Nationalism, Exclusivism, and PurismAn Analytical Description of National Identity in

MongoliaXVIII ISA World Congress

of SociologyRC05 “Challenges of

Ethnicity & Nationalism in the Asia Pacific

Region”Pacifico Yokohama

19/VII/2014

Kunio Minato (Ritsumeikan University,

Kyoto, Japan)minato920@gmail.com

Introduction• In recent years, Mongolia has witnessed the rise of

ultranationalists and even neo-Nazis• Their campaigns pillory foreigners (esp. Chinese),

foreign enterprises, and even their fellow citizens as threats to the “purity” of the nation, and are often accompanied by vandalism and violence (Branigan, 2010; Hogg, 2010; Graaf, 2012)

• Although some groups declared “change of tactics”, (Barria, 2013) whether their violent stance and actions were discarded is very doubtful (Barria, 2013; Land, 2013)

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Aspiration of “Purism” (1)

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• Saving “purity of blood” is a justification claimed by ultranationalists

Ex. “Our greatest threat is blood-mixing. Our women going out with foreign men for their money - that is unacceptable. There is a saying that goes, ‘if your women are impure, your country is done for.’” (A member of an ultranationalist group in Graaf, 2012)

“We have to make sure that as a nation our blood is pure. That‘s about our independence” (A Mongolian young man in his twenty, in Branigan, 2010)

Aspiration of “Purism” (2)

• Foreign cultures are also under attackEx. Call for protest against Korean serial dramas (Enkh,

2014)Ex. A statement made by the member referred in Graaf

(2012): “The Koreans flood us with their soap operas. They use them to make Korea seem attractive, so that our men will go over there to work. They try to convince our women that Korean men are good catches”

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Research Question (1)

“Does aspiration of ‘purity’ gain popularity?”• Some argue that those groups don’t represent

majority of the Mongolians (Wang and Chang, 2010; Barria, 2013)

• Others point out that prejudice to foreign people or resentment toward China is not uncommon (Graaf, 2012; Branigan, 2010)

• However, those arguments have insufficient empirical groundings

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Question (2)“Who is more/less likely to have purist

tendency?”• Existing reports describe individual member of

ultranationalist group, but give almost no illustration of tendency of the members

• There is no study regarding who are more/less inclined to harbor purist aspiration

• Existing academic works on Mongolian nationalism do not focus on people’s attitude

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Data for Analysis• The Second Wave and the Third Wave data of the

Asian Barometer Survey (ABS) is used for analyses• ABS is a cross-national survey in East and Southeast

Asia with focus on politics and democracy• Currently ABS2 data of 13 countries (Japan, Hong

Kong, South Korea, China, Mongolia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia) are released

• ABS3 data of 9 countries (South Korea, Mongolia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia) are available

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Surveys in Mongolia• The Second Wave (ABS2) was conducted in

Mongolia• The Third Wave (ABS3) was conducted in

Mongolia in 2010• Respondents were chosen through nationwide

and multi-stage random sampling method• 1,211 valid responses in ABS2 and 1,210 in

ABS3 were collected through face-to-face interviews

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Questions in Focus• Answers to the four question items below will

be analyzeda. Our country should defend our way of life instead of

becoming more and more like other countries purismb. A citizen should always remain loyal only to his country, no

matter how imperfect it is or what wrong it has done unconditional loyaltyc. How proud are you to be a citizen of [COUNTRY]? national prided. Given the chance, how willing would you be to go and live in

another country? desire of emigration

• The statement “a” is paid special attention9

Distribution in Mongolia

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Cross-national Comparison (ABS2)

• Percentage of “strongly agree” is exceptionally high11

Cross-national Comparison (ABS3)

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• Percentage of “strongly agree” shrank but remains relatively high

Multivariable Regression (ABS2)

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*** p < .001, ** p < .01, * p < .05. Dotted lines show significant relation at 10% level.

Multivariable Regression (ABS3)

14*** p < .001, ** p < .01, * p < .05. Dotted lines show significant relation at 10% level.

The Result Shows … Q1 A1 Aspiration of “purity” is likely to be accepted by majority of the Mongolians• Majority of respondents strongly agree to “defend

our way of life”

Q2 A2 Causality between purist view and other variables are unstable:• No socio-demographic background variable has

significant effect on “purism” in both data• At the same time, the view had positive relations to

loyalty to the nation and national pride in both data15

Limitations and Future Tasks• The Mongolians’ attitude toward more detailed

aspects of purism (ex. purity of blood, culture, language etc.) remain to be explored, due to the restriction of data

• In order to conduct time-series comparison, some variables were omitted which were included only either wave of the survey

• Further analyses regardless of intertemporal comparability will be useful

• Studies based on other methodology (ex. interview, text analyses, etc.) will also be necessary

