Getting their Fair Share: Representation and Civic Activity of Herders in Mongolian Democracy
By
Michael Harrison
Submitted to
Department of Politics,
New York University
In partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
Project Sponsor: Professor James C. Hsiung
Signature: __________________________
MA Project Committee: Professor __________________________
Professor __________________________
New York City, USA
2014
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
My intention has been to gauge effectiveness of Mongolia as a democracy, specifically with
regard to the nation’s herders, nomadic and otherwise. I want to see how well they, or people
with their interests in mind, are represented in the government, as well as the degree to which
herders are trying to assert themselves to the government. Their voice is especially important
because there are certain problems in Mongolia, particularly environmental problems, that the
herders notice most easily and feel most acutely. There a several means by which I have sought
to answer this question. I have examined the structure of the government, formal measurements
of Mongolia’s level of democracy, parties in government, their ideologies, and certain
individuals in government known to have the interests of herders in mind. Next I looked at voter
turnout rates and indicators of Mongolia’s level of civil society, particularly among the pastoral
population. Finally I examined the level of activism by herders in the form of protests,
involvement in NGOs, internet activism, and violence (which I consider an indication of
democracy failing). I conclude that Mongolia is a success in all these regards except internet
activism and civil society, although herders are tightly linked to “informal” networks of family,
neighbors, etc. which are of less political value.
I
LIST OF DATA TABLES
Table 1.1: Investment in Mongolia by country…………………………………………….…45
Total Investment in Mongolia by Corporate Entity………………………………………….46
Total Livestock in Mongolia………………………………………….……………..…………47
Associational Membership in Mongolia………………………………………………………48
II
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Baabar: Bat-Erdene Batbayar, an activist, writer and former-parliamentarian
DP: Democratic Party
MPRP: Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party
SDC: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
PUG: Pasture Use Group
III
MONOGLIAN TERMS
Aimag: A province.
Aimag Khural: A provincial-level assembly.
Ayil: An encampment of multiple yurts.
Bagh: The level of jurisdiction smaller than a sum.
Gal Undesten: Fire Nation, a Mongolian NGO.
Ger: See yurt.
Ghur: See yurt.
Khural (Great State Khural): The national parliament.
Neg nutgiinhan: A social network consisting of people from the same hometown or region.
Sukhbaatar Square: A public space in front of the Khural.
Sum: The sub-provincial level of jurisdiction (between the bagh and aimag in size).
Yurt: A tent, which can easily be assembled and dissembled, that herders typically live in.
Zud: A loss of livestock throughout the country due to severe cold or other weather conditions.
IV
INTRODUCTION
Having begun its transition from communism to a free-market economy in the early 1990s,
meanwhile establishing a democratic apparatus in 1992, Mongolia is now one of the fastest-
growing economies in the world. Yet, although the general standard of living is improving,
Mongolia’s economic takeoff has been accompanied by a variety of new and old problems, many
of which could have severe consequences. Every segment of society is affected differently. I will
focus on the herders, who comprise approximately 30 percent of Mongolia’s population.
Mongolia’s economic growth is based primarily on mining, which causes profound
environmental problems. Grazing is also causing environmental problems, and the future of
Mongolia might depend on the nation’s herders finding another livelihood. Either way, because
they see everything in the countryside and live off of its resources, herders can see environmental
problems that sedentary people are less likely to notice. Fortunately, along with the transition to
free-market economy, Mongolia also transitioned from a one-party communist state to a
democracy. In this paper I intend to determine how much, and how well, they are using the
democratic system to their advantage.
Herders are using the government to their advantage. Mongolia has one of the highest
voter-turnout rates in the world (even though it is rapidly declining). It is not common for
herders to be elected to office at the national level (where all policy is made, since Mongolia’s
system is not federalist). However, there are many people in government, whom I have taken to
calling “proxies” of the pastoral population, who are keenly aware of the plight of this group.
Herders are not active in civil society, at least not in the sense of “modern” associations that are a
staple of politics in fully-democratic Western countries. Herders do engage in activism, both on
their own initiative and in organizations organized by city people, or more likely, concerned
1
people in other countries. Meanwhile, eruptions of political violence have been very rare and on
a very small scale in the post-communist era, a sign of the effectiveness of the democratic
system.
Research Question
Fortunately, for those on the losing side of economic development, Mongolia’s government has
become a stable, functional democracy in which concerns can be addressed that would have been
ignored otherwise. The communist regime tried out many constitutions, but since 1992 Mongolia
has maintained the one established in that year during its democratization process. This
Constitution establishes a system with a mix of parliamentary and presidential modes of
democracy. It is described in detail in the CIA World Factbook. Members of the Khural (the
national parliament) are elected in a system of proportional representation. There are 76 seats in
Khural, of which 48 are directly elected from 26 electoral districts, the remaining 28
parliamentarians being proportionally elected based on a party's share of the total votes.
Currently the Khural is split between six parties. Parliamentarians are elected for a renewable
four-year term which could be cut short if parliament is dissolved. The prime minister, in
consultation with the rest of the Khural, appoints members of the executive with the exception of
the President, who is elected separately by popular vote. There is also a separate judicial branch,
including a Supreme Court, the appointment of justices to which is split between the President,
the Khural and the Supreme Court. Democracy also exists at the local level. The country is
divided into 22 provinces, and one city, which are in turn divided into 329 districts. The system
is not federalist, so these sub-national governments do not have power to make laws. Most
districts have approximately 5,000 people, mostly nomadic herders. The districts are then
2
divided into baghs. The main purpose of baghs is to keep track of people, who in the case of
most baghs are mostly nomadic herders (Montsame News Agency, 2006). To herders, the local
government is a more accessible alternative to the national government.
Mongolia is still an up-and-coming democracy, and powerful interest groups have a high
proportion of influence at the expense of ordinary citizens. In this paper I inquire into the extent
to which herders, and people standing up for their interests (whom I am calling their “proxies”),
are represented in the government and how much effort they are making to influence national
and local policy. Common sense would suggest that herders have less influence than those in
towns and cities. This question of herders’ level of influence can be examined from a number of
perspectives. I would like to determine, first of all, the degree to which herders are taking
advantage of the democratic system to serve their long-term interest of themselves and their
progeny. Second, it is important to consider the proxies – those who are concerned about herders,
and about what they have to say, when it is not plainly in their own self-interest. In the
government there are a certain number of people in this category. They come from urban
families, however they act as proponents for the herders, both for their well-being and for their
unique insight which can benefit the rest of the population.
The Problem
The transition to a free-market economy has brought profound improvements in the lives of
people in all segments of Mongolian society. However, it has also caused a variety of problems,
some of which can have dire consequences. Problems range from environmental problems
caused by overgrazing1 to environmental problems associated with mining and other “modern”
1 Overgrazing is, by a strange twist of fate, a result of the transition to a market economy. I explain why in the Literature Review.
3
industries, to demographic imbalances resulting from large-scale emigration and a plummeting
fertility rate2. The future of herding in Mongolia is, itself, threatened. It might be that all the
herders remaining in Mongolia will need to find another source of income, either in the
towns/city or in the countryside in an industry such as tourism with a lighter impact on the
environment (Havstad, et al). Therefore, given a fair assessment of the situation, although
herders are politically disadvantaged, they are also a cause of some of the nation’s problems, and
a political victory for them might not mean victory for the rest of the population. In fact, victory
for them might mean disaster for their children. The fact that the representation and influence of
herders might be to their detriment is one shortcoming of my research question.
A number of other changes resulting from the free-market economy have been
particularly valuable to nomadic herders. Probably most significant is the availability of
electricity. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, for the government to provide all its
herders with electricity out of its limited budget. Mongolia’s herders are scattered over the
nation’s immense territory, they live in tents (yurts or ghurs) than can be dissembled, transported
and reassembled, and they have no addresses because they do not legally own any land. Even
those who are not nomadic usually do not own any land or have an address, making them very
difficult to connect to a grid. Therefore, instead of the government providing electricity to a
thinly-spread population that is continually migrating over an enormous land area, the nomads
have acquired electricity for themselves, and that has required resources that do not originate in
Mongolia. These nomadic herders use solar panels and windmills imported from other countries
–neither of which were nearly as easily available under the communist system, when the country
tried to be self-sufficient.
2 I will not discuss problems relating to the demographic imbalance.
4
Electricity has brought many wonders to the Mongolia’s pastoral population. Perhaps
most significant to this paper, ownership of televisions is now the norm in the Mongolia
hinterlands
Without television, nomadic herders could not have become as politically-informed as they
currently are (See Section II). There are many other gifts of the new era. Some that are
particularly useful to Mongol herders are mobile phones, Western-style clothing, and
automobiles, particularly motorcycles and sport utility vehicles. I explain in Section II why these
three products of Western civilization are particularly useful to Mongolian herders.
