Patriots, Pensioners and Ordinary Mongolians: Deregulation and Conspiracy in Mongolia

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Abstract

This article links the heavily deregulated Mongolian post-socialist economy with the emergence of highly patriotic-nationalist movements and narratives of conspiracy and suspicion. It is argued that an extreme alienability of value in the new Mongolian market economy goes hand-in-hand with a nationalist and xenophobic perception of the extreme inalienability of Mongolian values and the Mongolian nation state. This creates a prevalent ‘moral economy’ in which values are radically uncertain, while at the same time fervently protected, and where the extremes of uncertainty/suspicion and certainty, liberal flows and nationalist cuts, co-exist. In this Mongolian moral economy, the middle-ground has thus been marginalised, leaving little room for moderate voices, ambiguity and alternative ‘tempered’ responses, and the jump from one certainty to the next is often as short and hasty as the leap from radical certainty to radical uncertainty and full-blown, all-embracing and endless suspicion.
Original languageEnglish
JournalEthnos
Volume85
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)749-770
Number of pages22
ISSN0014-1844
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

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