A Thousand Steps to Parliament traces how the complicated, contradictory paths to political representation that women in Mongolia must walk mirror those the world over.
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 that Manduhai Buyandelger terms “electionization”—a restructuring of elections from time-grounded events into a continuous, neoliberal force that governs everyday life beyond the electoral period. In A Thousand Steps to Parliament, she shows how campaigns in Mongolia have come to substitute for the functions of governing, from social welfare to the private sector. Such long-term, high-investment campaigns depend on an accumulation of wealth and power beyond the reach of most women candidates. Given their limited financial means and outsider status, successful women candidates instead use strategies of self-polishing to cultivate charisma and a reputation for being oyunlag, or intellectful. This carefully and intentionally crafted identity can be called the “electable self”: treating their bodies and minds as pliable and renewable, women candidates draw from the same practices of neoliberalism that have unsustainably commercialized elections. A Thousand Steps to Parliament traces how 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.
By:
Manduhai Buyandelger
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 23mm
Weight: 513g
ISBN: 9780226818726
ISBN 10: 0226818721
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 23 November 2022
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Abbreviations and Acronyms Note on Translation and Transliteration Preface: Hillary Clinton in Mongolia Introduction: Electable Selves—“Every Woman for Herself!” Decision Events A Thousand Steps Electable Selves Electionization Feminisms and “Women in Politics” On Research Two Unique Elections Chapter Outline 1. Legacies: Gender and Feminist Politics under State Socialism Fluent in Public Undisclosed Agents Women in Presocialist Mongolia (pre-1921) A Department of One’s Own (1924–32) Restrategizing: From Propaganda to Workforce (1932–59) The Power of Transnational Feminism (1959–70) Women’s Well-being and Advancing in Leadership (1960s–1990) Conclusion: The Power of Abstract Principles 2. Electionization: Governing and the New Economies of Democratization The Euphoric Country Short Histories of Electionization Candidates: More Winners than Seats Voters: Expect Actions, Not Promises New Electoral Economies: Giggers and Election Experts The Ones Who Do Not Care: Subjectivities and “Social Songs” Power-holders and Campaign Promises Conclusion: Governing the Political Time 3. SurFaces: Campaigns and the Interdependence of Gender and Politics The (in)Substance of an Epoch The Surreal Ecology of Campaign Media The Magnitude: Why So Many? Enfacement: Dull Images and Risk-Takers Deep Surfaces The Honest Gender The Civic Defense Expanding the Surface Conclusion: Triangulation of Images 4. The Backstage: Inside (Pre)-Campaigning Strategies A New Candidate: Beyond Gender Made with Politics Strategies and Tactics Affective Strategies: Knowledge Work, Night Work, Drink Work Architectural Strategies: The Fight to Get a Constituency A Panoptic Practice: Building the Base and Capital Resorting to Tactics: Internal Competition and Debasing In Someone’s Territory: Watching Campaigning as Governing Conclusion: Electionization as Force 5. Intellectful: Women against Commercialized Campaigns The Silken Intellect Pulling the Plug on Campaigning The Charisma of the Oyunlag An Intellectful Celebrity: Funding with a Novel Campaigning with Symbolic Capital: The New Oyunlag in Politics Social Circles versus Assemblages Gatherers, Warmer-Uppers, and Movers Financing: The Guide against Chaos From Revealing the Fraud of 2008 to the 2012 Election Conclusion: Oyunlag as a Disruptive Force 6. Self-Polishing: Styling the Candidate from Inside and Outside A Makeover The Benders of Neoliberalism Super Secretaries and Parliamentary Candidates Electability as a Shifting Target Self-Polishing: Change Yourself, Change Your Home, and then Change Your Country Self-Styling: Power Suits and Updated Deel Zanaa and the Up-to-date Deel Inner Cultivation: Care of a Candidate Conclusion: Beauty as a Political Project Conclusion: The Glass Ceiling as a Looking Glass Acknowledgments Notes References Index
Manduhai Buyandelger is professor of anthropology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of Tragic Spirits, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Reviews for A Thousand Steps to Parliament: Constructing Electable Women in Mongolia
"""By tracing the intricate and precarious paths to representation that women in politics in Mongolia must walk, A Thousand Steps to Parliament re-invents what it means to be a democracy in post-socialist contexts, dealing with a critical need to grapple with the loose ends of neoliberalism in our global political systems."" * Inner Asia * “A Thousand Steps to Parliament is exemplary of political anthropology at its best. Using fine-grained ethnography, detailed historiography, and compelling prose, Buyandelger demonstrates the ways in which elections are so much more than technical exercises. The result is a wholly original and completely convincing analysis of electoral politics and the making of women’s electable selves. Buyandelger gifts us a set of concepts and methods for understanding postsocialist democracy that couldn't be more timely.” * Jessica Greenberg, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign * “In her splendid book, Buyandelger covers a wide range of subjects that are altogether fresh and new in the context of the English-language literature on Mongolia. With clear, concise language, she conveys new information about the actual practice of politics in Mongolia while also illuminating the actuality of gender politics—hitherto little studied with such attention and nuance.” * Caroline Humphrey, University of Cambridge *"
