Dr Julian Dierkes is associate professor at the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia in Canada. He has been a regular visitor to Mongolia in the past ten years and writes on developments in the country in various journals. His blogs and tweets always give a fresh perspective on Mongolia, and even if one does not always agree with him, they show the keen mind of a trained sociologist. In this interview with MMJ, Dr Dierkes reveals what drew him to Mongolia, what he has seen in almost a decade, and how he thinks things will change. How did you develop an interest in Mongolia and how long have you been seriously studying our country? How long is easier… about ten years now. As for the reason… I had a personal interest in Mongolia. I had some books as a kid. But then I moved to Vancouver twelve years ago. In about 2003 or 2004, Ivanhoe Mines showed up in a newspaper – a project in Mongolia. And when President Bagabandi came on a visit in 2004 to Canada, he visited UBC (University of British Columbia) and gave a speech and we had some discussions with him at that time. Because I work at the Institute of Asian Research, we’re meant to cover all of Asia. Just because I had a personal interest, at that time, I was involved in organising the President’s visit.
In a discussion with the President, he talked about a need for educational reform, and for exchanges between Mongolian universities and Canadian universities. And after the visit, I went to the director at my university and said, “We need to go to Mongolia and try that and see if there is an opportunity for students to exchange.”
So the first time I came to Mongolia was in 2005, in the end of the winter and beginning of spring, I met mostly with university officials, but because I didn’t know anything about Mongolia I tried to meet with everyone. So I met with some people in the mining industry, some people in the development field, and just very naively asked a lot of questions. I loved it. I had a great time in Ulaanbaatar. I thought it was fascinating and that’s where my interest came from.
My research had all been on Japan. So I had lived in Japan and done a lot of research there. Then I came to Mongolia and it’s in Asia so some things look a little bit like Japan, but it’s also very different. As a researcher, I was just very curious. And some of my first experience with Mongolians was that people were very direct, and very brief and very clear, whereas in Japan, things are very complicated when you talk to people. It’s not very direct, it’s very complicated. So I liked the difference. I liked going to Japan, but Mongolia felt very different. And I enjoyed that. That’s why I got interested.
Now that you’ve been involved with Mongolia for some years, which area is particularly interesting to you? What area do you want to study more in depth? My interests in Mongolia are largely driven by the problems I see, the challenges I see here. My work in Mongolia is very different from the other work that I do -- that’s much more theory driven. But in Mongolia, I sort of look around, and I talk to people and I try to find out what are the problems, what are the challenges and where are the changes. And that’s what I’m interested in.
For example, before I started working on Mongolia, I really didn’t have any interest in mining. It was just something that I hadn’t worked on before. But clearly mining is one of the central developmental, political and social challenges for Mongolia. And that’s how I got interested in mining. Another area that I pay a lot of attention to is political development and democracy. So I observed the last four elections in Mongolia. I don’t work on elections and democracy in Japan. But because that’s so important to contemporary Mongolia, I got interested in it.
The four elections you observed would cover extensive parts of the history of contemporary Mongolia. What was the gest observation you made? That’s an interesting question. There are so many things about the elections. I think it’s more visible in the countryside. I’ve been in the countryside during elections, and the extent to which individual Mongolians celebrate democracy and see voting not just as a duty but also as a privilege and almost enjoy the election, is really interesting actually.
For me, I’m a German, I grew up in Germany. In Germany, some people who are politically interested are excited about elections. But when I see people walking to the polling section, they don’t look excited. But in Mongolia, even now, with elections, people really enjoy the opportunity to make themselves heard.
As for the political system, the part of the Mongolian political scene that I struggle with or that is difficult to understand is that the parties don’t have a set of competitive and developed policies and ideologies. If I look at the DP and MPP, there is no core ideology where they are different. It’s been a learning process for me to understand how a political system works when the fight is not over policies or substance but it’s a different mechanism that drives politics.
You said that earlier you didn’t have any interest in mining and you started to learn about it because of Mongolia. What is your background? And do you take Canadian mining as an example and compare it to Mongolian mining or what is the way you use to get an insight into the Mongolia mining industry? The programme I teach at UBC is Asia Pacific Policy Studies, and so I’m interested in policies and how the government develops strategies and goals and then tries to work the first to reach the second. That’s what made mining interesting to me in Mongolia. Maybe not the gest, but one of the gest challenges for the Mongolian government and also for the people of Mongolia is to decide what they want to do with this wealth, with the minerals – gold or copper, whatever it is – and find a goal and then find a way to reach that. So that’s my interest in mining – what role it plays in the development of the country.