Development, as a whole, has come at a high price. It has brought problems to
everybody, although I will focus only on those affecting herders. Some of these problems pose a
potential threat to the future of Mongolian herding itself. One is overgrazing. Mongolia’s
communist government gave subsidies to people who decided to live in the cities and towns,
with the intention of stimulating industrialization and ultimately the great revolution that finally
brings about true communism. When the government abandoned this objective, subsidies for
rural-urban migration were discontinued, sedentary people returned to the countryside to take up
the “traditional” lifestyle again. In the course of the 1990s the number of nomadic herders
tripled, from 135,430 in 1989 to 407,030 in 2001 (Endicott, 7). This is approximately 15% of
Mongolia’s total population, or approximately half of Mongolia’s herder population. Many
others became stationary herders in proximity to towns and cities, in fact the outskirts of
Ulaanbaatar are saturated with white tents inhabited by herders who want the benefits of an
urban location.
The resurgence of herding is, perhaps ironically, a cause of profound environmental
problems. The grasslands are being depleted, causing desertification, which affects the regional
5
environment in several ways. The climate is getting drier and windier, extreme winter
temperatures are getting lower3, and most importantly, increasing numbers of animals are unable
to survive the winter. Other environmental problems are caused by temporary consumer
demands. Most notably, Mongolian herders tried to benefit from the global demand for
cashmere, and some abandoned an entire flock of animals for one consisting entirely of goats.
The ensuing overpopulation of goats in the Mongolian ecosystem caused problems. Demand
suddenly dropped in the late 1990s, bringing the many goat herders into a state of crisis. This
was an instance of the market serving as a harsh self-correcting mechanism, making the
government completely unnecessary.
The herders also need to worry about problems that they are not involved in creating. In
the case of global warming, they are only marginally responsible, since the entire world is
causing global warming and Mongolians represents less than 1/2000 of the world’s population.
The worst environmental problems in Mongolia are those caused by mining. In Mongolia’s rapid
economic growth, mining is their most important industry. Minerals currently account for
approximately 80% of Mongolia’s exports, and this figure is expected to rise to 95% within a
few year according to The Economist (2012). By 2020, mining is expected to account for 30% of
Mongolia’s GDP (ibid). Another industry that is a source of great controversy in Mongolia is
farming. Throughout Mongolia’s history, farming has come and gone as a way of making of
living. Currently farming is rare, although it is becoming increasingly common. If farming
becomes too common in Mongolia, especially in the form of factory farming, which seems to be
the most popular variety, the consequences to the environment might be devastating. Staple
crops do not grow easily in Mongolia’s climate, so to force them grow might cause profound
environmental problems (Hesay).
3 Even though the climate as a whole is getting warmer. See the discussion of global warming on p. 23-24.
6
In short, herders share many of the same difficulties with the rest of the population,
although there are many problems which are specific to them. The problems that I have
described cannot be solved without some kind of action from the government. In some cases they
needed the government to protect them from themselves – that is, from the problems caused by
herding. The correct regulations could alleviate many of the problems associated with herding,
possibly saving its future, and possibly guiding the pastoral population to another livelihood if
necessary.
Herders will need to assert themselves not only for their self-interest, but also for the
benefit of the population, since herders are often the most aware of problems – including
problems they are not at all responsible for – that will bring trouble to everyone. Fortunately,
Mongolia is a functional democracy, although researchers disagree about just how democratic it
is. Measurements of Mongolia’s level of democracy vary tremendously among different systems
of assessment by different organizations. In this paper I “zero in” on the effectiveness of
Mongolia’s democracy with regard to the herders one particular demographic group.
Mongolia’s transition to democracy, and simultaneously to a free-market economy, has
been a mixed blessing. The nation’s economy is now growing at 12.3% per year, and GDP has
risen from 3.58 billion in 1992 to 10.27 billion in 2012 (World Bank). With a per capita GPD of
3,673 in 2012, Mongolia is now considered a lower-middle-income country by the World Bank.
Life expectancy has increased from 61 in 1994 to 69 at present (CIA World Factbook). Rates of
literacy (97%) and elementary school enrollment (97%) are exceptionally high for a country as
poor as Mongolia, however they were virtually the same before the transition to democracy
(World Bank). The communist regime, therefore, deserves the credit for this national
achievement. Mongolia’s success as a democracy is also, largely, an achievement of the
7
communist regime. The communist government held impotent elections, like many undemocratic
countries in the world today, and it required all citizens to participate. As a result, the people
developed a habit of voting (Endicott, 12).
The development of a free-market economy followed the transition to democracy.
Mongolia held its first multi-party election in 1990. Candidates were contesting for 430 seats in
the Great State Khural4 as well as 53 seats in the Small Khural (which has been abolished). A
short-lived economic crisis occurred when the Soviet Union dissolved. Soviet aid was the
mainstay on Mongolia’s communist-era economy (in return for letting the Soviets take all the
natural resources they wanted) (The Economist, 1992).
I am seeking to determine how well the herders and their proxies are using the
democratic government. Doing so means taking on more powerful interests – an uphill battle,
especially since the level of democracy in Mongolia is, by some measurements, far from the
standards of the first-world. Finally, it is important to consider that what herders want from the
government is not necessarily what they need. It might be that livestock production is
unsustainable and herders will need to transition to another way of making a living, which might
be very difficult for them to do, but it might be the only solution.
Literature Review
People studying Mongolia in different capacities have tended to focus on different aspects of
their politics and social issues, and they have tended to come with certain institutional biases.
Documentary filmmakers and journalists usually examine Mongolia from the same standpoint I
am, which is that of the pastoral population, since it is among the more interesting. It is also
probably the best standpoint for examining environmental problems, and environmental politics, 4 There are now 76 seats in the Great State Khural.
8
which are not difficult to infer. One example is Vivian Hesay’s documentary on Mongolia in the
I Have Seen the Earth Change series. In this film she examines the changes in climate, the water
supply and other components of their ecosystem, from the perspective of herders themselves and
Westerners’ interpretations of their problems. This sort of work certainly has its own merits, and
I have referenced Hesay’s work at several points in this paper. These sorts of documentaries
tends to take a pessimistic tone.
Elite Western media sources and tend to be more optimistic, tend to focus on the
promises of the mining industry. I have cited several articles from The Economist, which is
usually pro-business, but also very thorough. They point to the improvements in people lives,
due to the mining industry, on every strata of society. However, they never neglect to warn about
the environmental problems associated with mining. They were also quick to recognize the
bubble that was taking shape in the market for cashmere wool in the late 1990s. Whereas The
Economist has a general – if elitist – audience, think tanks are more likely to write about political
issues of less significance – even less – to Westerners than issues of business in Mongolia. The
Brookings Institute writes development issues, such as the distribution of the nation’s wealth and
the success of the democratic government in serving the poor. The only Americans who have a
reason to be concerned about this (besides Americans with family in Mongolia) are other
political scientists, students, NGO workers, or others who happen to be worried about the well-
being of those within Mongolia’s borders. For example, Nyamosor Tuya of the Brookings
Institute writes about the general success of Mongolia as a democracy, but its incompetence in
solving problems such as unemployment among the poor and a general level of poverty that
remains high – approximately 30% of the population. Because Brookings focuses on these issues
with the Mongolian people in mind rather than foreign businessmen/women, their perspectives
9
are valuable to me, since I am motivated by the same thing. I am also probing into Mongolia’s
success as a democracy, especially as it concerns the poor. However, unlike Tuya, I am not
asking the specific question of how well these people are benefiting – I simply did not have time
to answer this question. I am only inquiring into the extant to which they are using the
government to their benefit, without also trying to examine the outcome.
The sources with a more political focus also scrutinize Mongolia’s government and their
success as a stable, functional democracy. IGOs and low-budget NGOs, compared with The
Economist, are generally more concerned with benefiting those at the losing end of the situation.
However, compared to journalists and documentarians, they tend to take an optimistic tone
because they see what can be done. NGOs also tend to have a narrow focus, which can be an
asset because it allows them to acquire uncommon insight into a particular matter. One such
NGO is the Open Society Forum, which was founded by an American (George Soros) but is
operated by Mongolians in Ulaanbaatar. The work done by this organizations is useful mostly to
others doing the same sort of work. For example, I have cited a survey carried out by the
organization to determine what percent of the pastoral population favors individual ownership of
land, which was previously an intention of other altruistic foreign NGOs. According to Open
Society’s survey, fewer than ten percent of herders favor a system of in individual land-
ownership – a research outcome highly significant to other NGOs and political scientists who
have the interests of the herders in mind.
The work of academics is more abstract, and possibly the least predictable in terms of
perspectives. Elizabeth Endicott, whom I cite most, is a now-retired historian who is highly
culturally-sensitive and intent on defending their ways and their perspectives. Endicott urges that
the herders’ way of making a living can and should continue to the extant that they want it to. Far
10
from being a vestige of a previous era, the herders are largely the product of modernization. The
herders themselves, from running roughshod over their land, are very careful in their use of the
land, and more importantly, they have an esoteric understanding of their ecosystem that is
unmatched by anyone else. Environmentalists, such as Kris Havstad, bring a different
perspective with them. Havstad is worried about the impact of herding on the environment, and
suggest that the future of Mongolia’s delicate ecosystem can only be guaranteed of herders
switch to another livelihood, for their sake and ultimately the rest of their country. Others, such
as Byambajav Dalaibuyan, have more of a social science perspective. The chapter by Dalaibuyan
that I have cited is concerned with civil society, and laments that Mongolia has little of the
“modern” form of civil society common in the West. What Mongolians, especially herders, have
instead are “traditional” connections of family, community, the workplace, etc. that are common
in undemocratic Asian countries5. Dalaibuyan considers these networks to be of inferior value in
the creation of a high-functioning democracy.
