Reclaiming the National Flag: Nationalist Rhetoric and Support for Pro-Democracy Candidates in Mongolia

• In Event: Politics and Society in Contemporary Mongolia

Abstract

Democracy is in decline all over the world. Although the crisis of democracy is relatively recent, explanations are emerging. Many scholars consider changes in structural factors, while others focus on the strategies and actions of actors, particularly anti-democratic elites. In contrast, critical examination of what pro-democracy actors do well and poorly and how their actions affect decline of democracy’s popularity broadly and their own electoral loss more specifically has been scarce. This paper contributes to this limited body of literature. We hypothesize that pro-democracy actors’ failure to embed democratization in a compelling national story contributes to the decline of popular support for democracy as well as to their own electoral struggles. Then we ask—can pro-democracy candidates improve their electoral performance by employing nationalist rhetoric in their campaign language? We answer this question using an online survey experiment in Mongolia. This experiment teases out not only the average effect of nationalist rhetoric on support for candidates, but also examines its heterogeneity across different types of candidates.

Authors

• Steven Fish, UC Berkeley

• Delgerjargal Uvsh, U of Texas at Austin