Central Asian Survey ISSN: 0263-4937 (Print) 1465-3354 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/ccas20 The Mongolian state and the coronavirus pandemic: policy, messaging and the nationalist imaginary Joanna Dolińska & David Sneath To cite this article: Joanna Dolińska & David Sneath (2025) The Mongolian state and the coronavirus pandemic: policy, messaging and the nationalist imaginary, Central Asian Survey, 44:4, 503-519, DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295 © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 10 Oct 2025. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 555 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 1 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ccas20 https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/ccas20?src=pdf https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295 https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295 https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=ccas20&show=instructions&src=pdf https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=ccas20&show=instructions&src=pdf https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295?src=pdf https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295?src=pdf http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295&domain=pdf&date_stamp=10%20Oct%202025 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295&domain=pdf&date_stamp=10%20Oct%202025 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295?src=pdf https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295?src=pdf https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ccas20 The Mongolian state and the coronavirus pandemic: policy, messaging and the nationalist imaginary Joanna Dolińskaa and David Sneathb aFaculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland; bDepartment of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic introduced inevitable changes in the society and internal politics of Mongolia. While analysing the chronology of the state response to the pandemic with the help of discourse analysis, the authors pose the following question: ‘What sort of laments or demands are organising tropes in contemporary Mongolian nationalism?’ The authors identify demands or laments as organising tropes for the forms of narrative that are made possible within the national imaginary and the normative structures supporting them. These laments and demands could reflect the anxiousness of the Mongolian state about its role in the international community. Not only could the Mongolian state command international respect and resources, it was at the forefront of technical and institutional progress; introducing the most modern technology. Far from representing a backwater, the state demonstrated its advancement through its conspicuous cosmopolitanism and referencing the WHO in its communications. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 18 December 2024 Accepted 20 June 2025 KEYWORDS Mongolia; COVID-19; nationalist imaginary; laments and demands; successful vaccination diplomacy Introduction The Mongolian government’s policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and its associ ated messaging and publicity campaign, provides revealing insights into the nature of the Mongolian state and the nationalist imaginary that supports it. Analysis of the discourse employed by the government and mainstream news media illuminates important aspects of not only what Bodirsky (2016) following Abrams (1988) calls the ‘state-system’ as a set of institutional structures and practices, but also the ‘state-idea’ as an ideological, histori cal artefact. The nationalist imaginary, generative of conceptualisations of the Mongolian people and their place in the world, is central to this ideational state and informs both the policy and the language used. Following the approach to the study of nationalist- informed imaginaries suggested by Sneath and Turk in the introduction to this special issue, we begin by asking what sort of laments or demands are organising tropes in con temporary Mongolian nationalism, a field marked by notions of hybridity (Bulag 1998), contested claims of ‘nomadic tradition’ (Myadar 2011) and cosmopolitics (Sneath 2018). © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. CONTACT Joanna Dolińska j.dolinska@al.uw.edu.pl CENTRAL ASIAN SURVEY 2025, VOL. 44, NO. 4, 503–519 https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1080/02634937.2025.2544295&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-25 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:j.dolinska@al.uw.edu.pl http://www.tandfonline.com The first such lament, we suggest, is the anxiety that, sandwiched as it is between the dominant regional powers of Russia and China, the Mongolian state is too weak to defend the interests of its national people, or deliver order and prosperity. The second is the concern that Mongolia does not command enough international respect and is seen as a remote backwater. Our findings suggest that, during the pandemic, state messaging, and the wider news media discourse that surrounded it, reflected both the ‘disaster nationalism’ (Zhang 2022) found in many states, whereby nationalist ideologies helped structure accounts of disas ter and thereby reinforced them, and the more particular anxieties of the Mongolian nationalist imaginary; seeking to reassure the public that the state was both strong enough to protect the national body and capable of winning international recognition and respect. Furthermore, the form and stylistics of Mongolian state action and presen tation also reflected the state socialist legacy and bore the imprint of the Soviet nation- building project. At some level, the state-idea has retained the mantle of the authoritative, well-policed, uncompromising model, and its glorification of military and security