This work combines a variety of perspectives – economic, environmental, historical – and
concludes with a discussion of politics on its own terms. It addresses all the concerns that I have
described and answers one particular question that none of these people have addressed directly.
At its base are environmental problems. Although herders are partly to blame for Mongolia’s
environmental problems, their perspective is especially important. Therefore, I want to see how
well their perspective is being heard at all levels of government. This paper is a work of political
science, so it is dominated with the question of how well herders are asserting themselves to the
government, via civil society and otherwise.
5 The maintenance of these ties, known in China as guanxi. Is considered highly, highly important in Mainland China.
11
Research Design
I intend to determine how well-represented herders are in the government – the national
legislature and cabinet, and the provincial and local governments – and how much effort they
give towards influencing every level of government6. There are a few ways by which I can
approach this question. First I can do research on the parties in power, their ideologies and
history, and which one(s) are most popular among herders. I can also look at some of the
individuals in government who are acutely concerned about the herders, and their perspectives,
and act on their behalf. Then I can look at the activity of herders themselves, in the form of local
activism, involvement in foreign or domestic NGOs, and protests.
I am in the process of contacting Mongolian consulates in the US and other countries. I
am also listening to speeches delivered outside Mongolia, in English, by the Mongolian president
and other important politicians and public figures. For statistics I use a variety of sources. Most
do not focus on Mongolia specifically, but rather are concerned with comparing as many
countries as they feasibly can. There is a significant amount of variation in the information
sources from which these statistics are derived. For example, the CIA World Factbook is
informed entirely by American sources – military and civilian, public and private. I deliberately
diversified the sources in order to avoid bias. I also use books and other secondary sources.
I have set out to determine how well the interests of the herders are represented in
government, and how active herders are in trying to influence government via civil society and
activism. The answer to my research question is as follows. Mongolia is a functional democracy
with high voter turnout rate, although voter turnout has been declining even since the
establishment of democracy. Herders, and their proxies, have a high level of influence in the
national government, as well as more direct influence in provincial and local governments. One 6 Since Mongolia’s system is not federalist, the people can only influence the laws themselves at the national level. At the provincial and local levels of government people can only influence implementation.
12
of the major national political parties, and the leading one at present, is the Democratic Party,
which is generally considered the most favorable to the pastoral population, although the appeal
of this party might have more to do with the prominent individuals in it than with ideology. Of
the major parties, the Democratic Party is the most pro-business.
Civil society has not developed on a scale typical of a truly effective democracy.
Measures of civil society, such as rates of membership in an association, are very low compared
to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and even Thailand. Mongolians, as a nation, are also not very
active on the internet, so the internet has not become the venue for political activity that it is in
other countries. People, especially herders, do typically have strong informal networks such as
family, and neighbors and co-workers, but these types of associations are not usually counted
among civil society. Despite the weakness of civil society, though, Mongolian people on every
strata of society are politically active, even if these people comprise a small minority. People
form NGOs with a greater level of sophistication than general civil society organizations, and
many take part in NGOs organized in other democratic countries. These NGOs, domestic and
foreign, are helping the pastoral population to influence national, provincial and local
government.
Road Map
In the first part of the thesis I plan to begin with background information about Mongolia – its
modern history, demographics, geography and climate, foreign relations, and economy. In the
second section I focus on the particular perspectives and situation of the herders, nomadic and
otherwise. I expect to discuss in detail how herders are benefiting, and how their situation is
13
getting worse. This section will give some necessary context for assessing the representation and
influence of nomads in the government.
The third section examines political activity by and for the herder population. I give
examples of politicians – some of whom come from herder backgrounds – who are acting on the
herders’ behalf (whom I am calling their “proxies”). I examine the most significant parties in the
national government, their ideologies and other reasons why some more than other appeal to
herders. I also look at the general level of democracy in Mongolia, voting habits of the people,
civil society, and activism. This section considers statistical indicators of the level of civil
society. I then discuss activism, including protests, actions in conjunction with NGOs, and
internet activism.
14
I: THE LARGER SITUATION
Mongolia tends to elude social scientists who try to view the world in categories. To begin with:
is Mongolia a Central Asian or East Asian country? While China became a sedentary civilization
in ancient times, Mongolia was still mostly nomadic in the 20th century. The diet in Mongolian is
distinctly more Central Asia, or perhaps more Russian, than Chinese. The diet is very plain.
Unlike in civilizations based on farming, in Mongolia meat is probably the last kind of food to be
in short supply. Meat, especially mutton, is always eaten in large quantities. Other types of food
are difficult to for nomads to produce. Grain, and grain products, are almost always imported.
Cabbage seems to be among the easier types of vegetable obtain, since it grows in cold climates,
in fact I remember frequently eating coleslaw while in Mongolia. Mongolia is also more like
Russia and Central Asia in that (God forbid) alcoholism has become a widespread problem. Men
often carry bottles of vodka underneath their belt throughout the day (in traditional Mongolian
clothing it fits more nicely). Dairy comes in many, many forms, most of which are not
recognizable to Westerners, and there are of videos on Youtube of foreigners in Mongolia
reacting to the various types of butter, cheese, etc. which they find utterly revolting. Tourists
often come to Mongolia intent on trying ayrag, a mildly-alcoholic drink made from horse milk.
Mongolia is considered to have low ethnic diversity, although people’s physical features
vary greatly within the majority ethnic group. According to the CIA World Factbook 81% of
Mongolia’s population consists of Khalkhas, a group ruled by descendants of Genghiz Khan
from the collapse of the Mongol Empire in 1368 until the 20th century (a time span that includes
230 years of Chinese occupation). Another 13 percent of the population is comprised of other
Central Asian peoples: Kazakhs, Dorvods, Bayads, Buryat-Bouriates, etc. The remaining 4.6%
of the population is mostly ethnic Chinese. Mongolia does not seem to be a place where ethnic
15
minorities are victims of cruel or unfair policies or customs. Chinese expatriates are victims of
hate crimes, and this should not be tolerated, however I have not found evidence of ethnic
Chinese citizens, who speak Mongolian and share historical experiences with the rest of the
population, being attacked or discriminated against. In short, Mongolia’s national identity is
difficult to define, but it is unlike their southern neighbor.
If Mongolia is more similar to Russia and the “Stans” than it is to China, one reason is
certainly climate. Mongolia has a dry, continental climate with short, hot summers and long, cold
winters, and very short periods of spring and fall. Winter temperatures get as low as -40°
Fahrenheit, making it the season that concerns people most (DiscoverMongolia.mn). The hearty
cuisine is helpful in surviving Mongolia’s winters, and heavy drinking can make people cope.
With a population of just under three million, Mongolia is among the least densely-populated
countries on earth. The southern and western parts of Mongolia are mostly desert, and they are
the country’s most sparsely-populated regions. The rest of the country is grassland, except for
approximately 8% which is forest, mostly coniferous (FAO, 2004). Mongolia has been described
as a nation of “cowboys” or herders who “wander” across the vast expanses of land. In reality,
though, Mongolia’s nomads do not wander. They follow migration patterns that have developed,
and evolved, over many generations (Endicott, 1).
Agriculture, as a way of making a living, is being reintroduced to Mongolia, after having
been unsuccessfully introduced at many points in history. Mongolia’s brutal climate and delicate
ecosystem are ill-suited for farming. According to the CIA World Factbook, only 0.39% of
Mongolia’s land is arable. Livestock still comprise 84.9% of Mongolia’s agricultural production
(FAO Corporate Document Repository). The Food and Agriculture Organization lists three other
types of agriculture in Mongolia which comprise the remaining 15.1%
16
Extensive livestock, which is the traditional semi-nomadic pastoral system, where camels, horses, cattle, sheep and goats are grazed together; (ii) mechanized large-area crop production of cereals and fodder crops; (iii) intensive farming, producing potatoes and other vegetables, with both mechanized and simple production methods.
(Ibid)
Agriculture was state-controlled until the end of the communist era. Since then privatization
has generally been unsuccessful and few have been encouraged to take up farming as an
occupation. Although farming remains very rare, efforts are underway to develop crops through
genetic engineering that can grow in Mongolia. Whether researchers do start inventing grains,
vegetables, etc that Mongolian farmers can grow is one matter; another matter is what kind of
impact they have on the environment. Given the vast open spaces in Mongolia, combined with
the system of public ownership of land, farmers are often tempted to establish factory farms
like in the American countryside. The environmental consequences might be catastrophic.