The first issue that I focused on with some graduate students in 2006 or 2007, I think, was the Investment Agreement with what was then Ivanhoe. The question was: how do you structure a contract or an agreement to maximise the benefit for Mongolians? How does a government do that? It involved mining, because that happened to be the industry in that particular case, but my interest was really in how you make that decision and how you bring benefits to the country. Once I developed this interest, I met with people like Bern and his colleagues. Bern is an expert on processing, gold processing and all that, but I learned from them that they all were very interested in the social context of mining -- things like social licence and community engagement. And that’s where our interests sort of came together. All these engineers and people in mining want to know about things that I know something about, which is how governments work and how policies are made. So that was very exciting to me that what I thought was a very technical field – mining – had an interest in the kind of research that we do in our field. And that made me more interested in the mining side as well. But the technical issues are all very difficult to me. Part of the reason that I came on this trip was to have a chance to talk to everyone but also to go see the mine because I don’t really understand very well how mines work.
You said you did a study on maximising the benefits for Mongolians from the Investment Agreement with Ivanhoe. What were its main findings?That was a project with students primarily to try to understand what was happening. And the students ended up drafting versions of an agreement. But it was really more of an exercise in finding the questions that should be asked rather than coming to solutions. Ultimately, from my perspective, that’s a decision that Mongolians should make, as is identifying their own priorities. It’s not really my job. I tried to find out the issues that should be addressed and the questions that should be asked.
Your observations on the political side or the political development of Mongolia are very interesting. How about your observations on the mining industry of Mongolia – the challenges and opportunities that we have? I think one of the challenges in making mining policy in Mongolia is that there are no independent actors or independent institutions that are able to provide analysis or even research on the choices that are open. For example, if you think back about the negotiations with Rio Tinto and when the decision was made that the Government would take 34 per cent stake, there was nobody, no individual or institution, that could analyse what it meant to take a 34 per cent stake – how much money that was going to produce, if there were better modules or worse modules. So I think one of the challenges that still exist in Mongolia today is that the people who make the decisions have some information but they often lack other information and therefore it’s difficult to make those decisions. That’s one of the challenges I see.
The opportunities… I think what makes visiting Mongolia so much fun and inspiring is that because the population is small and the country is so resources-rich, if Mongolians make some good decisions, and they don’t have to be perfect decisions or the best decisions, but if they make some good decisions, there are real opportunities to make an impact on Mongolians’ lives. In 50 years, when Mongolians look back, they will have to decide whether they were good impacts or not, but there certainly has been a strong impact. And Mongolians, not just individuals but also the government, have some tools to make good decisions that will really bring some benefits to the country. That’s really interesting as a researcher, but as a person, it’s also really fun and inspiring to watch.
Have you visited any Mongolian mineral deposits?
I have only been to Boroo Gold’s mine site.
You said that when you met with technical people like Bern, they were very interested to know about the social aspects of mining, including the social licence. If you have a chance to talk with Mongolian miners and technical experts, what kind of questions would you ask them? I haven’t had the opportunity to talk with many Mongolian technical people. I usually stay with politicians, and with the social side of the work.
There is generally a very negative perception about the mining industry in Mongolia. Do you feel it when you are in Mongolia? And what do you think is the reason for that? Yes, I have felt those negative vibes. I think the same would have been true in Canada 20 to 30 years ago. So when technical people like Bern were focused on the technical side, they and also others in the industry began to look at things politically and socially by following political and social struggles and issues. That’s bound to happen in Mongolia because there are so many questions being asked about mining. So we are beginning to see more of what is the social impact and that this needs to be thought of at the same time as the technical issues.
In Australia as well as in Canada, you have the aborigines. And in Mongolia, we have the herder community. How do you see the main difference between them? That’s a really interesting question because when you hear people in mining talk about community and community engagement, they think about a very small nearby community, they mean the actual immediate surroundings. That is also a question in Mongolia, of course, because for most projects, there are herders in the area. But the wider community, I think, is a question for Mongolia especially. The local impact may be similar in the two countries, but the wider community matters in a different way in Mongolia. And another difference is that in Canada, there is a very difference or separateness between the average Canadian community, and the people who do the mining. And that’s less the case in Mongolia, for here there isn’t that separateness, that ethnic or religious or historical difference between the two as the miners are also Mongolians . Now some foreigners are involved as well, but it’s not the colonial relationship and colonial legacy here the way it has been with an average community in Canada or in Australia.
Have you ever met with herders in Mongolia?I spent a summer with a herder family with my family near the Boroo Gold mineral deposit. So I talked to herders, but not about immediate mining issues.
It’s a little bit embarrassing but I’ve never been to the Gobi. I would like to have discussions with the herders who affected by mining. That would really be useful.
I understand from you that social licence, a very crucial thing in the mining sector in Canada, is not a very well-known concept in Mongolia, which maybe is one of the reasons why the reputation of the industry is so low here. What do you think the mining companies in Mongolia have to do in order to get their social licence? That’s interesting because I came to mining with a similar attitude, thinking of it primarily as an extractive operation and a business because my background isn’t in mining at all. And so the notion of social licence I really only learned from people like Bern. And from them I realised that mining projects around the world depend on social licence.
