen, rare in high corruption environments according to World Values Survey research.
D2 (high compliance, high benefit) is the engaged citizen representing ideal equilibrium, where institutions are trustworthy and following rules is rational.
D3 (low compliance, low benefit) is the resigned citizen, completely disengaged. D4 (low compliance, high benefit) is the situational hypocrite, where rules are suspended for personal gain.
This quadrant best describes Bangladesh's dominant civic mode.
Bangladesh's 2024 data reveals the structural drivers of D4 behavior. ILO's 2025 assessment shows that youth unemployment is as low as only 16.8%, which is 22.7% for the female youth. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics is telling us that nearly 40% of youth aged 15 to 24 are NEET (not in education, employment, or training).
The biggest loss leading factor is that our graduates account for the largest share of unemployed.
This represents a generation trained to gather credentials without developing genuine capability. Universities produce graduates fluent in Western management vocabulary but unable to meet labour market demands. This manufactured desperation is among the most reliable predictors of ethical compromise.
The Bangladesh Labour Act of 2006 explicitly excludes managerial and administrative employees from worker protections. An entire generation of white collar professionals remains legally invisible, with no enforceable protection against toxic work environments or arbitrary dismissal. This legal exclusion drives the financial desperation that pushes people toward D4 behaviour.
When a system eliminates the option of consistent ethical conduct, it enforces normalization of hypocrisy.
Consider the urban professional: They pay taxes but receive no reliable public health. They follow traffic laws but roads are blocked by vendors. They respect exam rules while classmates gain advantage through purchased papers. Compliance produces competitive disadvantages. The rational response is to adapt.
According to Transparency International's 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, Bangladesh received a score of 23 out of 100 (the worst in thirteen years), 20 points below the global average. When the state itself becomes unreliable, citizens do not simply become immoral. They become strategically inconsistent, applying norms selectively where costs are low.
The consequences flow directly into household economics. The professional earning inadequate wages for inflated social obligations faces existential humiliation. Children witness the gap between what parents profess and what they do, learning that the straight path is merely rhetorical.
The capability progression model shows four levels of systemic and institutional development.
Level 1 (Bangladesh's current state) represents institutional failure where D4 behaviour becomes normalized.
Level 2 focuses on capability building through education reform and labour rights.
Level 3 involves rebuilding institutional trust through transparent governance and accountability.
Level 4 achieves civic resilience where citizens move to D2 behaviour patterns.
The progression requires simultaneous action across all three reform dimensions, as emphasized by UNDP's human development framework which also identifies this eroded civic trust as a threat to sustainable development progress.
The damage is compounding and intergenerational. Those unable to exit the system develop negative institutional orientation, linked to rising social violence and falling civic participation.
Moving from D4 to D2 requires three essential interventions:
(1) Reorient capability development toward market relevant skills (currently highest educated cohorts have highest unemployment);
(2) Extend legal protections to white collar workers;
(3) Rebuild institutional reliability of the state.
Citizens move to D2 when systems consistently demonstrate that compliance is not a disadvantage.
Situational citizenship is not uniquely Bangladeshi, but the combination of stalled capability development, invisible white collar workers, deteriorating corruption indices, and near 40% NEET rates creates a context where enforced hypocrisy becomes structurally inevitable.
We must start with admitting something uncomfortable: Many of us may not be hypocrites by nature but we are hypocrites by architecture. We have been placed in systems that price consistent ethical conduct as a luxury. Then we are surprised when people shop at the discount window.
Nafis Ehsas Chowdhury is an L&D Intern and writer covering business, employment, education, and socio-economic governance. The author acknowledges valuable insights and guidance from his supervisor, Mohaiminul Islam, Head of Learning & Development at Summit Communications Limited.