Dr. Jennifer Lander- “The State has forgotten its reason for being”? A socio-legal analysis of extractive development and state transformation in Mongolia
June 12, 2019 @ 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
Abstract:
Since the post-socialist transition in the early 1990’s, Mongolia’s mineral wealth has been consistently promoted as the key to the country’s economic development. Over the past twenty-five years, national policy-makers and legislators in Mongolia have sought to create a legal and institutional framework for mining to attract foreign investment, whilst also addressing developmental priorities around national income generation, redistribution, socio-environmental impacts and participatory decision-making for local communities.
This presentation discusses the challenges of this “balancing act” for the democratic state of Mongolia through an overview of key periods of legal and policy change in Mongolia’s mining regime and an analysis of the underlying socio-political catalysts for reform. Overall, I argue that the legal developments associated with Mongolia’s mining regime have a great deal to tell us about the dynamics of national state transformation in the global economy.
About the presenter: Dr. Jennifer Lander
She is Lecturer in Law at De Montfort University of Leicester (UK), where she teaches constitutional law. Her research focuses on the political and legal dynamics of national development in a globalizing economy, with particular interest in understanding new patterns of state formation in frontier economies like Mongolia. Jennifer received her PhD in Law from the University of Warwick (UK) in 2017, and has a background in development studies and international relations. Prior to taking up her lectureship at De Montfort, she held an Early Career Fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Study at Warwick (2017-2018).
She has conducted research in Mongolia since 2012, focusing on the way that social conflict in the mining sector has catalyzed significant changes in national governance. Her forthcoming monograph Transnational Law and State Transformation: The Case of Extractive Development in Mongolia will be published with Routledge in late 2019.
About ACMS:
The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies. The ACMS Speaker Series are organized in partnership with the U.S. Embassy and the Natsagdorj Library and provides an important platform for researchers engaged in Mongolia to share their experiences and findings with the public. The event promotes information exchange on a variety of subjects related to Mongolia and is free and open to the public.