capacities. While the imagery of the state as a stern and efficient security-apparatus engaged in a quasi-military struggle with the virus was found worldwide, the Mongolian government’s campaign retained something of the particularities of the old Soviet- styling, with state-related media, for example, presenting images of state officials in uni forms discussing the methods and technology of fighting the spread of COVID-19 (NEMA 2020). The research findings presented in this paper were the result of critical and multimodal discourse analysis, combined with a broadly social anthropological methodology. This included the critical discourse analysis of over 70 articles and videos primarily in the Mon golian language, selected using key word and phrase searches, from the following sources: Ödriin Sonin online, Ünen online, Mongolian news agency Montsame, press releases from the homepage of the Mongolian President, the Mongolian Ministry of Health, the Foreign Ministry, as well as from the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection. Furthermore, these sources were analysed according to pre-selected timeframes ident ified as Phases 1–4 of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mongolia, which are described in the section A chronology of the response to the pandemic of this article. In addition, resources in English, German, French and Polish languages were reviewed from the following news papers and sources: The Economist, The Diplomat, Reuters agency, Vorwärts.de, TASS agency, Ouest-France.fr, the WHO homepage and Wprost. We use the term ‘state- related media’, to indicate nominally independent Mongolian media organizations that have a history of close cooperation with various Mongolian governments (such as Ödriin Sonin online and Ünen online), as well as official homepages and Facebook sites of the Mongolian state organs (such as the homepage of the President of Mongolia and the homepages of the ministries mentioned above). It is worth noting that the picture of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mongolia presented in the state-related media could differ considerably from that presented in the social media of private users and other free media outlets. Nevertheless, the aim of this paper is to present the narrative of the COVID-19 pandemic present in the state media discourse. The main research ques tions posed in this study are: what sort of key objects of concern are present in Mongolia’s pandemic public imaginary; and what sorts of demands and laments appear as organising tropes for these forms of narrative within the national discourse. 504 J. DOLIŃSKA AND D. SNEATH A chronology of the response to the pandemic This section presents the chronology of events that took place during COVID-19 pan demic in Mongolia, as they appeared in the state-related media. In December 2019 Mon golian health officials were closely monitoring developments in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak of a new disease had been reported, soon to be designated COVID-19 by the WHO. A scenario resembling the 2003 SARS outbreak seemed to loom on the horizon, and the Mongolian authorities took early measures to protect the Mongolian public from the new threat, which they termed the shine koronavirusiin khaldvar (new corona virus infection). Indeed, these efforts began well before most Western European govern ments took any serious policy steps to contain the infection. On 27 January 2020, weeks before most other states introduced travel restrictions, the Mongolian government closed the border with China and suspended international flights and passenger trains (Wilson 2020). In February they cancelled celebrations for Tsagaan Sar, the Mongolian New Year, and introduced internal travel restrictions; all before a single case of COVID-19 had been found in the country (Tügüldür 2020). In what can be described as phase 1 of the Mongolian state’s response to COVID-19, from mid-January to mid-November 2020, analysis of the state-related media shows that the Mongolian authorities were keen to draw attention to attempts abroad to develop a vaccine to combat the virus, as if to reassure the public that help was on its way. In March 2020 Mongolian press reported the progress at the US-based Jackson Lab oratory (JAX),1 while on April 9th the newspaper Sonin mentioned the Russian pro gramme to develop a COVID-19 vaccine (Zaya 2020).2 Media coverage, in this early period, seemed to mirror the state’s diplomatic agenda, of maintaining good relations with the country’s mighty neighbours to the north and south. Mongolia’s state-related media noticeably abstained from emphasising the origin of the new coronavirus, in China. Unlike some Anglophone Western commentaries which used phrases such as ‘the Wuhan virus’, in Mongolian news reports coronavirus was usually called ‘COVID-19 khaldvar’ or simply ‘shine khaldvar’, meaning ‘COVID-19 infection’ and ‘new infection’. Indeed, in February the Mongolian President Khaltmagiin Battulga became the first foreign head of state to visit China since the outbreak of the pandemics, and Mongolian state-related media carried stories of Sino-Mongolian pandemic cooperation, such as online workshops organized to discuss the illness and its spread (Enkhnaranjav 2020). Fur thermore, articles from this phase of the pandemic were focused on the continuation of bilateral trade relations between Mongolia and China, such as the export of resources including coal and livestock products. Copious amounts of diplomatic exchange emerged at that time, typically couched in culturally nationalist terms and emphasising ‘intellectual solidarity’ (oyun sanaany hamtiin ajillagaa) (Khulan 2020). The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the country was that of a French national who became ill in Dornogovi Province in early March, 2020 (News.mn 2020b). The government response was