- 期刊
- OpenAccess
Curbing the Resource Curse Mongolian Democracy's Associational Ally
摘要
Mongolia has had an unbroken record of democratic rule for a quarter of a century, but natural resources loom to curse its promising political pathway. Natural resources have cursed more than a handful of fledgling democracies in the post-Cold War era, but not Mongolia. Despite neighboring China and Russia's unquenchable thirst for exploitable resources, democracy remains the only game in town in Mongolia. Abundant scholarship on the resource curse says surprisingly little about factors that condition low-income democracies' drowning in resource affluence. This essay argues that Mongolia sustains democracy thanks to at least one political-institutional factor: a vigorous civil society that perseveringly checks and monitors state power, pushes back against powerful economic interests, articulates and presses social demands of underprivileged groups in society, and, not least, aids the state. The analysis shows the variety of weapons that civil society uses to champion an open polity, keep citizens on notice, and tie the hands of powerful economic interests. Skillfully applying these means, civil society has been key to making Mongolia punch above its weight politically, economically, and in terms of social welfare provision for a quarter of a century.