The presence of herders is indicated by their flocks of perhaps 100 animals – horses,
sheep, goats, camels, cattle, and yaks – in addition to yurts or ghurs, white tents made from a
wooden frame covered with wool and other fabric. Yurts can be assembled and dissembled in
minutes. Scattered across Mongolia’s grasslands are small towns. The only real city is
Ulaanbaatar, the nation’s capital. Ulaanbaatar has a population of approximately 1.3 million,
more than forty percent of the nation’s population. The second-most populous city, Erdenet, has
83,000 people. Ulaanbaatar has a glitzy downtown with restaurants, hotels and nightlife, and at
the edge of town is the Chinggis Khan International Airport. Not all inhabitants of Ulaanbaatar
are urban per se. The edge of town is packed with a thick layer of yurts belonging to herders who
want all the advantages of urban living, as I have personally seen while entering Ulaanbaatar by
train. Beyond Ulaanbaatar’s core, it quickly ceases to look prosperous. The overwhelming
17
majority of Ulaanbaatar’s roads are unpaved and unnamed, causing profound frustration to
anyone from outside the neighborhood.
The Mongolian national identity is highly complex and a product of Mongolia’s long
history, as well as the historical elusiveness of the concept of “Mongolia.” To begin with, the
nation’s native language, still the primary language of the people, is distinctly Central Asian. It
fits squarely into the Altaic language family, named after the Altai Mountains which span the
borders of Mongolia, China, Russia and Kazakhstan. This particular language family can be
found throughout Central Asia, and as far West as Turkey, where the primary language is based
on the language spoken by the Central Asian invaders who established the Ottoman Empire. In
between are several thousand miles of flat land that have allowed for thousands of years of
cultural exchange, migration and conquest. Hungary is named after the Huns, an Asiatic people
believed to have terrorized the Chinese from the North and West just as much as they did the
Europeans from the East (Howarth). Even today, the Hungarian language (along with Finnish
and Estonian) is at root a Central Asian language.
In the 20th century, Mongolia shared an experience with most Central Asian countries,
and that is communism. Mongolia became a communist state in 1924 in a state of gratitude and
admiration for the Soviets, who liberated them from Chinese rule only three years earlier. During
the 20th century, every country that experienced communism (including those which were not
countries at the time) did so in its own way. Communist Mongolia has been described as
repressive (see Section III), however the communist era was also a time of economic security
and continual improvements in the standard of living, as I will explain. Following the end of
their communist experience, they also transitioned to democracy successfully with little of the
terrible economic problems experienced by Russia, or violence experienced by dozens of
18
countries across the globe when attempting to democratize. Mongolia did experience small
outbreaks of political violence, albeit small ones with a death toll no higher than five. More than
twenty years later, Mongolia is now among the most democratic countries in Asia (see Section
III). Mongolia is a parliamentary democracy in which members of parliament are elected in a
system of proportional representation. There is a separate cabinet whose members are appointed
by members of the Khural (the parliament), with the exception of the president, who is elected
separately. There is a also a separate court system, including a Supreme Court. In addition, there
are provincial and local governments, although these sub-national governments have no power to
make their own laws.
In general, as much as Mongolia benefited from its experience under communism, it has
continued to improve in many ways since then. On Freedom House Mongolia scores 1.5/7 (7
being least free). By this measurement Mongolia freer than South Korea and equal with Taiwan.
Mongolia’s general human development remained essentially constant throughout the 1990s, but
has been growing slowly since then. The statistics that comprise Mongolia’s HDI are also
compelling. The average adult in Mongolia has undergone 8.3 years of schooling. The per capita
GDP is 3,763. Mongolia’s measurement on their Gender Inequality Index is 0.328 (a higher
number represents greater inequality between genders). This score is about average for a Central
Asian country but higher than either Russia or China (Human Development Reports).
Mongolia is deeply entangled in foreign affairs, although mostly with only two countries.
Relations with any other country are known as “third country relations.” At one point in the Cold
War, trade with the Soviets accounted for approximately 90% of Mongolia’s foreign trade (The
Economist, 1992). Currently approximately 35% of Mongolia’s imports come from Russia, and
approximately 35% of exports go to China (Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy). China’s
19
rapid development has led to an insatiable demand for coal, as well as various metals. Mongolia,
with its vast territory, has untold billions to make from its mining industry and not many people
to share it among. Their profitable minerals include coal, copper, molybdenum, tungsten,
phosphates, tin, nickel, zinc, fluorspar, gold, silver and iron (CIA World Factbook).
Interestingly, although China invests more than any other country in Mongolia, they have not
capitalized on Mongolia’s industries the way they might seem positioned to. On the contrary, the
adventurous investors who are trying out Mongolia’s market are dispersed across the globe.
These investors are probably few in number, though, because some very small countries account
for a very large portion of the investment. I have provided a breakdown of foreign investment in
Mongolia by country according to the US Embassy in Ulaanbaatar.
(SEE APPENDIX A)
Whereas China is the top investor, Russia is not even on this graph. In fact, in terms of FDI,
Russian ranks between Australia and Bermuda. I have created another chart with a breakdown of
investment in Mongolia by corporate entity.
(SEE APPENDIX B)
If the list of countries with the largest investments in Mongolia seemed odd, hopefully it will
make more sense when combined with the second chart. This information is interesting for a
number of reasons. For one, fewer than half of these companies are investing in “geological
prospecting an exploration” or even anything closely related. In addition, from this chart it seems
even clearer that the people investing in Mongolia are the adventurous ones. In the case of some
companies, it is an overseas branch of the company investing in Mongolia, for example HSBC,
which is investing in Mongolia from South Korea. Some of the corporations on the list, such as
20
Louis Vuitton, would seem to be out of place except that Mongolia’s mineral wealth is creating a
small upper-class.
Previously the Mongolians have been described as “beggars sitting on pile of gold” (The
Economist, 2012). Now that this gold is being exploited, the wealth is not being distributed as
well as some people might like, although Mongolia’s GINI Coefficient (36.5) is far better than
that of China (47.4), Russia (42), or even the US (45) or any of several other develop countries
(CIA World Factbook). Mongolia’s economy is now growing at 12.3% per year, and per capita
GDP has nearly tripled since 1992. Again, although inequality is a problem, it seems the
population as a whole is benefitting. The life expectancy, for example, has risen from 61 in 1992
to 69 at present – remarkably high for a country as poor as Mongolia (which has recently become
a lower-middle-income country).
Despite the improvements, though, the status quo cannot continue forever. Mining and
other industries are devastating the Mongolian ecosystem, and a climate in which it is already
difficult to live is becoming increasingly more difficult. The herders, perhaps the nomads most of
all, have a particular perspective on Mongolia’s problems. This is especially true with regard to
environmental problems. Herders see the effects of mining and other environmentally-hazardous
activities on pastures, the lakes and rivers, the forests, etc. They not only see the results directly,
but also see how their animals react. They are also more keenly aware of gradual changes in
climate, since they work requires them to be outdoors all day year-round, and as I will explain
their animals are often the best indicator. In addressing these problems, if industrial interests
have too much power and influence in the government, then the people – every segment of
society – will need to take back the government for themselves.
21
II: THE SITUATION AND PERSPECTIVE OF THE HERDERS
The post-Cold War era has meant many things to the world, many of which were generally
unexpected. Mongolia abandoned its supposedly-futuristic system and got back in touch with its
past. In the communist era, the government gave financial incentives to live in the city and find
urban employment. There were two major sources of funds for this policy: domestic funds and
Soviet aid. For more than 60 years Mongolia was vitally dependent on Soviet aid, and in return,
Soviets took what they wanted. They exploited Mongolia’s many natural resources, from coal to
wool to metals (The Economist, 1992). Mongolia began parting ways with the Soviet Union
during its final days, in 1990, and in return the Soviets discontinued their handouts. Something
very similar happened domestically: the government no longer considered it appropriate to
subsidize urbanization and industrialization. When funds were cut, opportunities for employment
in the city and towns withered away and people returned to herding. Some became nomadic
herders, while others stayed in one place, in many cases on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar. The
number of nomadic herders tripled, from 135,430 in 1989 to 407,030 in 2001 (Endicott, 7).
The difference between herders and urbanized Mongolians is not attributed to intrinsic
differences between these two demographic groups. The two are not considered ethnically
different. The people who wound up living in the city and the towns are not considered different
in any way besides the simple fact that they are now living a different lifestyle from the herders.
Essentially, the town- and city-dwellers represent a sort of bourgeoisie that became noticeable in
the early 20th century, and has been swelling ever since then. Those who returned to the
countryside, likewise, are not considered intrinsically different from the ones who stayed in
Ulaanbaatar or a smaller non-rural town.
22
This large-scale de-urbanization and return to the “traditional” way of life does not need
to be traditional in every regard. A large majority of herders now have electricity. Electricity is
useful to herders for many reasons. For one, their yurts are highly susceptible to fires. Most
significant to this paper is that herders now have television, which has allowed them to keep up
with politics. International organizations and governments have been working together for
several years to provide electricity to non-urban Mongolians, usually in the form of solar panels
(the other major option being household windmills). It would, of course, be very difficult to
provide electricity via a power grid to herders. While nomadic herders would be particularly
difficult, if not impossible, to link up to a power grid, even non-nomadic herders usually have no
address and tend to be difficult to track down. The international community has provided
electricity via solar panels to an estimated 70% of herders. These solar panels come with wires in
a system that is durable and can be easily assembled and dissembled along with the yurt itself
(World Bank, 2012).
