Category Archives: Countryside

False Dzud Alarms

By Julian Dierkes Periodically, parts of the Mongolian countryside experience heavy snowfall at the end of a long, cold winter. These conditions combine to deny animals access to any kind of grass under the masses of snow when they are … Continue reading

Posted in Countryside, Grassland, Health, Policy | Tagged | 2 Comments

Change in Countryside – October 2017

By Julian Dierkes This is Post #500 for our Blog! What a milestone, we’ll have to commemorate our achievement soon. For some years, I have now taken notes about visible changes in Ulaanbaatar on my periodic visits. This year, I’ve … Continue reading

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Beyond “Populism without Party Platforms”: Mongolians’ Politics Beyond Ulaanbaatar

By Marissa Smith The campaign and election of the rough-voiced businessman-judoka Kh. Battulga to the presidency of Mongolia has elicited comparisons to Donald Trump and gestures to a global wave of “populism” from analysts and commentators, journalistic as well as … Continue reading

Posted in Countryside, Democratic Party, Demography, Elections, Erdenet, Kazakhs, Marissa Smith, Mongolian Diaspora, Mongolian People's Party, Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, Populism, Presidential 2017 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Change in the Countryside – June 2017

By Julian Dierkes For some years, I have now taken notes about visible changes in Ulaanbaatar on my periodic visits. In part this is note-taking for my own self, because there are so many things that I don’t remember already … Continue reading

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Travelling Campaigns

By Julian Dierkes This is the sixth national election campaign that I’m watching on the ground in Mongolia. I have a head full of visual memories, conversations with campaign workers, talks by candidates, and discussions with voters, that get shifted … Continue reading

Posted in Countryside, Elections, Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, Presidential 2017 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Regions, Nutag, & Voter Allegiances in the Presidential Election

By Julian Dierkes One of the interesting potential dynamics of the presidential campaign and election will be the regional distribution of votes among the three candidates. The Regional Strengths of Political Affiliation Conventional wisdom holds that the Mongolian People’s Party … Continue reading

Posted in Countryside, Democratic Party, Elections, JD Democratization, Mongolian People's Party, Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, Party Politics, Politics, Presidential 2017 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Guest Post: Negative Income Tax III – Implementation

By Ulrich Andree Note: This is the third of three articles. For the extended original article see LinkedIn. The first post focused on the concept of a negative income tax, the second, on its (dis)advantages. The Implementation of NIT The implementation of NIT … Continue reading

Posted in Countryside, Demography, Development, Inequality, Public Policy, Public Service, Taxes, Ullrich Andree | Leave a comment

Thoughts and Comments on Organic Mongolia

By Julian Dierkes Early in December a bit of inspiration struck after I had read an ADB blog post and received a lot of responses to a tweet about that post. I wondered aloud whether it would be possible for … Continue reading

Posted in Countryside, Development, Environment, Grassland, Infrastructure, Policy, Public Policy, Regulation, Tourism | Tagged | 3 Comments

What if Mongolia Went All-Organic?

By Julian Dierkes I recently re-tweeted an ADB tweet about one of their blog posts, “The Foreseeable Future of Mongolia’s Agriculture” So important to note that “#Mongolia’s agriculture […] is organic, less polluted” thus huge, high-value potential in East Asia.#yummy … Continue reading

Posted in Cashmere, Countryside, Development, Environment, Grassland, Infrastructure, Policy, Policy, Public Policy, Regulation, Tourism | Tagged | 5 Comments

Navigating by Fibreoptic Cable

[Somehow this post got stuck in the drafts folder on the blog dashboard in July 2013 and lingered there for quite some time until I found it again in summer 2016.] Pardon the very general and somewhat cranky, er, excursion here… … Continue reading

Posted in Countryside, Nomadism, Social Issues, Tourism | Tagged | Leave a comment

Tales of Election Observation

By Julian Dierkes As Mongolia votes today on June 29, I’m feeling a bit left out. I was an election observer in the last four national elections, but am unable to be in Mongolia this time around. Role of Observers … Continue reading

Posted in Civil Society, Countryside, Curios, Elections, Ikh Khural 2016, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Notes on Parliamentary Election Candidates & Races

By Julian Dierkes The official campaign for the June 29 parliamentary election kicked off on June 11. The General Election Commission published the official list of candidates on June 7. I’ve been trying to sort through this list to take note … Continue reading

Posted in Countryside, Ikh Khural 2016, Party Politics, Ulaanbaatar | Tagged | 3 Comments

National Survey of Mongolian Public Opinion

By Bulgan B and Julian Dierkes Just three weeks after Santmaral’s PolitBarometer came out, we have another indicator of Mongolian public opinion, courtesy of IRI with funding from the Canadian government, the “National Survey of Mongolian Public Opinion”. (Full Results … Continue reading

Posted in Aimags, Countryside, Democracy, Democratic Party, Ikh Khural 2016, Media and Press, Mining Governance, Party Politics, Public Opinion, Research on Mongolia, Security Apparatus, Social Issues | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Education about Extractives to Alleviate Poverty

By Julian Dierkes As we continue the “IMAGinE Mongolia” work on drafting a curriculum for providing basic and more advanced knowledge of the extractive sector, there are a number of challenges we’re running into in discussions with colleagues from the … Continue reading

Posted in Aimags, CIRDI, Countryside, Development, JD Mining Governance, Mining, Mining, Mining Governance, Policy, Regulation, Water | Tagged | Leave a comment

Berkeley Conference “Deadly Modernity”

By Julian Dierkes The Mongolia Initiative at UC Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies hosted a conference entitled “Deadly Modernity: The Environmental Crisis Behind Mongolia’s Swift Development” March 10-12, 2016. I don’t think anyone was tweeting from the conference, but … Continue reading

Posted in Air Pollution, Conferences, Countryside, Environment, Environment, Environmental Movements, Grassland, Health, Mining, Nationalism, Policy, Politics, Research on Mongolia, River Movements, Social Movements, Water | Tagged | 1 Comment