Author Archives: JDierkes

About JDierkes

Research on Mongolia for over 20 years, particular focus on mining policy and democratization. Princeton-trained sociologist. Dean, School of Social Sciences, Univ of Mannheim.

More on Oyun-Erdene’s Cabinet

By Julian Dierkes and Bulgan B Marissa Smith has already provided an overview of the new cabinet. Here, we’re adding some more information in cabinet members as we had done for previous cabinets. (new cabinet members in bold, if no … Continue reading

Posted in Democratic Party, Government, Ikh Khural 2024, KhUN, Mongolian People's Party, Party Politics, Politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Guest Comment: Mongolia’s Democratic Party Gambit into Government

By Sugar Munkhtsooj The Mongolian parliamentary elections of 2024, the first since constitutional amendments increased the number of parliamentarians from 76 to 126, concluded in June with results that largely aligned with predictions from pundits and pollsters. As expected, the … Continue reading

Posted in Democratic Party, Government, Ikh Khural 2024, Party Politics, Politics, Sugar Munkhtsooj | Leave a comment

CWGP and National Coalition Results

By Julian Dierkes Beyond the DP’s success, the second great surprise (to me) of the election results was that the Civil Will Green Party re-entered parliament with four seats and the National Coalition gained four seats on its first attempt. … Continue reading

Posted in Civil Will Green Party, Elections, Ikh Khural 2024, National Coalition, Party Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Guest Post: A free but not a Fair Election: It Was All About Money

By Bat-Orgil Altankhuyag, Batkhishig Gankhuyag Mongolia recently conducted its tenth competitive election since 1990 in June 2024 (the first multi-party elections). In general, various electoral observation reports, including the one conducted by OSCE-ODIHR, suggest that the 2024 parliamentary election was … Continue reading

Posted in Bat-Orgil Altankhuyag, Batkhishig Gankhuyag, Civil Will Green Party, Democratic Party, Elections, Governance, Ikh Khural 2024, KhUN, Mongolian People's Party, National Coalition, Party Politics, Politics | Leave a comment

Observing Election Day: Bulgan and Orkhon Aimags

By Julian Dierkes During the five days leading up to the election we had driven through Tov, Arkhangai and Khuvsgul, visiting polling stations and campaign offices along the way. We have reflected on the election preparations we saw during these … Continue reading

Posted in Countryside, Elections, Ikh Khural 2024, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Guest Post: Mutton and Mahogany: Mongolia’s 62-year Friendship with Laos Continues

By Benjamin Nuland On June 11th 2024, Mongolia welcomed the Laotian president to Sukhbaatar Square for the first time since 2007. Thongloun Sisoulith’s arrival celebrated a 62-year long friendship between Laos and Mongolia and decades of goodwill. In the 1980s … Continue reading

Posted in ASEAN, Benjamin Nuland, Diversification, Foreign Investment, Foreign Policy, Laos, Mongolia and ..., Policy | Leave a comment

New to Ulaanbaatar June-July 2024

By Julian Dierkes I’ve been keeping lists of things that are arriving to/disappearing from central Ulaanbaatar: August 2023 | May 2023 | November 2022 | August 2022 | December 2019 | June 2019 | April 2019 | December 2018 | August 2018 | October 2017 | June 2017 | May 2016 | December 2015 | May … Continue reading

Posted in Change, Curios, Ulaanbaatar | Tagged | 1 Comment

Double Deel Direct

By Julian Dierkes As Bulgan B recently pointed out to me, every member of PM Oyun-Erdene’s new cabinet is an MP! Maybe not surprising for many parliamentary democracies, but this has been a lingering topic of discussion for many years. … Continue reading

Posted in Governance, Government, Ikh Khural 2024, JD Democratization, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Guest Post: The Thunder Dragon Arrives on Dragon Year: Mongolia and Bhutan Are Just Getting Started

By Benjamin Nuland If I could give an award for Mongolia’s ‘most underestimated relationship’, it must be that with Bhutan. Mongolia’s relationship with Democratic Bhutan began on January 18, 2012, when UN representatives of both nations mutually signed letters of … Continue reading

Posted in ASEAN, Benjamin Nuland, Food, Foreign Policy, Mongolia and ..., Trade | Leave a comment

DP Results

By Julian Dierkes To me, the success of the DP was one of the surprises of the June 28 election. To my surprise, the DP soared to claim one third of seats in #Mongolia parliament. mongoliafocus.com/202… #Сонгууль2024 #Сонгууль #MGLpoli [image … Continue reading

Posted in Democratic Party, Ikh Khural 2024, Party Politics, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

New City Park

By Julian Dierkes I have mentioned the increase of green space several times in my notes about how Ulaanbaatar is changing. One big new development is the opening of the large park that is South of the Shangri-la Hotel and … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Change, City Planning, Heritage, Ulaanbaatar | Tagged | Leave a comment

Preparing an Election

By Benjamin Nuland and Julian Dierkes Leading up to the election on June 28th, 2024, we traveled as international election observers through Arkhangai, Khuvsgul, Bulgan and Orkhon aimags to observe the preparations for the election and the election campaign. We … Continue reading

Posted in Benjamin Nuland, Democracy, Elections, Ikh Khural 2024 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Guest Post: Voter Participation

By Benjamin Nuland Working as an official foreign observer team with Marissa Smith, I visited nine different polling stations across all six of the urban bags of Erdenet on election day (including polling stations at schools attended by Ukrainian President … Continue reading

Posted in Benjamin Nuland, Elections, Ikh Khural 2024 | Leave a comment

Quick Overview of Election Results

By Julian Dierkes After this morning’s very hot takes, I want to offer a slightly expanded summary of the results of the parliamentary election. For those of you wanting to look at various aspects directly, the Ikon.mn website is my … Continue reading

Posted in Civil Will Green Party, Democratic Party, Elections, Ikh Khural 2024, KhUN, Mongolian People's Party, National Coalition, Party Politics, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Election Hot Take: Change but not Quite

By Julian Dierkes Everything points to a reduced MPP majority with a surprisingly strong showing by the DP and no major surprises on individual candidates. Mongolian voters have thus opted for personnel change, but even that not quite. There were … Continue reading

Posted in Democratic Party, Elections, Ikh Khural 2024, KhUN, Mongolian People's Party, National Coalition, Party Politics, Politics | Leave a comment