Not only can this lifestyle be modernized, but this way of making a living does not, itself,
need to be seen as un-modern. Throughout Western history, farmers have usually been sedentary,
so we have tended to conceptualize large-scale livestock production in the form of ranching. In
Mongolia, for all these herders to become ranchers would require colossal structural reforms.
Outside the towns and city, most of the land is owned by the government. To many Westerners,
at least until recently, the system in Mongolia was nothing short of feudal. Western international
organizations have persistently tried to lay the foundation for a system of individual land
ownership in Mongolia, but they have had no influence on the system. According to a survey in
2004 by the Open Society Forum (A Mongolian NGO), few than 10% of Mongolian herders –
nomadic and stationary – favor individual ownership of pastureland (Endicott, 10-11). Unlike
23
most governments that insist on public land ownership, Mongolia is genuinely democratic.
Therefore, the Mongolian people do not live in fear of expropriations or other practices that they
would not approve of.
Other foreign goods are making life easier for herders. One example is the type of
clothing made possible by Western technology. Winter clothing is extremely important in a
Mongolia’s climate; winter temperatures in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, typically get as low as -
40° Fahrenheit at night (DiscoverMongolia.mn). Mongolia is also swept by strong winds, and
nomadic herders need to outdoors all day throughout the year, so any clothing warmer than their
traditional clothing can make this lifestyle more comfortable by a very large measure. Imported
vegetables and other foodstuffs have allowed for a more varied diet and improvements in health.
Motorcycles and sport utility vehicles have made herding easier and have allowed nomadic
herders to visit relatives, travel to hospitals when necessary, obtain a university education, and
travel to the Chinggis Khaan Airport to leave the country, temporarily or permanently. Mongolia
has experienced an enormous diaspora, and there have been both positive and negative
consequences, which are beyond the scope of this paper
There are other foreign consumer goods that are particularly valuable to herders. Mobile
phones might be the best example. Ownership of cellphones has become the norm, especially
since it would not be feasible to provide nomadic herders with landline phone connections.
Cellphones are extremely valuable to nomadic herders, who need to communicate with other
nomadic herders across long distances as an integral part of their job. In 2012 in Mongolia there
were 176,700 landline phones and 3.375 million mobile phones (CIA World Factbook) in a
nation of 2.9 million people. Also extremely valuable to the herders are automobiles, particularly
motorcycles and sport utility vehicles. Ordinary cars can hardly handle the driving conditions –
24
offroad or onroad – that herders need to travel on. Most important for this assessment is mass-
ownership of the television, the primary means by which herders are informed about the politics
of their country and the rest of the world. National policy regarding television is also conducive
of democracy:
following a law passed in 2005, Mongolia's state-run radio and TV provider converted to a public service provider; also available are private radio and TV broadcasters, as well as multi-channel satellite and cable TV providers.
(CIA World Factbook)
Given the plurality of public and private providers and channels, it can be inferred that
television does not exist to dispense propaganda. Television is especially important given that,
unlike in many developing countries, the internet has not become widespread in Mongolia.
Mongolia has 330,000 internet users, just over than 10% of its population7 (ibid).
This resurgence of herding, nomadic or otherwise, is causing a variety of environmental
problems that threaten the future of herding itself in Mongolia. One such problem is
overgrazing. The grasslands are diminishing, and deserts are taking their place (Hesay). In this
way climate change is happening at the regional level from indigenous causes. Along with
desertification, the climate is getting drier. Temperatures are also being affected. On average, the
temperature of Mongolia is rising. However, the lowest winter temperatures are getting
progressively lower and the increasing depletion of grassland is causing winds to get stronger
(ibid). Not only is colder weather uncomfortable, so much so that is uninhabitable at a certain
7 Based on my own experience, whereas internet is most popular among young people in most developed countries, in Mongolia is seems to be most popular among an even younger cohort. When I visited an internet café in Zamyn-Üüd, a small town on the border with China, every computer was taken but none of the other customers looked older than about 12. The mere fact that this was a town of 12,000 means that it was inhabited entirely, or almost entirely, by sedentary people. If the internet is bringing more and more people together everyday across the world, Mongolia seems to be generally missing out on this trend, at least for now. To most herders the internet seems to be a world away from them. However, after living in China for ten months, where virtually all young people are internet-users, I was glad to find that Mongolia seemed to have no internet restrictions, and my observation has been verified (Deibert, et al).
25
point, but it also makes herding impossible. A common phenomenon in Mongolia is the zud,
which is when a household of herders loses a large portion of its livestock to severe cold or other
weather conditions. The second most common cause of zud is an accumulation of snow and ice
that covers the forage. It has been widely observed that zuds have increased in frequency and
severity, since the resurgence of nomadic herding in the 1990s (The Economist, 2010). Another
consequence of climate change results from the decreased rainfall: the lakes and rivers which
nomadic herders use for drinking water are getting replenished less often, so their drinking water
is getting murkier (Hesay). Of course, Mongolians are not entirely to blame for the toll that
climate change is taking on them. Bringing an end to these ominous occurrences will require the
cooperation of the entire world, whose population Mongolia is a very small part of.
Besides encouraging overgrazing, the development of a free-market economy has also
caused imbalances in some nomadic herders’ livestock. Currently the nation’s livestock consists
mostly of horses, cattle (including yaks), camels, sheep and goats in the following proportion:
(SEE APPENDIX C)
Other animals, such as reindeer, are less commonly under cultivation. At one time, earlier in the
post-communist era, global demands for cashmere wool was so strong that some herders
abandoned an entire flock of animals for one consisting entirely of goats. Mongolia’s cashmere
was considered by many to be the world’s finest. At one time Mongolia was the world’s #1
exporter of cashmere (The Economist, 1999). Unfortunately, the investment that some herders
were making in goats was not met with persistent demand (ibid).
Many herders seek way of supplementing their income from livestock production.
Possibly the most common way is by “ninja” mining. Ninjas are herders who search, unlicensed,
for gold. They are estimated to number approximately 100,000. Lacking cutting-edge equipment,
26
many look in waterways and other places where they do not need to dig very far. Others work
with a large group of ninjas to create a mine on an industrial scale. Many others look in
professional mines after the workers go home for the day. The origin of the name for this activity
is unknown, but it is believed to refer to the fact that they often work at night and carry trays on
their backs, making them resemble Ninja Turtles. This is an extremely dangerous source of
income, since it is illegal and therefore completely unregulated. The successful ninjas make
approximately $8 per day from this activity (BBC News, 2012).
Outside of Mongolia, there are still people who consider it strange that most land in
Mongolia is publicly owned. Some people are alarmed by what seem to be the consequences of
it. One such person is the Mongolian activist Bat-Erdene Batbayar, also known by his moniker
Baabar. Baabar accused the herder population of having a “Drainage Mentality.” I was informed
of Baabar and his famous statements by The Honorable Carmen Cabell, Consul-General to
Mongolia in Woodbridge, NJ. By this he means herders will find an area with ample grass and
clean water, informally claim it for themselves, then deplete the natural resources until they are
completely gone. If he is correct, then Mongolia is experiencing a classic “tragedy of the
commons.” Baabar claims that as a result, Mongolian herders are prone to rivalry and do not
make friends easily with each other. He famously said that whereas two Chinese traveling to
New York will visit along the way visit along the way and agree to meet in Chinatown on the
weekend; whereas two Mongols will fly to New York, land and never see each other again. This
claim is not unreasonable considering that people have made very a very similar claim about
different demographic groups elsewhere. Whereas English people are generally not prone to
conflict, people in Ireland and Scotland and Wales have always been quicker to resort to
violence. The difference: English people have in modern times been mostly farmers and urban-
27
dwellers, whereas those from more remote parts of the British Isles have been herders with no
defined territory, so they have been vulnerable to theft by other herders and needed to vigilantly
guard their flock. If this is the case among the Mongolian herders, then it is certainly an obstacle
to political engagement, since grassroots political activity can hardly occur without cooperation.
Herders do not always isolate themselves from each other. That is, they do not associate
only with members of their household, however big their families are. The level of association
between households differs depending on the location. In the Gobi desert, which is extremely
sparsely-populated, households generally prefer to keep to themselves. According to Endicott:
Most Gobi families nomadize alone, not with other herder families. The Gobi differs from many areas of central-northern Mongolia where campsites are well populated by several gers [yurts] … only in atypical spots in the Gobi where water and pasture were more plentiful did he [Simukov, another researcher] find a larger gathering of gers, but even in these cases, the gers were spread out individually or in pairs throughout the area.(p. 28)
I personally observed, while riding on the train from Zamyn-Üüd on the Chinese border to
Ulaanbaatar in the north, that yurts appeared in isolation in the southern part of the country (the
desert), while they were more often clustered together after the train entered the grassland (it
was also very obvious which of these two ecosystems the train was in). In the grassland herders
are far more likely to assemble into ayils, groups of yurts encamping together (ibid).