I think parts of the mining industry in Canada -- and not just in Canada, the mining industry globally – are realising that they can no longer operate simply on that notion of always just business – “there’s a fence around our project and we don’t have to care about the outside” -- and I think that’s because mining has such a impact on the environment and on people. So the version of mining that ends at the property border just doesn’t exist any longer. If that realisation is a perspective or is an attitude that mining companies operating in Mongolia including domestic mining companies adopt then they have to start asking questions about their social impact and asking those questions is certainly the first step towards social licence.
The learning process for companies in Canada, for example, has been that many projects have failed. They couldn’t work as a business because they didn’t have social licence. And when people in the industry see that the project over there doesn’t work, they start thinking about their own project and say, “What do I have to do to make this project work?” And then social licence comes into play. Now ideally, projects in Mongolia don’t have to fail so that people can take that into account, but ideally again, the mining industry here would learn that from places like Canada or Australia and say, “Let’s not go down that road of failure but let’s try to operate from the beginning with an aim of achieving social licence and an awareness of our impact.”
I don’t think there are models of perfect social licence. You can’t just say, “Let’s take this from Canada and we’ll do it in Mongolia.” But I think what is clear is that if you don’t think about impact and social licence, projects fail. So what everyone – and that includes politicians and policymakers, as well as the companies -- can learn from other countries is to say, “Let’s not fail, even though there is no perfect solution either.”
Some of the context of relations between the aboriginal population and mining companies in Canada, or Australia, isn’t very relevant to Mongolia and so it’s not a matter of saying, “Let’s do exactly what companies in Canada have done,” but it is important for companies as well as for policymakers to think about what would be the most appropriate way to achieve social licence in a Mongolian context.
Could you give us some good examples of social licence in the Mongolian mining sector?Oh, no. I don’t know enough details about the operation.
Do you have any opinions about it? I think there are differences between small mining operations and medium operations and operations. And there are also differences between exclusively domestic Mongolian companies and companies that perhaps have some form of participation and then foreign companies. In all these different segments of the industry, people are approaching challenges that they’re facing in a different way, I think. So if I knew more details about the industry I think there would be examples of companies that are concerned about social licence in all of these segments -- maybe in very small ways or ger ways -- but I’m sorry I’m not familiar enough with the actual on the ground specifics to be able to say.
How do you think revenue from mining can be successfully converted into actual long-term development? I think that’s a difficult challenge that every country struggles with. There are different models but I don’t know if any of them has been terribly successful except for Norway probably. But they’re so rich and so small, so it’s a little bit easier for them.
I think that a lot of the development in large parts of Canada comes through employment rather than the money that’s generated to the state. And it’s also easier because there are larger functioning economies that are independent from mining. So obviously if mining has a bad period, it is not as terrible as what we’re seeing in Mongolia right now when the reduction in mining investment has had a huge impact on everything. There are no perfect solutions from anywhere. There are attempts and they involve saving investment funds, tax regimes, re-investment into education or into other activities. But it’s a complex, it’s a collection of different policies rather than just one solution.
So just as with social licence, the solutions that you are going to need for development in Mongolia have to be Mongolian solutions. But the whole arena of policies that could address development and mining are going to be different in Mongolia from those in Ontario or in Indonesia.
One of the great strengths for Mongolia is literacy. You can think about other countries that have a lot of mineral wealth where literacy is low and so their solution for sustained development has to focus on education. In Mongolia, obviously, education has to be part of the solution but you start from a strong basis in a way that other places don’t. When you think about future development for mining in Mongolia, you just reinforce primary and second education but you don’t have to create it. So the solutions have to be Mongolian solutions.
When mining projects are considered in Canada, there are a lot of different actors who will collect information to develop an understanding of the issues and then contribute to the decision. I think one of the things that are still developing in Mongolia is that there are not many different actors who have a lot of policy analysing capacity to help the government or society come to a solution that will lead to sustainable development. Your journal can play a very important role in this because the press needs to be there. An independent press can analyse proposals or developments in mining. The parties have a role to play in this. The government has a role to play. One thing maybe missing in Mongolia is different actors with the capacity to speak on the basis of deep understanding about the benefits of projects and the risks of the projects.
An issue that I’m very interested in relates to political and social institutions that can help you come up with policies that will have a positive outcome. In Canada, we at the university analyse mining projects research, the press spends a lot of time analysing, and the parties, the provincial government and the federal government all do it. So everyone develops a well-founded view of a particular project. And from that you also get social licence. When a lot of different people look at, say, labour relations or water, and discuss their perhaps conflicting views in a productive way the chances for a good outcome are far better. I think some of those institutions are still developing in Mongolia. And that makes some of the decisions difficult because different points of view based on evidence and research are not available.
