A Thousand Steps to Parliament

"Mongolia has often been deemed an "island of democracy," commended for its rapid adoption of free democratic elections in the wake of totalitarian socialism. The democratizing era, however, brought alongside it a phenomenon Manduhai Buyandelger here terms "electionization"-a restructuring of elections from time-grounded events into a continuous, neoliberal force that governs everyday life beyond the electoral period. Campaigns have come to substitute for the functions of governing, from social welfare to the private sector. Such long-term, high-investment campaigns depend on significant wealth and the accumulation of power; newcomers, including women candidates, almost need not apply. Given their limited financial means and outsider status, successful women candidates must rely on creative campaigning. They commit to strategies of self-polishing to cultivate charisma and a reputation for being oyunlag, or intellectful. This version of one's identity, carefully and intentionally crafted, can be called the "electable self." It can also be called a "neoliberal self": treating their bodies and minds as infinite, pliable, and renewable, women candidates draw from the same practices of neoliberalism that have unsustainably commercialized elections. The complicated, contradictory paths to representation that women in Mongolia must walk mirror those the world over, revealing an urgent need to grapple with the encroaching effects of neoliberalism in democracies globally"--