Serendipity and stealth, resistance and retribution: Policy development in the Mongolian mining sector

Abstract

The article analyzes a policy development process designed to advance the sustainable development of mining-affected communities in Mongolia and, indirectly, to invigorate debate concerning resource nationalism and community resistance to corporate predation. The policy process arose from a research report on community development agreements whose findings reached interested parties in Mongolia despite the ban placed on them by the donor research sponsor. The findings highlight, first, the lengths to which development assistance will go in its defence of foreign mining interests and the corporate-led assault on the commons; second, the serendipitous and vigorously contested nature of policy development; and third, the swift, variegated, muddled, uncompromising, yet effective, reactions of power to perceived threat. It is argued that Mongolia’s interests will best be served by a strong form of resource nationalism and that its predominantly indigenous population will be crucial to achieving this and to the defence of the commons.