swift and comprehensive; the entire province was subject to travel restric tions and gyms, fitness centres and clubs were all closed for an indefinite period. The announcement from the Office of the Governor of the Dornogovi Province was carefully presented, starting with tough restrictions but also noting the steps taken to prevent negative consequences such as food shortages (News.mn 2020a).3 As in other such official communications, the language used was that of expert competence and CENTRAL ASIAN SURVEY 505 forethought, using the passive voice (e.g., ‘it has been decided … ’), so that the steps taken appear as decisions of some high, impersonal system, rather than particular individ uals, responsible for the decisions. The early stage of COVID-19 pandemic also saw artists and various public figures engaged to help raise public awareness of the illness and, by implication, the importance of taking the proper precautions against its spread. As early as March 2020, a set of well-known rap-artists (Roockie, 168, Pacrap, Don dior, Wolfizm and Loce) released a joint video ‘Nadad khamaagui’ (‘it doesn’t matter to me’) to promote awareness and raise funds to fight the spread of coronavirus (Enkhnaranjav 2020). In the summer of 2020, Mongolia appeared in foreign press coverage as a success story, and the government response to the pandemic was praised by the WHO (Anudari 2020). This international acclaim attracted considerable publicity within the country. Mongolia’s success in the early stage of the pandemic can be attributed to a number of factors includ ing: experience gained from the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak of 2002–2003 (Erkhembayar et al. 2020); an early government reaction to the threat (closing the Russian and Chinese borders, introduction of an efficient tracing system and public relations campaign); and the country’s relatively small population (Hegewisch 2020). Rather less media attention was given to the economic difficulties of a large part of the Mongolian public, whose incomes and opportunities had been damaged by the abrupt closing of the borders and early lockdown measures (Banzragch et al. 2021; Banzragch et al. 2022; Shadgar 2022; Uochi 2021). This generated a considerable amount of public dissatisfaction with the prolonged restrictions, but at this stage there were no large-scale public protests. The period from mid-November 2020 to April 2021 can be seen as the second phase of Mongolia’s pandemic policies, marked by a dramatic surge in the numbers of infections, with 2120 cases registered by February 9th, 60% of them in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, which has a population of over 1.5 million (Dorjdagva, Batbaatar, and Kauhanen 2021). Ulaanbaatar was placed in lockdown between 11th and 23rd of February, 2021 to reduce transmission around the time of the Tsagaan Sar national New Year holiday and to implement a mass testing campaign. The ‘One door-one test’ (neg khaalga neg shinjil gee) programme tested one adult member of each of the 420,000 households in Ulaan baatar.4 The state-related media focused on public awareness of the increasing numbers of infections and on repeating government instructions to the public to stay at home and abide by the social distancing measures in place. The growing resentment at state restrictions erupted into protest (Khulan 2021a) after news reports appeared showing a picture of a woman and her new-born baby5 forced to move to a hospital for COVID-19 infected patients on a freezing evening in January 2021, dressed in hospital clothes and shoes entirely unsuitable for such harsh weather conditions (Enkhmaa 2021). Hundreds of infuriated citizens joined a public protest in Sukhbaatar Square, the central public space in front of Government Palace, despite extremely low temperatures. Although the protesters were appalled by the treatment of the new mother, it seems that her identity was of secondary importance. In fact, the authors did not come across any media accounts that followed up on her ordeal, either in terms of her identity or her later story. The figure of the new mother can be seen in this context as what Ahmed (2004) termed an ‘object of emotion’, a figure saturated with affect and represent ing a focal point for personal and social tensions. The image of this suffering, anonymous woman motivated thousands of Mongolians to unite in a protest in low temperatures. It 506 J. DOLIŃSKA AND D. SNEATH can also be seen to reflect the intimate and enduring link between gender and national ism explored by Yuval-Davis (1997). Nationalist imaginaries are typically gendered, the nation itself frequently envisaged as a woman, a mother whose well-being needs to be protected (Yuval-Davis 1997, 22). In Mongolia the phrase saikhan ikh oron, ‘beautiful motherland’, is an endlessly repeated and celebrated feature of public discourse. The state-related media represented the subsequent political events as a reaction to this popular protest. In a surprise move, on the 22nd of January 2021 Prime Minister Ukh naagiin Khürelsükh took full responsibility for the incident and resigned from office (Mon golian National News Agency 2021). However, there was no radical change in policy under his successor, Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, and the incident did little damage to the pol itical career of Khürelsükh who, a few months later, won the June 2021 presidential election. The public outrage at the images of the apparently heartless treatment of a mother and her new-born baby was perhaps unsurprising. Until the regime change of 1990, the Mongolian People’s Republic had a staunchly Soviet-style pro-natalist stance, reflected in propaganda and policies. Some of these have been retained, such as the medals given to mothers that raise many children, the Order of Mother Heroine.6 Mother hood retains a special place in