Explanations for this regional difference are not airtight; for example, Endicott argues
that herders in the grassland need each other’s protection against wolves, which are less of a
problem in the desert (p. 40-4). It would seem, though, that the desert is altogether a more
difficult place to survive, so they would need each other’s help even more. What matters for the
purpose of this paper is that herder households can often be found in communities – albeit often
communities of mobile tents – while others live in isolation. Those in isolation generally live in
28
the most remote areas where resources are scarcest and living conditions are generally the most
difficult. The following sections of this paper will consider questions of who is trying to
influence policy, and who is already represented, directly or indirectly, in the government.
29
III: REPRESENTATION, CIVIL SOCIETY AND ACTIVISM
In making Mongolian politics what it is today, one of the most significant people is the activist,
writer and former parliamentarian Bat-Erdene Batbayar, (also known by his moniker Baabar).
Frustrated with politics, Baabar resigned from the Khural in 2005 and became a publisher. He
was highly significant in the democratization of Mongolia, in the earlier stages of which he was
had not formally entered politics; he was an activist working in a microbiological research lab. In
1991 he was appointed leader of the Mongolian Social Democratic Party, beginning his fifteen-
year political career. During this time he became best-known for his books. His most famous
book, originally published in 1996 (and later translated into English), is Twentieth Century
Mongolia, which traces Mongolia’s history from Genghiz Khan until a referendum in 1945 in
China by which Mongolia was formally recognized as an independent nation-state (he intends to
publish another history that continues where he left off). In the introduction he looks back at the
cause that he and many others fought for: “Before 1990s, Mongolia was in an ideological
straitjacket and repressed by a military totalitarian regime. No foreign or domestic researcher
could write the history of 20th century Mongolia – it was impossible.” (p. xiii)
Mongolia is now among the most democratic countries in Asia, although there is
enormous disagreement as to just how democratic they are compared to other countries.. The
Economist’s 2012 Democracy Index ranks Mongolia between Serbia and Malaysia, and therefore
outranked by only nine regimes in Asia: Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, India,
Israel, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea8. On other systems of appraisal, Mongolia’s receives a far
better score. According to the Polity IV Project, Mongolia is considered a full democracy – as
8 Of the regimes lists as more democratic than Mongolia, three stand out. Malaysia, first of all, is (to my understanding) a fake democracy with limited civil liberties and impotent elections. Second, Indonesia, is a highly flawed democracy. Third, Hong Kong is inexorably becoming less democratic, and seems out of place among functional democracies such as Mongolia.
30
full as any other democracy on earth – and more democratic than Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia,
India and South Korea. Freedom House has an even higher regard for Mongolia’s democracy.
Their Freedom Ranking for Mongolia is 1.5/7 (7 being least free). This measurement makes
Mongolia freer than South Korea and equal with Taiwan. Therefore, there is enormous variation
in the level of democracy assigned to Mongolia. I will not be able to determine which of these
measurements is more accurate. I will only be able to see how receptive it is to the interests of
herders and how well they, in turn, are taking advantage of it.
As I explained in the Introduction, the success of Mongolia’s democracy is attributable
mostly to compulsory voting during the communist era in elections of no real significance which
nonetheless gave the people a habit of voting. However, ironically, voter turnout has been
declining sharply ever since Mongolia’s transition to democracy. In 1996 the voter turnout rate
was 96%, higher than any country without compulsory voting. In the 2012 election voter turnout
was at 65% (White), which is about average for OECD countries (Albetti). The reasons for this
decline are not certain. It might be a result of people coming of age who never were forced to
vote. It might also be that people are growing cynical or confused by a multiparty system,
especially those who are accustomed to a nondemocratic system in which the options were
artificially simple. White proposes that the migration of people, especially young people, to the
towns and cities is causing them to opt out of voting because their change in demographic status
causes them to feel politically disoriented.
While the voter-turnout rate is declining, Mongolia still has a rate of party membership
that is extraordinary for an East Asian country. According to the Asian Barometer Survey in
2006, 22.5% of Mongolians identify as being a member of a political party. This compares to
2.0% in Japan, 1.6% in Taiwan, 1.6% in South Korea, and 1.2% in Taiwan. These four other
31
places in East Asia are all functional democracies. As with voting habits, this rate of party
membership also seems to be a legacy of compulsory involvement in associations during the
communist period. (Dalaibuyan, 37-38)
Since the establishment of the new regime in 1992, Mongolia has maintained the
Constitution established that year. This constitution establishes a system with a mix of
parliamentary and presidential modes of democracy. This system is thoroughly described, as
follows, by the CIA World Factbook. Members of the Khural (the national parliament) are
elected in a system of proportional representation. There are 76 seats in Khural, of which 48 are
directly elected from 26 electoral districts, the remaining 28 parliamentarians being
proportionally elected based on a party's share of the total votes. Currently the Khural is split
among six parties. Parliamentarians are elected for a renewable four-year term which could be
cut short if parliament is dissolved. The prime minister, in consultation with the rest of the
Khural, appoints members of the executive with the exception of the President, who is elected
separately by popular vote. There is also a separate judicial branch, including a Supreme Court,
to which the task of appointing justices is split between the President, the Khural and the
Supreme Court. Democracy also exists at the local level. The country is divided into 22
provinces, and one city, which are in turn divided into 329 districts. The system is no federalist,
so these sub-national governments do not have power to make laws. Approximately 90% of the
revenue of districts comes from the national government. Most districts have approximately
5,000 people, mostly nomadic herders. The districts are then divided into baghs. The main
purpose of baghs is to keep track of people, who in the case of most baghs are mostly nomadic
herders (Montsame News Agency, 2006). To herders, the local government is a more accessible
alternative to the national government.
32
Currently the Khural is split between the Democratic Party (33 seats), the Mongolian
People’s Party (25 seats), the Justice Coalition (11 seats), and other parties (5 seats), with two
vacant seats. The president, Tsakhia Elbegdorj, is a member of the Democratic Party. Currently
the Great State Khural is dominated by the Democratic Party, the Mongolian People’s Party, and
the Justice Coalition, consisting of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party and the National
Democratic Party. The same two parties, and one coalition, have dominated since the start of the
21st century. The presidency has been held by Elbegdorj (of the Democratic Party) since 2009,
winning two consecutive elections, however before him there have been two presidents – both
members of the Mongolian People’s Party – since the beginning of the 21st century. The
Democratic Party, having control of the Khural and the presidency, is able to extend its power
more deeply into the system:
In addition to a majority in the parliament, DP currently holds the posts of parliamentary chairman, prime minister, as well as president. Moreover, the DP controls the governorships and boards of citizens' representatives of most provinces as well as the capital city, Ulaanbaatar
Jargalsaikhany, 2013
I will now proceed to examine the ideologies of the Democrats and other parties.
The differences in ideologies between these parties are not clearly-defined, and in
currently in Mongolia party ideology is not always what determines an election. The Mongolian
People’s Revolutionary Power (MPRP) was the single party with a monopoly on power from
their takeover of the government in 1924 until they decided to allow opposition in 1990.
Naturally, the MPRP was the dominant one in the early years of democracy. They were the best-
organized and best-funded party (Dalaibuyan, 38). They continue to represent the far left,
although not the extreme left, currently as a member of the not-very-powerful Justice Coalition.
The Mongolian People’s Party was originally formed in 1920, during the secession from China,
33
however it was disbanded when communists took power in 1924. It was reestablished during the
transition to democracy by members of the communist government. The party was initially
Marxist-Leninist in orientation, however over time it evolved to resemble a typical social-
democratic party. The MPRP having receded to what it is today, the Democratic Party is now the
most powerful party.
The Democratic Party is the furthest right of the major parties. It is considered center-
right. It is a merger of the Mongolian National Democratic Party and the Mongolian Social
Democratic Party, both of which were formed during democratization (Koplanski). Since the
Democratic Party is the most ostensibly pro-business, it might seem that they should be the least
favored by herders, since mining and other industries that threaten the future of herding are likely
to benefit most from pro-business policies. However, the Consul-General for Mongolia in
Woodbridge, New Jersey, The Honorable Carmen Cabell informed me otherwise. He told me
that the Democratic Party is the most popular among the herders. This is not unreasonable,
considering the alliance of businesses and rural people in the US via the Republican Party. In the
case of Mongolia, the attraction of herders to the Democratic Party is not due to ideology. It is
due to the power of certain individuals: President Elbegdorj and Minister Battulga. These two
people have consistently demonstrated that they are concerned about the herder population.
The following two paragraphs will be about politicians who are concerned about the
nation’s pastoral population and in government habitually act with their interests in mind. It
should be noted that these politicians are divided by party lines: President Elbegdorj is a
Democrat, Minister Battulga is a member of the People’s Party, and meanwhile Baabar is a
former parliamentarian in the Social Democratic Party. The representation of herders in
government – directly, as politicians – is limited. I spoke briefly about this matter with a
34
members of the staff at the Mongolian consulate in San Francisco. He informed me that a herder
was famously elected to the Khural in 1990, when the transition to democracy was in its very
early stages. This a rare event for numerous reasons, the most significant probably being that a
herder has perhaps 100 animals to look after. Far more common is that the child or grandchild of
a herder will elected to the national government, or even more commonly, to local government.
