Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name:Usukhbayar Vaanchig
Author-Workplace-Name:School of Economics and Business, Ulaanbaatar Erdem University, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Author-Name: Chimgee Dari
Author-Workplace-Name:School of Engineering and Environment, Ulaanbaatar Erdem University, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Author-Name: Oyuntungalag Buyantur 
Author-Workplace-Name:School of Management, Mongolian University of Science and Technology, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Title:From Consultation to Contention: Institutional Feedback Gaps, Social Capital, and the Decoupling of Citizen Voice in Mongolia's South Gobi
Abstract:Mining conflict is usually recorded when disagreement becomes visible, and participation is the standard instrument for preventing it. Yet consultation and conflict frequently coexist. This study locates the mechanism in what happens after people speak, defining an institutional feedback gap as a condition in which opportunities for voice are not reliably connected to reasoned response, corrective action and communication of the outcome. The design is a convergent mixed-methods embedded case study of one South Gobi province combining three strands: the six statutory provisions naming a party to mining consultation; a survey of 244 herding households recording which of four participation positions each occupies, modelled as a three-stage cascade by continuation-ratio logistic regression with Firth penalization; and a comparative analysis of 150 participants yielding three grievance-response configurations, defined by institutional process rather than by locality. The strands converge. An occasion to speak arose for 82.0% of surveyed households, 57.5% of those spoke, and 13.9% of those were answered. Individual resources, engagement and associational infrastructure predict position at no stage; perceived company openness raises passage at every gate by 9.6 to 17.3 percentage points without stage-specificity, while perceived state responsiveness is inert at the first two gates and decisive at the last, at 15.0 percentage points. The statutory strand shows why: provisions creating access are permissive, those touching the decision are state-held and set no binding standard, and one deems failure to respond an approval. Bonding, bridging and linking ties determine whether voice reaches authority, not whether it is answered.
Keywords:Mining Conflict, Institutional Feedback Gap, Social Capital, Citizen Participation, Means–Ends Decoupling, Grievance Mechanisms, Pastoralism, Mongolia
Journal: Journal of Scientific Reports
Pages:213-235
Volume: 15
Issue: 1
Year: 2026
DOI:10.58970/JSR.1248
File-URL: https://ijsab.com/wp-content/uploads/1248.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
File-URL: https://www.ijsab.com/jsr-volume-15-issue-1/9245
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:aif:report:v:15:y:2026:i:1:p:213-235