Public Policy Commons^™

The Price Of Gold: The Environmental Impacts Of Toxic Chemicals In Gold Mining, Adam Goetz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The role of mercury and cyanide in gold mining has become a hot topic in Mongolia in the past few years. In the past few months, the government has launched a crackdown on the illegal use of these chemicals in response to the contamination of Khongor soum’s drinking water which resulted from an illegal mining operation. However, there are many more sites throughout the country that are in need of cleaning as a result of the illegal use of these chemicals by small companies as well as individual miners.

This paper examines the role of a variety of different views …

Democracy On The Steppe: A Search For Active Local Citizenship In Rural Mongolia, Matthew D. Simonson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study seeks to understand how engaged Mongolia’s nomadic herders and other rural citizens are in local decision-making. To do so, we conducted over sixty interviews with rural citizens, local officials, and political experts. We also carried out two page-long written surveys which were filled out by nearly two hundred rural citizens in four provinces. Though many Mongolian political experts tend to dismiss local government as powerless and treat rural citizens as homogenous entity, our research has uncovered a remarkable diversity of opinion and activism at the local level. Through their participation in bag meetings and conversations with local officials, …