The current president of Mongolia, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, is an example of the former.
Elbegdorj was the youngest of eight sons in a nomadic herding family. He excelled in school,
and later was conscripted into the army and was awarded a scholarship to from the government,
to study Marxism-Leninism and journalism in the USSR, for submitting a poem to the army
newspaper that thoroughly impressed his superiors. Seizing the opportunity, Elbegdorj studied
journalism at the Lviv Polytechnic National University in Lviv, Ukraine, graduating with a BA
in 1988. After being elected to the Khural, and eventually serving as prime minister, Elbegdorj
went to Harvard Kennedy School on a full scholarship and graduated with an MPA in 2002.
Cabell informed me of another person in the Mongolian governments who strives to
engage the pastoral population. This person is K. H. Battulga, the Minister for Roads, Transport,
Construction and Urban Development. Battulga was born in the countryside, although in a small
town – not to herders. He often makes public appearances in this hometown as a gesture to the
poor and marginalized. Being especially popular among the young, he has very popular
Facebook and Twitter accounts, both very popular, in both Mongolian and English9. Like
Elbegdorj, Battulga is highly fond of art and poetry, and he is a deeply spiritual Buddhist who
sees democracy as a means of achieving what his religion aims to achieve. He writes poetry as
part of his job as an activist. However, like Elbegdorj, he is also highly pragmatic. He makes
9 Or as popular as the low rate of intent use in Mongolia allows him to be. See the discussion on internet use on p.43. Whether these pages are also in Russian or another language I have not been able to determine.
35
great efforts to optimize the representation of herder and their proxies in the Khural and cabinet.
He has helped to organize demonstrations, bring herders together to form local organizations,
and encouraging them to utilize the most rudimentary form of participation in the political
process: voting. Whereas Elbegdforj entered the scene later, Battulga was among the “Original
Thirteen” politicians, including Baabar, and ministers who have are renowned among their
people for engaging people in the political process whose voice otherwise might not be heard.
To what extant are herders involved in policy-making? To do so, they do not always need
to be involved in the national government. Governments exist at the level of the province, the
sum, and in some cases the bagh. These sub-national governmental bodies have no power to
make their own laws, however the way in which they influence laws is shaped by who is
influencing the policy-making process, or who is carrying it out. In regions of the country where
the overwhelming majority are herders, naturally they will dominate in government, especially if
they are elected by locals (although herders need to compete with lobbyists). Endicott writes of a
local policy community that exists between sum- and bagh-level governments and “‘experienced
elders’ who are themselves the leaders of khot ails [camps of herders]” (p. 110). These local
governments have a variety of functions such as resolving land disputes and other issues in
which there is no need to get the national government involved.
Civil Society
Mongolia’s current Constitution affords its people all the civil liberties of a first-world
democracy. Dalaibuyan writes about the cultural framework for civil society in post-communist
Mongolia. He states that in post-communist societies, people are usually not civically engaged
because they are disillusioned about their ability as ordinary citizens to influence policy. He
36
describes the communist-era associations as typically governmental or semi-governmental, and
highly ideological, with semi-compulsory membership and activity. This was true of post-
communist Mongolia at first, however over the years Mongolia became more like a Western
democracy with civil society organizations, big and small, that arise spontaneously and bravely
take on the government. He attributes Mongolia’s difference, in this regard, to certain apolitical
idiosyncrasies, combined (somewhat paradoxically) with their experience as a “state socialist”
country: “Some features of Mongolian society, such as a small population, a tradition of nomadic
culture, and the decades-long experience of state socialism, have accentuated the significance of
social networks in almost every social domain.” (p. 34)
Mongolia has a low rate of membership in formal associations (as opposed to vaguely-
defined social networks). According to the Asian Barometer Survey, approximately one third of
Mongolians identify with a formal association. If membership in political parties is not included
in this statistic, then it is far lower still.
(SEE APPENDIX D)
Next in popularity, behind, political parties, are labor unions, followed by charity organizations.
According to Asia Barometer’s 2009 Survey, only 0.4% of Mongolians associate with a
charity10. Another unpopular option (which overlaps with charity organizations) is community or
residential-based organizations. Only 0.9% of urban Mongolians and 0.4% of the rural
population are estimated to be members of an association of this sort. This compares with 45.8%
in Japan, 13.9% in Thailand, and 3.8% in Taiwan (p. 41).
In general, it seems the political culture of contemporary Mongolia is not on par with the
more effective democracies further east, or even with Thailand, which is a flawed and unstable
10 The 2006 figure was 3.4%. I doubt there was such a drastic change during these three years. A truly accurate statistic would probably be somewhere in between these two.
37
democracy (albeit one with a longer tradition of democracy). However, compared with other
countries that transitioned to democracy around the same time, Mongolia’s democracy is a
shining success story. In explaining the role of civil society in Mongolia’s successful
democratization, informal networks still have not been accounted for. It is, of course, the case in
most cultures that people in the countryside live in close-knit communities, whereas people in
cities are connected by much weaker ties. As a result of these stronger, more “traditional” ties
among the pastoral population, Dalaibuyan writes that “Rural residents have higher levels of
conventional political participation than urban and semi-urban residents.” (p. 48) Mongolia has
four general categories of these networks, all of which are strongest among the pastoral
population: networks based on kinship, those consisting of classmates or alumni, coworkers, and
neg nutgiinhan, or networks consisting of people from the same hometown or region (p. 44).
Not only are herders not usually joining associations, but there is evidence that it is
becoming increasingly hard for them to benefit from “traditional” informal networks as well.
Dalaibuyan writes that these networks are “increasingly getting a ‘monetarized’ character” and
“becoming increasingly less accessible for the economically disadvantaged.” (p. 51) If this venue
for influencing policy is narrowing, and the most hard-off members of the population are being
affected most, then they will need to find other ways of influencing policy.
Activism
What is remarkable is that, for the past 22 years of democracy, civic activity has almost never
degenerated into political violence. This fact attests to the success of Mongolia as a genuine
democracy, probably more so than the effectiveness of elections. One incident in which activism
did become violent was a protest, which spawned a riot, following a general election in 2008.
38
The riot took place at Sukhbaatar Square, in front of the Great State Khural, which has frequently
been the site of demonstrations – most of them nonviolent and perfectly legal. The 2008 riot
lasted two days, leaving five people dead and more than 300 injured. It was in response to
alleged fraud in the election (and probably election results on their own terms), in which the
Mongolian People’s Democratic Party won 47 seats in the Khural, while the opposition
Democratic Party won 26. The riot involved widespread destruction of property including cars
and buildings being set ablaze. Several hundred people were arrested and the government
imposed a state of emergency in the city for four days (BBC News, 2008). This incident has been
the worst instance of political violence of Mongolia’s post-communist political violence; in other
Central Asian countries, political violence tends to be on a much larger scale, to say the least.
There were other incidents in which people pushed the rules. One example is the
grassroots organization Gal Undesten (“Fire Nation.”) Gal Undesten was organized and is led by
herders concerned mostly with environmental problems which they see as a threat. They are
most resentful of the collusion between the government and businesses, particular mining, as
well as the under-enforcement of regulations. Their cause is certainly valid, especially since the
governments’ special relationships with the private sector are often abject corruption and come at
the expense of democracy. However, this particular organization’s means of achieving its goals
are not always valid. Gal Undesten has been active since the late 1990s but their activism has
climaxed, for the time being, in 2013 with protest at Sukhbaatar Square in which protesters were
mounted on their horses. The protest attracted sixteen delegates representing eleven different
NGOs. A total of more than 100 people assembled on horseback in front of the Khural. Many
members of Gal Undesten brought weapons with them – mostly bows and arrows for symbolic
purposes. One member even fired an arrow at the Khural. Ten protesters were apprehended by
39
the police, and six (all middle-aged members of Gal Undesten) were arrested for varying prison
terms. D. Tumurbaatar, who fired the arrow, was arrested for 21 years and six months (Snow,
2014).
As rare as political violence is in modern Mongolia, the nation is humming with political
activity by citizens who play by the rules. The establishment of the democratic system was partly
the result of citizen activism. Most of the struggle, as manifested by demonstrations at
Sukhbaatar Square, occurred in 1990. The best-remembered of these demonstrations was a
hunger strike in which a small group of people with no permit (initially ten, not increasing
tremendously) volunteered to starve themselves, meanwhile thousands of people gathered to
support them. This is not the only time this tactic was used; another hunger strike took place in
April, 1994 to protest the outcome of an election. More generally, since democratization,
Sukhbaatar Square has frequently been the site of demonstrations by even the most marginalized.
Gal Undesten’s protest is one example, which on the surface was ill-fated, but in the following
section we will see some of the positive outcomes that Gal Undesten might have helped bring
about.
Mongolia is not the most cosmopolitan country, and its herders are the least cosmopolitan
among its people. Moreover, Mongolian issues are not the most high-profile in the Western
media. However, there are reasons why Mongolia appeals to ambitious Western altruists.
