Territorializing national identity in post-socialist Mongolia: purity, authenticity, and Chinggis Khaan

The rebirth of Chinggis Khaan: state appropriation of Chinggis Khaan in post-socialist Mongolia

“…Under Soviet direction and control, Mongolia was transformed from an impoverished pastoral society at the beginning of the twentieth century to a highly ordered and structured society after seven decades. This political, social, spatial, and administrative transformation was more vivid and radical than in many former Soviet sphere countries, especially compared to those countries that had long been settled and urbanized (Myadar and Rae 2014).…”

“…This article critiques the state's appropriation of Chinggis Khaan in reconstructing Mongolia's post-socialist identity and in rewriting its new national ideology. Conceptually, the article argues that national identity is a social construct, produced and mediated to reflect shifting power arrangements and ideological commitments of the state (Myadar and Rae 2014). Following Foucault and others, the article argues that the state functions as an institutional machinery aimed at organizing social domains and disciplining the subjects of the state (Miller, Gordon, and Burchell 1991).…”

“…Mongolia joined the so-called socialist camp in 1921 -becoming the second country to do so, preceded only by the Soviet Union. The national ideological project in the following seven decades largely mirrored the Soviet political blueprint, adopting and replicating various national policies directly from the USSR (Myadar and Rae 2014). Therefore, the collapse of the socialist regimes both in the USSR and Mongolia in the late 1980s and early 1990s undoubtedly marked Mongolia's drastic departure from Soviet ideological constraints.…”

“…As the Soviets left Mongolia both physically and metaphorically, nationalist sentiment immediately began to erupt and has since been fanned by the state (Myadar 2006;Myadar and Rae 2014). This emerging nationalist sentiment served as a "positive discourse which [sought] to replace the structure of colonial power with a new order, that of national power" (Chatterjee 1986, 42, emphasis in original).…”

Contradictions of Populism and Resource Extraction: Examining the Intersection of Resource Nationalism and Accumulation by Dispossession in Mongolia

“…This experience articulates the struggles faced by many developing countries situated along the global core-periphery divide (Holden, Nadeau and Much-needed aid came with the adoption of "shock therapy." Among conditions attached to donor aid, privatization of state properties has been a signature policy restructuring Mongolia's economy, allowing private appropriation of public goods and property (Rossabi 2005;Myadar and Rae 2014). Harvey (2009) calls this the cutting edge of accumulation by dispossession as resources and assets were transferred from state to private hands.…”