Bangladesh, Aug. 15 -- Bangladesh is not confronting four separate crises. It is confronting one crisis of state capacity, appearing in four places citizens encounter every day: the market, the power system, the street and the highway.

Advertisement Prices remain painfully high. Gas shortages disrupt households and industry. Power cuts return with alarming ease. Violent crime tests public confidence. Road deaths continue at a scale that should be politically intolerable.

Different problems have different causes. But when failure becomes persistent across essential functions of the state, the question can no longer be confined to inflation, fuel shortages, crime or traffic management.

The question becomes governance itself.

The governi...