Networks and the negotiation of risk: making business deals and people among Mongolian small and medium businesses

Abstract

This article identifies relationships that dominate small and medium businesses in Mongolia. Unlike other parts of Asia, these relationships are not necessarily hierarchical, nor are they purely market-driven. Rather, they are characterized by groups of people who sustain each other's businesses and the social relations that hold them in place. In identifying such relations, we extend questions raised in the 'economy of favours' literature. If favours granted between known individuals are not simply about economic transactions, we ask, then what does this say about the kind of capitalist economy prevalent in Mongolia? Not simply an outcome of external forms of financialization, nor a remnant of the socialist planned economy, these relations open up the possibility for a range of ways of doing business in a climate that does not guarantee economic and social security in the sense that we may be familiar with. Attending to the way business deals and people are made and remade within networks and groups, capitalism is opened up to an economic diversity that shapes it from within.

Subjective Lives and Economic Transformations in Mongolia

“…The prevalence of this relationship across multiple scales has been explored in my previous work , and I believe this sense of proportionality (of a share to a whole) can also be seen to underpin many present-day Mongolian economic transactions and relations (cf. also Chuluunbat and Empson 2018).…”

“…has highlighted, there exists, for many, the counter-intuitive situation that one 'has to [engage in alternative activities, which may appear from the outside as "corrupt"] in order to appear to follow the rules'. Auditing, for example, can be carried out through the purchase of a stamp rather than through the scrutiny of accounts; 70 per cent of state pensions are used as collateral to access loans to pay off debts; and goods and services are retained within networks and groups that share and distribute financial burdens and apply for funding as one company rather than as conglomerates (see Chuluunbat and Empson 2018). Through such practices, and many more, the surface appears to function in the way intended, but underneath things are different.…”

“…It was obvious that many ordinary people had a sense of opportunity. Juggling several different business ventures and projects allowed a hedging of bets and provided a kind of insurance against failure (see Chuluunbat and Empson 2018).…”

“…These two areas of focus have illuminated two distinct temporalities: one, goal-oriented and singular, but never occurring in the way it is imagined (the party business based on formal loans); the other, fluid and changing, and often used as a way to critique the first. Here innovation emerges from working within existing structural logics, based on personal loans and counter-loans through individuals held in a network, and sharing portions out among a group of people who hold each other in place through facilitating each other's projects (see Chuluunbat and Empson 2018). Although defenders (of performativity) might say that these visions do structure action, recent critiques of performative economics have shown that these are never seamless processes; there is always a slippage, or gap, between the future imagined and the experience of that future.…”

State, Popular Mobilisation and Gold Mining in Mongolia

“…To conclude, the ethnographic material in this chapter allows one to understand agency within the management of small-and medium-scale gold mining companies. To understand small-and medium-scale gold mining companies and their operations in Mongolia, one has to focus on the individual agent or agents who own and manage the company or companies in collaboration (for the same situation of other small and medium businesses in Mongolia see also Chuluunbat and Empson 2018). Although as a mining company Batbaatar owns Uuls Zaamar, and this is the company that officially holds the mining licence, family members who own other companies share different duties and operations of Uuls Zaamar.…”