You have been studying Mongolia since 2005 which is almost a decade now. What have been your major works? One of the areas I’m very interested in is political development. I’ve observed the last four elections and I try to keep track of or understand a bit more about how the parties work both at the national level as well as provinces and aimags. So political development overall is an area that I’m very interested in.
We know that you are very active in social media and write posts about Mongolia and your studies. What kind of reactions and responses do you receive from Mongolians?Almost none and it makes me very sad. I know I am wrong in some of my analysis. Of course, I am, because there are things I don’t understand in Mongolia. But no one ever tells me that I’m wrong and it’s sad or it makes me worried because I don’t have a chance to learn and because people don’t tell me when I’m wrong. So the next time I think about something, I can’t draw on that lesson and say, “Wait, I was wrong and I need to change that.” So I wish I could hear more.
You mentioned before that you meet and work with all kinds of people in Mongolia in order to address a matter practically, not theoretically. Who are those people that you work with in particular?I think when I first came to Mongolia, I didn’t plan this. It wasn’t a strategy. But I just tried to meet with everyone who would talk to me -- different parties, or NGOs, or the embassies, or the development agencies. The first time I came, I made a long list of all these different types of people and organisations that I wanted to talk to. And I was fortunate that many of them at that time were willing to talk to me and so I’ve been able to go back to very different actors. I learn much more when I can talk to this perspective and that perspective and if they are very different, I learn. So I continue to try to do that. Whenever there is an opportunity I meet new perspectives, although I have to say that most of my contacts and conversations are in Ulaanbaatar, and not in the countryside. I spent a little bit of time in the countryside, but it’s much easier to operate in the city, and it’s more efficient and quicker. So I try to keep my perspective broad but it is limited more to the national government and academics at the university.
You have worked on Japan and on Mongolia. Do you know what country you would choose next? I think I’ll stay with Mongolia. However, there’s one country that I’ve been thinking about for a while which is Myanmar. The interest would be in comparing it with Mongolia. If I had a chance, I would be very interested in taking Mongolian decision makers in a field like mining to Myanmar and having them meet Burmese officials and then to get the Mongolians to talk about their experience. What happened when the world capital markets discovered Mongolia in 2010? How did they experience that? Because it will happen in Myanmar also.
What is the one thing that you want to understand about Mongolia the most? And what is so hard to understand about Mongolia? I’m a sociologist. So there are certain areas of social development that I’m more interested in than others. For example, one of the things obviously interesting to many people about Mongolia is something like religion. On the one hand there is the resurgence of Tibetan Buddhism but on the other hand there are shamanistic practices; how do those get mixed? But that’s not an area I work in. Religion is not something that I’m particularly interested in even though it’s important and fascinating. In Mongolia you have to pick certain fields and so I continue to be mostly interested in education, politics and economic development. Those are more my areas.
The things that I find exciting are things that are changing very rapidly in Mongolia. And that will change over the next 10 years. I think for me as a researcher it’s really a privilege and an honour to be able to watch such changes over a relatively short time. The areas that I’m interested in are areas that I understand so that’s why they are social, political, economic and educational. And these are the areas where stuff happens and things are changing all the time.
You just mentioned the areas you are most interested in about Mongolia and I already heard some of your perspectives on the political side of Mongolia. Then what are your observations in the economic field and educational field? I’ll talk about education first. As I mentioned before, Mongolia is quite lucky that it came out of the socialist period with a strong primary and secondary education. So literacy is an obvious thing. At the same time, I think higher education or universities and also vocational education is developing more. The primary and secondary basis is strong and everything that happens beyond that is changing more. It needs to change more, I think.
Economic development – that’s a very difficult issue this year. Right now, things look a little bit difficult. We’ve seen in the past how debts taken on by the state, how the lack of decision on Oyu Tolgoi, all make economic development difficult. So this is a challenging period for the economy of Mongolia.
Politically, one of the things not happening is that the political parties are not defining themselves on the basis of policy. Most parties are organised around people. The Democratic Party doesn’t have an ideology or a particular perspective that’s different from the MPP. There are different people in them, but the perspectives aren’t very different. And I think that remains an important aspect of political development that has consequences.
I have a very general question for the last. Mongolia has lots of young people and can be referred to as a “youthful” country. How do you see Mongolia’s future opportunities?I think one of the things that attract me to Mongolia is its youth and dynamism. Mongolia’s potential, where things could go if they go well, is fantastic. You have a small and well educated population, and mineral wealth. If the right decisions are made, 10 and 20 years from now Mongolia is going to be a pretty happy place. Not perfect. Canada isn’t perfect. Germany isn’t perfect either. But the potential for good outcomes is very strong. And young people are a part of that.