state ceremonial and public culture, reflecting longstand ing statist narratives that link national strength to population size. Mongolia’s challenge, in these terms, has been to more densely populate its vast territories.7 Public reverence for the image of the mother, however, is a very different matter from the treatment of any given individual. Surprisingly, perhaps, there was almost nothing by way of follow-up news coverage of the incident and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the identity of the mother whose treatment catalysed the January protests remains unknown to the general public. The virus acted as a catalyst for the rationalization of state processes, and the policy response to the pandemic accelerated the digital administration of the country. In October 2020 a new government electronic system called ‘e-Mongolia’ (i-Mongolia) was launched, to reduce bureaucracy and facilitate public service delivery. The digital platform gave citizens integrated online access to a wide range of public services, and can be used for everything from ordering an ID card to applying for a passport or a business license (Battsengel 2022). In March 2022 the provision was extended to foreign residents and Mongolian citizens living abroad who could start using the e-Mongolia system Foreign Ministry services. The second phase of COVID-19 policies in Mongolia was also marked by the first vac cination carried out in the country, which took place on the 26th of February 2021 using the AstraZeneca vaccine. The first vaccinated citizen of Mongolia was the prime minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene (Dolgor 2021); the event being well-publicised to encou rage the general public to take part. The period April to December 2022 can be seen as the third phase of Mongolia’s COVID-19 response, as it successfully carried out a well-coordinated vaccination pro gramme for the general public. This would not have been possible without a highly suc cessful campaign of vaccination diplomacy to garner the resources needed. Mongolia not only received international support from its immediate neighbours, Russia and China, but a wide range of other countries including Japan, India, South Korea, the UK, Switzerland and the USA. The government had actively engaged with the WHO from the outset of the CENTRAL ASIAN SURVEY 507 pandemic and its diplomats ensured that it benefited from the United Nations COVAX programme in a major way. In 2021, 46% of the total vaccine against COVID-19 received by Mongolia from the United Nations Children’s Fund resulted from the cooperation of the government of Mongolia, the Government of Japan and the COVAX programme (Unicef Mongolia 2021b). As early as the 12th of March 2021, Mongolia had received 14,400 doses of AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, courtesy of the COVAX programme, and in the general public vaccination programme that followed, UNICEF oversaw the distri bution of vaccines (Unicef Mongolia 2021a). The Swiss government sent 40 oxygen machines and 45 oxygen concentrators with a total value of two billion MNT to Mongolia; and the Swiss Development Agency donated funds for the purchase of four portable X-ray machines worth half a billion MNT (Uranso longo 2021). The US government donated 188,370 doses of Pfizer vaccine to Mongolia, while Japan sent a further 2.35 million doses (Bolor 2021). Mongolian vaccination diplo macy even reached as far as Cuba. A news report from the 21st of April 2021 revealed that the Mongolian ambassador had met officials of the Cuban Finlay Institute to discuss the vaccine being developed in Cuba and Iran under the names Finlay-FR-2, Soberana 02 and PastoCovac (Ariunbold 2021). The report seemed designed to reassure readers of the scientific expertise involved in the research, noting that the institute had more than thirty years of rich experience (‘Tus institutees 30 garui jiliin arvin turshlagadaa’). At the same time as making the most of international opportunities, however, the online messaging of the Mongolian Foreign Ministry stressed that relations with Russia and China were still at the core of the Mongolian foreign policy. This was seen to pay off when China offered Mongolian citizens the Sinopharm vaccination, and for a while it seemed that the Russian government might supply Sputnik V to its Mongolian neigh bours. In the end, however, the Russian contribution failed to be significant in terms of numbers and of the 5.7 million doses of vaccine administered by the end of September 2022, over 60% were made by the Chinese Sinopharm, while most of the rest were the German-American Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (WHO 2023, 3). Nevertheless, the government continued with the longstanding diplomatic balancing act of retaining close relations with both of its neighbours. Foreign Ministry media releases informed the Mongolian citi zens that the newly elected president Mr U. Khürelsükh received congratulatory phone calls from both Russian and Chinese leaders (Mongolian National Broadcaster 2021; News.mn 2021). Characteristically, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Mongolian government took a neutral stance, rather than condemning its northern neighbour. Mongolia’s diplomatic campaign to acquire vaccine supplies was widely seen as a success story, and it attracted considerable foreign press coverage. More importantly, perhaps, the roll-out of the inoculation programme itself was seen as fast and well-coor dinated. The nationwide electronic immunization registry system that the government had introduced worked well, allowing eligible individuals to be tracked via mobile phones and vaccination appointment reminders sent out by short message service (SMS). By the third week of July 2021, over 90% of health care workers and elderly adults had been fully vaccinated, as well as 60% of the