Why do formally capable institutions persistently underperform in migration governance?

Migration governance in Bangladesh is not an empty institutional space. Agencies exist, rules exist, procedures exist. Yet outcomes for those moving through the system remain poor in ways that repeat rather than fluctuate. A capacity account struggles with that regularity.

Why do formally capable institutions persistently underperform in migration governance, and what sustains that pattern across time?

Migration governance in Bangladesh, examined through the administrative processes that govern pre-departure decision-making, and through the intermediaries who operate around them.

A mixed-methods design combining semi-structured interviews with migrants, returnees, and government officials, alongside quantitative analysis. The study drew on a survey sample of 73, ordinary least squares regression, and six composite indices constructed for the analysis.

Underperformance is not evenly costly. Political elites, bureaucratic actors, and intermediaries can benefit from delay, opacity, and discretionary enforcement, which gives the existing arrangement a constituency with reasons to keep it as it is.

How far the account travels beyond this case, whether the same mechanisms appear in institutions with different functions, and what conditions would have to change before the arrangement gave way.