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Appendix: Comparison of Exclusivism with Post-Socialist Countries

• Life in Transition Survey II (LiTSII) will be used for analyses

• LiTSII is the second survey designed and conducted by the European Bank of Resurrection and Development

• The survey was conducted in former socialist countries (except Turkmenistan) and some other European countries in 2010

• Respondents in Mongolia are 1,000 people aged 18 or over, selected through multi-stage random sampling method

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Questions in Focus• q3.17: To what extent do you agree with the

following statements?a. People from other ethnic groups are enriching the cultural life

of our countryb. The presence of people from other ethnic groups is a cause of

insecurityc. The presence of people from other ethnic groups increases

unemployment)

• q. 3.33: On this list are various groups of people. Could you please mention any that you would not like to have as neighbors? Please just read out the letter that applies. (Multiple answers)

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Result of q3.17 in Mongolia

• Majority of the Mongolians hold negative attitude toward people from different ethnic groups

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Result of q3.33 in Mongolia

• “Selected” in the four items on different culture does not gain a majority, but is higher than many other items

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Cross-national Comparison

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• Relatively large number of respondents show negative attitude toward people from different ethnic groups or those with different culture

Selected Not SelectedYes Neither No 1 Armenia (N=1000) 32.3 67.7

25 Azerbaijan (N=822) 31.1% 22.7% 46.1% 2 Moldova (N=1043) 31.5 68.526 Bulgaria (N=890) 30.8% 34.7% 34.5% 3 Azerbaijan (N=1002) 27.2 72.927 Armenia (N=762) 25.7% 20.7% 53.5% 4 Czech Republic (N=1007) 23.7 76.3

28 Mongolia (N=784) 25.6% 18.5% 55.9% 5 Mongolia (N=1000) 23.6 76.429 Czech Republic (N=980) 20.1% 36.8% 43.1% 6 Tajikistan (N=1007) 21.5 78.6

43.1% 29.2% 27.7% 15.1 85.0Selected Not Selected

Yes Neither No 1 Mongolia (N=1000) 31.3 68.71 Mongolia (N=814) 69.0% 12.8% 18.2% 2 Russia (N=1581) 28.8 71.22 Czech Republic (N=988) 53.1% 25.6% 21.3% 3 Czech Republic (N=1007) 27.4 72.63 Russia (N=1424) 51.8% 22.8% 25.4% 4 Moldova (N=1043) 24.3 75.74 Hungary (N=992) 44.1% 32.4% 23.6% 5 Hungary (N=1040) 24.0 76.05 Bulgaria (N=889) 38.8% 32.8% 28.3% 6 Estonia (N=1001) 23.6 76.4

32.2% 31.7% 36.1% 16.3 84.0Selected Not selected

Yes Neither No 1 Moldova (N=1043) 30.6 69.41 Mongolia (N=842) 75.7% 15.0% 9.4% 2 Armenia (N=1000) 27.8 72.22 Czech Republic (N=986) 64.0% 24.7% 11.3% 3 Tajikistan (N=1007) 26.3 73.73 Russia (N=1443) 60.1% 21.1% 18.8% 4 Azerbaijan (N=1002) 24.3 75.84 Hungary (N=994) 57.8% 25.9% 16.3% 5 Kyrgyzstan (N=1014) 22.7 77.35 Georgia (N=860) 48.7% 24.4% 26.9% 6 Mongolia (N=1000) 17.6 82.4

39.1% 29.1% 31.8% 10.5 89.5Selected Not Selected

1 Moldova (N=1043) 22.7 77.32 Mongolia (N=1000) 17.5 82.53 Kosovo (N=1091) 13.4 86.64 Kyrgyzstan (N=1014) 12.7 87.35 Russia (N=1581) 11.1 88.96 Czech Republic (N=1007) 9.2 90.8

6.9 93.1Total (N=32243)

Different religion

Total (N=32243)Different language

Total (N=28295)

Total (N=34338)

Increases unemployment

Different race

Immigrants / Foreign workersTotal (N=32243)

Total (N=32243)Total (N=34379)

Cause of insecurity

Enriching the cultural life of our country

Note: “Strongly agree” and “Agree” is put together into “Yes.” “Strongly disagree” and “Disagree” is merged into “No.”

Acknowledgement• Data analyzed in this paper were collected by the Asian

Barometer Project (2005-2008 and 2010-2012), which was co-directed by Professors Fu Hu and Yun-han Chu and received major funding support from Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University. The Asian Barometer Project Office (www.asianbarometer.org) is solely responsible for the data distribution. The author appreciates the assistance in providing data by the institutes and individuals aforementioned. The views expressed herein are the author's own.

• This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 25870905.

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ReferencesAsian Barometer Project. (n.d.a). Asian Barometer wave 2 data [data file and technical reports].

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