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Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists

Online ISBN:
9780520938625
Print ISBN:
9780520243996
Publisher:
University of California Press
Book

Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists

Published online:
22 March 2012
Published in print:
25 April 2005
Online ISBN:
9780520938625
Print ISBN:
9780520243996
Publisher:
University of California Press

Abstract

Land-locked between its giant neighbors, Russia and China, Mongolia was the first Asian country to adopt communism and the first to abandon it. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, Mongolia turned to international financial agencies — including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank — for help in compensating for the economic changes caused by disruptions in the communist world. This book explores the effects of the withdrawal of Soviet assistance, the role of international financial agencies in supporting a pure market economy, and the ways that new policies have led to greater political freedom but also to unemployment, poverty, increasingly inequitable distribution of income, and deterioration in the education, health, and well-being of Mongolian society. This book demonstrates that the agencies providing grants and loans insisted on Mongolia's adherence to a set of policies that did not generally take into account the country's unique heritage and society. As the text details this painful transition from a collective to a capitalist economy, it also analyzes the cultural effects of the sudden opening of Mongolia to democracy. It looks at the broader implications of Mongolia's international situation and considers its future, particularly in relation to China.

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