entire national population (WHO 2023, 14). This phase of pandemic policy also saw, in April 2021, a telling attempt by the govern ment to develop the notion of ‘Mongolian Nation’ (Mongol Ündesten) as a brand – a 508 J. DOLIŃSKA AND D. SNEATH distinctive national and international identity for the promotion of the country. This was the culmination of a programme to gather ideas from governmental and non-govern mental institutions on how to promote the Mongolian nation. It was designed to define the distinctive brand and support the introduction of nationally-specific goods, and of intellectual and digital works, onto international markets (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia 2021). Nation branding as a form of nation building, particularly with an emphasis on digital resources, is a well-worn strategy for the governments of a number of post-socialist countries (Kaneva 2012). The current, state-sponsored national imagery of Estonia, neatly re-tagged E-stonia, is of an ‘eco-digital nationhood’, where ‘a proper Estonian digs his garden on Mondays and mines his bitcoins on Tuesdays’ (Annus 2020, 14). Mongolia’s success in vaccinating the majority of its population in such a short period of time was widely reported by foreign journalists, and relayed back to the Mongolian public by the domestic press (Stevenson 2021; Lkhaajav 2021; Newey and Rigby 2021; Cendrowicz 2021; Kretschmer 2021; Courrier International 2021; Khulan 2021b). This phase also saw the state organising evacuation flights for Mongolian citizens abroad, the largest number being from South Korea. The fourth phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mongolia ran from September to December 2021, characterized by the spread of the deadly Delta variant of the virus, despite the fact that the majority of the population had been vaccinated by that time. This period also saw increasing expression of public dissatisfaction with govern ment restrictions and the circulation of narratives questioning the effectiveness of various vaccines, particularly the Chinese Sinopharm inoculation. While the first and second vaccinations had been funded and coordinated by the state, additional booster shots were a matter for private individuals and the choices available stimulated discussion as to the relative merits of the different vaccines. Although the occasional anti-vax protestor and social media post could be found, in general there was little sig nificant public opposition to the vaccination campaign as such. There was, however, a persistent circulation of doubts regarding the efficacy of the Chinese vaccine and poss ible side effects. During the lockdowns, everyday conversations frequently revolved around comparisons of the quality and efficacy of vaccines in anticipation of the inocu lation programme. Those who were able to, used their private networks to gain access to Pfeizer and AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccines, which were widely considered to be more effective. Furthermore, the lack of trust towards the COVAX programme, and suspicions over the sources of the vaccines to be distributed, were reflected in the phrases such as Khiatad vaktsinyg zogsoo (‘stop the Chinese vaccine!’) and eejuud maani Khiatad vakt siny zogsoo (‘mothers, stop the Chinese vaccination!’) (LIVE 2021) shouted during small protests organized in Ulaanbaatar in the spring of 2021. On Facebook, smaller, private groups emerged to oppose the inoculation programme, typically presenting this in national rather than individual terms, arguing that the Mongolian nation should not be vaccinated, for example: No Vaccine. Bid Mongolchuud bid vaktsinaas tatgalzaj baina, (‘We, the Mongolians, refuse to be vaccinated’) which counted over 700 members. This phase also saw an increasing governmental emphasis on mental health, with the Mongolian Ministry of Health making wide use of infographics from the WHO on the topic (WHO Mongolia 2020). Most of these had texts that were a Mongolian CENTRAL ASIAN SURVEY 509 translation of the English language original, and they typically retained the WHO badging, as if to reassure the public that the advice came from an authoritative inter national source. This was typical of the stylings of governance during the pandemic and demonstrated, once again, the readiness of the Mongolian government to be seen to be looking to the United Nations and other international sources of expertise for guidance. Since the outset of the pandemic, politicians and the establishment media had tried to show support for employees working in the healthcare sector. One of the headlines from the well-known Ödriin Sonin (Daily News) newspaper reads: ‘The First Central Hospital has Announced the Best of 2021’ (Üdriin Sonin 2021). The tone of the piece is unusually inclus ive and the full range of professional groups are mentioned in the article – doctors, nurses, engineers, technicians and service personnel. This sense of recognition for all those involved, no matter how menial their role, was characteristic of official messaging during the pandemic. The end of this phase was marked by the appearance of the Omicron variant of coro navirus. As in many other counties, accounts circulated on social media that the Omicron infection resembled the common cold or flu. The Mongolian Ministry of Health reacted by circulating its own infographic (Tsolmon 2022), from the 9th of February 2022, with a faintly ominous image of the virus and the slogan ‘Omicron is not the common cold!’ This illustrates the dynamics of the relationship between the state, public opinion and the discourse through which the authorities implemented their doctrines. The authority of the Mongolian ‘discursive state’ (Sorace 2021) is negotiated here, in the interaction between the official ideology, supported by reports from the WHO on the one hand, and popular opinion on the (seemingly innocent) character of the Omicron variant, on the other. Early 2022 was characterized by the opening up of the economy after a series of long lockdowns; and the period of January to November can be seen as the fifth phase of pan demic policy. In February 2022, Mongolian authorities opened their boarders to foreign flights after slightly more than two years of closure. The emphasis of government messa ging became ‘protecting health and reviving the economy’ (eruul mendee hamgaalj ediin zasgaa sergeeh bodlogo). It was no coincidence that coronavirus was abruptly given much less attention in the state-related media. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022 became one of the top news stories and the pandemic seemed to fade somewhat into the back ground. However, the rising cost of living and the slow-down in the Mongolian economy in the wake of the pandemic became a matter of widespread public concern, and in April 2022 a series of protests erupted in Ulaanbaatar, mainly by young people, who demanded better standards of state governance, greater job opportunities and brighter future pro spects for younger generations. The end of 2022 saw a dramatic new wave of public protest, and the period December 2022 to January 2023 can be seen as the sixth and last phase in the Mongolian pandemic experience. Despite very harsh weather, large numbers of Ulaanbaatar residents took to Sukhbaatar square to protest against corruption and to demand that politicians take responsibility for the current state of the economy. The protests appear to have been spontaneously organized, mostly by young people, and despite the large numbers they attracted, they did not seem to result in any particular political movement. But the 510 J. DOLIŃSKA AND D. SNEATH strength of feeling of protesters, and their numbers, made the depth of disenchantment among parts of the public, particular the young, dramatically clear. Nationalist imaginary and its key objects of concern during the pandemic period In his seminal 1988 paper, Philip Abrams observed that governmental discourse typically represents the state as a sort of executive arm of a national body, existing to protect the interests of an imagined ‘society’ as a whole. His argument, now well established in critical social science, was that imagining the state as representing the wider social interest reifies it, so that it becomes an ‘allegorical contrivance through which self-interest and sectional power are masked as independent moral entities’ (Abrams 1988, 58). He distinguishes a ‘state-system – a palpable nexus of practice and institutional structure centred in govern ment and more or less extensive, unified and dominant in any given society’ and a ‘state- idea, projected, purveyed and variously believed in different societies at different times’ (Abrams 1988, 82). This distinction helped stimulate a generation of political anthropolo gical enquiry into the state as an ideological thing (Hansen and Stepputat 2001, 2). What can a reading of the discursive representation of state action during the pan demic reveal about the particularities of the state-idea in Mongolia, and the complex of ideas and associations that surround it? From the outset, the language used in state messaging had a grave, stern tone. Faced with an entirely civic health emergency, many aspects of the state’s reaction followed the logics and stylings of national defence, with its military and security overtones. This is unsurprising, in itself, since the control of human movement is generally easiest at national borders and states worldwide commonly used the rhetoric and imagery of war in public health campaigns, to ‘battle’ the infection or ‘wage war’ on the virus. But the Mongolian variant of this genre carried a characteristic, faintly state socialist, tone. The lead institution was the National Emergency Management Agency (Ontsgoi Baidlyn Yerön khii Gazar) (NEMA), responsible for emergency services and civil defence, headed by an army general,8 and the tenor of communication was faintly redolent of wartime and col lectivist. At the very outset of the pandemic, for example, NEMA informed the public that, together with the Ministry of Defence and other Mongolian institutions, it had donated 65 million MNT to China to support military doctors and nurses working in the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan (Ülziikhutag 2020). NEMA’s central focus, however, was domestic. The agency’s Facebook page meticu lously presented the data for rising vaccination rates in Mongolia and its communications concentrated heavily on statistical data (NEMA 2022a, 2022b). In many ways, the core metaphor and model scenario for the ‘state of emergency’ (onts baidal) was a security or military threat, and this was reflected in both the institutions and discourse of state action. The state of ‘all-out-preparedness’ (bükh niitiin belen baidal), which was introduced in Ulaanbaatar in April 2021, has a faintly military association, and could be translated as ‘all-round’ or ‘all-sided’ readiness as if the notional threat might come from any direction. The prominent aspect of the state-idea here is that of a commanding protector, the reso lute head of a notional national body facing a deadly danger. This imagery has deep roots; as Stolpe (2008) describes, the national culture of the Mongolian People’s Republic was, in many ways, founded upon a series of vigorous state campaigns to promote hygiene (ariun CENTRAL ASIAN SURVEY 511 tsever) and ‘enlightened culture’ (soyol gegeerel), starting in 1931 with a nationwide cam paign against syphilis (tembüü). From the outset, the struggle against the disease evoked the same imagery as the revolutionary class war; ‘the transfer of metaphors from war and struggle into other areas, such as medicine, accompanied the importation of modernist ideas’ (Stolpe 2008, 63). Perhaps more