The second decade of the 21st Century will bring continued political instability and population pressures in Bangladesh, exacerbated by the environmental crisis.

The bitter 35-year long rivalry between the ruling Awami League and the Bangladesh National Party will be at the center of the country’s political entanglement, with both parties having consistently used the state to enrich themselves and to punish the opposition. Corruption, meanwhile, is endemic throughout the police and civil service.

This ongoing crisis of governance will fuel Islamist unrest, making another period of army rule in the 2010’s possible. Though most of Bangladesh’s 85 percent Muslim population does not follow an austere lifestyle and the Bangla culture is incompatible with Islamic fundamentalism, Islamists have nonetheless made inroads in the country. Continued corruption and oppressive police practices will drive more Bangladeshis to support Islamists.

Bangladesh’s 150 million people live in an area smaller than the US state of Wisconsin. But while birth rates continue to decline, population pressures on the country’s agricultural sector will remain severe. Monsoonal flooding is a reality of life in Bangladesh, and becomes catastrophic when it is unusually heavy or when accompanied by a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. In 1969, a cyclone set events in motion that led to Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan. A similar natural disaster in the next decade, however, could foster crippling political instability.

The country is also threatened by rising sea levels that are projected to inundate 15 percent of the country’s total landmass. Much of the threatened area is currently used for growing rice, the staple of the Bangladeshi diet. Conditions in the capital Dhaka reflect the governmental failure and population and environmental pressures that plague the entire country. 12 million people live in metropolitan Dhaka, making it the most densely populated city in the world. Maladministration in response to natural disaster could create not only a monumental humanitarian catastrophe, but political chaos as well.

Jeffrey Key is head of Political Science at Hardin-Simmons University in Texas.