Mongolia is a relatively safe country with amazing people, and it is an easy country to enter
(many nationalities, such as Americans, do not need a visa). Mongolia also has the advantage
that its problems are simply not as severe as malaria, AIDS, natural disasters, famines and other
third-world problems that are simply too terrible for some Westerners to witness. Unlike a
village that loses half its inhabitants to an earthquake, Mongolia is a place to go to solve
40
problems before they occur. And finally, perhaps most important, Mongolia is a functional a
democracy – Westerners know that they can utilize the government to the peoples’ benefit. Since
herders are more often recognized as the victim than the perpetrator of the nation’s problems,
NGOs in the West that could be helping anyone direct their efforts at this humble demographic
group. For example, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has created the
Green Gold Pasture Ecosystem Management Project to protest pastures from overgrazing, a
problem in which herders are both the perpetrator and the victim. Of course, this project requires
the cooperation of herders. It also requires the cooperation of the government. SDC and other
organizations, domestic and foreign, have created Pasture-User Groups, which Endicott
describes as follows:
Herders at the sum level, in conjunction with local governments enforce sum land-management plans and land use regulations … The central idea behind the PUGs is to reduce conflicts over land rights and to reduce overgrazing, problems relating to unregulated access to pastureland.(p. 156)
For all the reasons that Mongolia is popular among foreign NGOs, its problems do not happen in
complete obscurity. In fact, they probably receive the attention of the Secretary General of the
United Nations, as might be inferred from the series of programs in Mongolia funded by the
Millennium Challenge Account or the World Bank (Endicott lists several).
To take another example, the Open Society Forum is an organization based in
Ulaanbaatar. However, the Forum is one of many Open Society Foundations, all of which were
the initiative of the Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros. On the English version of
the website it says:
The Open Society Forum supports and prioritizes activities such as monitoring elections, expanding access to justice, promoting transparency in natural resource revenues, and increasing citizen oversight of government budgets and expenditures. We address the issues that arise from Mongolia’s abundant mineral
41
wealth by acting as an advocate for transparent and fair management of the country’s natural resources. We also support broader public monitoring of other national fiscal policies and budget processes.
Like the Pasture-User Groups, the Open Society Initiative aims to solve problems by engaging
the people in the political processes.
One final point should be made. Mongolia is not a country with much of a politically-
active population via the internet. This is true despite having no internet restrictions (Deibert). As
I mentioned in Section I, approximately 11% of Mongolia’s population consider themselves
internet users according to the CIA World Factbook. The website visualizing.info estimates that
Mongolia has only 547,160 Facebook users, or approximately 17.7% of its population (and
153.9% of its online population). This figure is curiously low for a country as democratic as
Mongolia; in Saudi Arabia Facebook users comprise 21% of the population. In Iran, which has
heavy internet restrictions, internet activism debunked an entire election. I am not able to find
statistics on users of Twitter or other websites that can be used to politically empower citizens.
The absence of this information is unfortunate because Twitter seems to have more potential than
Facebook for this purpose.
42
CONCLUSION
The question I set out to answer was limited in scope. I investigated the level of representation
that herders, and others representing their interests, receive in the government, as well as the
degree to which they are trying to influence the government beyond the most elementary forms
of civic participation (voting and running for office). Given the conservative nature of this
question, I am not prepared to make any claims about the level of influence that herders receive
in government, or what policies are attributable to them.
I chose herders as the focal point for this study of Mongolian democracy because they
have some particular insights and interests, making their contribution to the political scene
valuable in a unique way. I was most concerned with the environmental problems – attributable
to them or not – that herders notice more than anyone else and might need to worry about more
than others. One regard in which this paper was a test of Mongolia’s democracy is that herders,
seeking environmental protection policies, are fighting against powerful industrial industries.
Mongolia is a successful democracy, especially compared to other post-communist
countries in Central Asia. However, people disagree as to precisely how democratic the country
is, and measurements of Mongolian democracy vary widely. Mongolia still has a very high
voter-turnout rate, at 65%, however voter turnout was at approximately 100% when the
democratic system began in 1992. Although are some politicians or ex-politicians, (such as the
president) come from families of herders, they are not many. However, there are many people in
government (whom I have taken to calling “proxies” of herders) who stand up for the interests of
herders but do not come from a herding background. These people include the Original Thirteen.
The Democratic Party, which is currently in power in both the executive and the legislature, is
43
most friendly to the interests of the herders, although possibly because of the prominent
individuals within it rather than party ideology.
Like other post-communist countries, Mongolia has not developed much of a civil
society. People, especially in the countryside, are connected to others in “informal” networks of
family, neighbors, etc., however they are not likely to form associations that are the backbone of
democracy. Nonetheless, despite the failure to form a vibrant civil society, many the people –
especially the pastoral population – have become politically active. They are organizing and
participating in protests, forming NGOs, and getting involved with foreign NGOs. Internet
activism has not become a significant factor in Mongolia when compared with other
democracies, and even some highly repressive regimes such as Iran. Another limitation of this
study is that I cannot determine just how many or what proportion of Mongolia’s herders are
involved in all this activism. I can that people from all strata of society are standing up to the
government, the government is responding benevolently (if not necessarily receptively). In
addition, Mongolia has seen very little of the political violence in other countries transitioning to
democracy. In this way, the people have tested the country’s democracy, and it has withstood the
test.
44
APPENDIX
Table 1.1
TOTAL INVESTMENT BY COUNTRY, $1000COUTNRY % TOTAL INVESTMENT TOTAL, $1000China 31.71 3,650,996.96Netherlands 23.16 2,667,036.01Luxembourg 9.01 1,037,196.26UK Virgin Islands 7.48 861,441.27Singapore 5.45 627,075.05Canada 4.23 487,595.94South Korea 2.93 337,736.42USA 2.54 292,657.89Hong Kong SAR 1.8 207,007.21Japan 1.6 184,752.21
(2013 Investment Climate Statement)
45
APPENDIX B
Table 1.2
TOTAL INVESTMETNT IN MONGOLIA BY CORPORATE ENTITY, 2010 FDI
(2013 Investment Climate Statement)
APPENDIX C
46
Entity Equity Foreign Domestic Sectors CountriesOyutolgoi 65,005,920 65,005,913 Geological prospecting
and explorationNetherlands-Mongolia
MD Securities 43,603,000 43,500,000 Trade and catering service
UK Virgin Islands
MCS Mining 25,100,000 25,000,000 Geological prospecting and exploration
Singapore
HSBC 10,000,000 9,990,000 Others South KoreaWagner Asia Leasing 9,890,224 9,890,224 Trade and catering
serviceUSA
Seoul Senior Tower 7,840,000 7,140,000 Health and beauty services
South Korea
Khan Bank 20,599,356 7,073,699 3,393,576 Bank and financial services
USA-China/Hong Kong/Japan-Mongolia
Gyantbaylag 7,000,000 7,000,000 Geological prospecting and exploration
UK Virgin Islands
Globalcom 4,500,000 4,500,000 Trade and catering service
UK Virgin Islands
Louis Vuitton Mongolia LLC
6,000,000 4,000,000 Trade and catering service
France
Credit Bank 9,585,108 3,900,686 Bank and financial services
Cyprus
MSC Asia Pacific 15,000,000 3,850,000 3,150,000 Production of foods and beverages
Singapore-Mongolia
Shangri-La Ulaanbaatar Hotel
10,000,000 3,820,000 Trade and catering service
UK Virgin Islands
EAM Bayan-Ulgii 3,548,107 3,538,107 Geological prospecting and exploration
Canada
Handy Soft Rich 3,000,000 2,900,000 Trade and catering service
South Korea
Tethys Mining 26,992,495 2,793,974 Geological prospecting and exploration
Switzerland
Big Mogul Coal and Energy
4,627,722 2,776,633 1,851,089 Geological prospecting and exploration
Luxembourg-Mongolia
Hong Kong Sunkfa Group Mongol
1,600,000 1,600,000 Transportation China-China/Hong Kong
EAM Exploration 1,511,710 1,501,710 Geological prospecting and exploration
Canada
Santanmores 5,300,000 1,500,000 Geological prospecting and exploration
South Korea
Table 2.1
TOTAL LIVESTOCK IN MONGOLIA, 2011
ANIMAL
TOTAL, 1000
HORSES 2093CATTLE 2315.1CAMELS 279.6SHEEP 15509.1GOATS 13883.2
(InfoMongolia)
47
APPENDIX D
Table 3.1
ASSOCIATIONAL MEMBERSHIP IN MONGOLIA, %
(Dalaibuyan)
48
Type of AssociationSurvey year2006 2009
Political parties 22. 16.4Labor unions 3.6 4.5Charity organizations 3.4 0.4Occupational/professional associations
2.9 2.1
Business-related associations
2.2 1.5
Sports/leisure organizations
1.1 1.1
Religious organizations 0.7 1.4Parent-teacher associations
0.8 1.1
Resident/community organizations
0.6 0.9
Interest groups/organizations
1.6 1.4
Other organizations 2.4 2.5Not a member of any organization
67.5 73.2
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