interesting than the implicit self-image of the state as it mobilizes its public, however, are the ways in which the nation itself is discursively created through authoritative public communication – the main topic of this subsection. During the emer gency, even more than at other times, the terms manai uls (‘our country’) and Mongol (‘Mongolia, Mongolian’) appeared central to almost all state discourse. Phrases like ‘our country has immunized more than 69,000 citizens’ were commonplace in official announcements that described state policies or actions, identifying country with state, and evoking a sense of mutual belonging to an inclusive collective national category. For example, the TV Channel MNB (Mongolian National Broadcaster) used the phrase manai uls in the comforting statement ‘Our country will be able to export 10 million head of livestock’, when the Mongolian economy suffered from the early lockdowns (Mongolian National Broadcaster 2020).9 The sense of ‘ours’, simultaneously recruits the reader and author into a gigantic national citizenry, and conjures that reified national community into existence. This is the joint national body that must be defended, strengthened and, in the case of the pandemic, inoculated. The e-Mongolia system, is named after the international/Anglophone version of the nation’s name and has the subtitle ‘digital nation’ (tsokhim ündesten). While national labelling may be implicit in comparable e-governance systems like the Turkish e-devlet (Turkish for e- government), the US Data.gov, or the Ukrainian Diia (an acronym for ‘the state and I’ in Ukrai nian), in Mongolia it is explicitly stressed and the word used (ündesten – nation) has a particu lar quality. The official name for the state of Mongolia, adopted in the 1992 Constitution, is Mongol Uls, where the word uls means country, nation or state. The word ündesten has a less territorial, more ethno-national connotation; this is ‘the nation’ conceived of as a people and unit of population. Although entirely characteristic of state policy in non-pan demic times, the ‘Mongolian Nation’ (Mongol Ündesten) international brand policy was launched in the midst of the pandemic, as if the emergency could not be allowed to delay it. When the initiative promoting the ‘digital nation’ (tsokhim ündesten) was launched in August 2021, the Head of the Department of Strategic Policy and Planning from the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Communications, Z. Gantogotoy, declared: ‘Mongo lians will demonstrate their successful transition to digital [domain] at home and abroad’ (Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Communications 2021). Again, this was the discourse of nation as exclusive identity rather than politico-territorial entity (uls). In this imaginary, the uls might be the body politic that the state protected, but the ündesten was the national spirit that gave it a distinctive identity. Ideational resources and the state A description of the implications and objectives of state stylings says little about the extent to which the state succeeds in its ideological project of hegemony within public culture. Despite, or perhaps partly because, of the intensity of messaging over the course of two years, large numbers of Ulaanbaatar residents, many of them young, 512 J. DOLIŃSKA AND D. SNEATH organized three spontaneous protests in the centre of the Mongolian capital: in January 2021, April 2022 and December 2022. That these did not seem to turn into formal political movements speaks to a failure of government persuasion, rather than the successful mobilization of a rival political position of the conventional type. Furthermore, it also reflects a deep sense of disappointment with the government on the part of many young Mongolians, and their disenchantment with the political process as a means of influencing the ruling parties. In this sense, the demonstrations can be seen as social pro tests, rather than narrowly political ones. Whatever the ideological framings of public culture, the material conditions of falling living standards and shrinking opportunities forced popular grievances into public view, raising new laments and discontents with the status quo of neoliberal oligarchy, unable to deliver on the implicit promises of public good. But even in these protests, the object of anger and the target of demands remained the political class as operators of the state. One of the most prominent calls directed at politicians was ‘do your job!’ (ajilaa khii!). This reflects a widespread ‘lament’ that the government was failing in its main role of providing for its subjects. But no matter how bad any particular clique of politicians might be, the ‘well-run state’ remained an object of desire and a goal for political protest. The Mongolian state as an ideological thing, then, continues to occupy a central role in the national imaginary of public life, whatever the effectiveness of any given government publicity campaign. This reminds us of Sorace’s point, following Wedeen and Sloterdijk, that nation-state ideologies may shape imaginaries available to members of a given public, but they cannot dictate how they will be used to fashion interpretations, narratives and demands. The ‘tenacity and incompleteness of ideological reproduction’ (Wedeen 2013, 845; Wedeen 2019 after Sorace 2021) means that ideology can organize people’s sensible and discursive realities without programming how it will be interpreted or affec tively invested. Negative affects, such as ambivalence, reluctance, and cynicism are not evidence of ideology’s failure (Sloterdijk 1988) but responses to a prevailing structure of experience (Sorace 2021, 241). Ideology endures, then, but the material conditions of people’s experience are bound to continue to shape Mongolian public imaginaries, just as well-established ideological structures are. As Bodirsky (2016, 123) notes ‘the idea of the state as a “unified” and “trans cendent” agent acting in a “common interest” arose from the material foundations of institutions of national representation, of representative democracy, and of social welfare. Together, these institutions produced the sense of a relation of representation between distinct unified and integrated entities where one (the state) acted in the interest of the other (the nation).’ The state-idea may be distinct from the state-system, but the relation continues to be of vital importance to both. It remains to be seen what transform ation widespread public disenchantment with the state-system will have on the state-idea in Mongolia, as the memory of the pandemic recedes. Conclusion Following the approach suggested by Turk and Sneath in the introduction to this volume, we can ask what sort of key objects of concern appear in Mongolia’s pandemic, national ist-informed, public imaginary. As discussed above, analysis of a corpus of over 70 Mon golian and foreign articles devoted to the COVID-19 period reveals a number of key CENTRAL ASIAN SURVEY 513 figures. Looming large, alongside the state itself, we find the nation-country (uls) and the national-people (ündesten); these imagined entities of ‘us’, that stand in need of collective defence, of promotion and of modernization in the digital age. We might ask whether we can identify demands or laments as organising tropes for the forms of narrative that are made possible by such objects within the national imaginary and the normative structures supporting them. The first, we suggest, could be put like this: ‘sandwiched as it is between the dominant regional powers of Russia and China, the Mongolian state is too weak to defend the interests of its national people, or deliver order and prosperity’. The second lament might go something like this: ‘Mongolia does not command enough international respect and is seen as a remote backwater’. As if in answer to nationalist anxieties of weakness and ineffectiveness, the image of the state that appeared in the moment of health crisis, then, refuted anxieties of weakness and ineffectiveness. It presented itself as a strong, efficient, disciplined agency; resolutely protecting the national body from external threat. In the emergency, the state-as-security- apparatus appeared from the outset, drawing on old quasi-military stylings, to conclus ively rebut the first lament and negate any sense of weakness and disorder. Another strik ing aspect of government communication and press commentary was the attention given to international recognition of how well Mongolia was performing in the face of the COVID-19 challenge; be that the low incidence of the virus in the population, the success in the international race for vaccines, the efficiency of the public health measures or the speed of the inoculation programme. Recognition by foreign leaders, experts and international bodies received prominent exposure, as if to allay the anxieties of the lament of national weakness. Not only could the Mongolian state command international respect and resources, it was at the forefront of technical and institutional progress; introducing the most modern technology. Far from representing a backwater, the state demonstrated its advancement through its conspicuous cosmopolitanism, referencing the WHO in its communications, and using the international/Anglophone name of the country for its e-governance platform. Notes 1. The National Center for Zoonotic Diseases (2020) reported ‘Thus, The Jackson Laboratory (JAX), which has a history of more than 90 years and has branches in three states of the United States and China, announced that it has produced a model mouse with a gene trans plant for the study of COVID-19 infection’ (Iinkhüü ANU-yn gurvan mudj, BNKHAU-d calbartai 90 garui jiliin tüükht The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) COVID-19 khaldvaryn sudalgaa khiikh gen shiljüülen suulgasan zagvar khulgana gargaj avsnaa medeellee). 2. ‘The President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, discussed the situation of the “Covid- 19” epidemic in online contact with medical scientists. He emphasized that “the peak of the epidemic has not yet occurred”. But medical experts say, “The work of getting a vaccine against the new coronavirus can be hastened”’ (Zaya 2020). (OKHU-yn Yerönkhiilögch Vladimir Putin anagaakhyn erdemten sudlaachidtai tsakhimaar kholbogdoj ‘COVID-19’ tsar takhlyn nökhtsöl baidlyn talaar yariltslaa. Terbeer ‘Takhlyn tarkhaltyn orgil neg kharaakhan boloogüi baigaa’ gedgiig ontsolson yum. Kharin anagaakhyn mergejiltnüüd ‘Shine koronavirusiin esreg vaktsin Gargan avakh ajlyg yaravchilj bolno’.) 3. The Office of the Governor of the Dornogovi Province released an announcement to this effect: ‘Also, restricting passenger traffic entering and leaving the province for an indefinite period, closing gyms, fitness centres and clubs indefinitely, intensifying heightened preparedness by ensuring the normal operation of government institutions, adding posts to the Zoogch Oovo 514 J. DOLIŃSKA AND D. SNEATH workers’ quarters in Ulaanbadrakh Sum, and providing necessary food and household items. It has been decided to recruit specialized experts from the Ministry of Health and Welfare to provide resources, to urgently conduct a survey of the province’s food resources, to prevent food shortages, and to provide unified management of doctors and medical specialists’. (Mön aimgaas orokh, garakh zorchigch teevriin khödölgööniig todorkhoigüi khugatsaagaar khyazgaar lakh, sport zal, fitness, klubuudyg todorkhoigüi khugatsaagaar khaakh, töriin baiguullagyn kheviin üil ajillagaag khangaj öndörjüülsen belen baidlyg erchimjüülekh, Ulaanbadrakh sumand bairlakh ‘Zöögch ovoo’ ajilchdyn bairand post nemj, shaardlagatai khüns, akhuin kheregleliin nöötsöör khan gakh, aimgiin khünsnii nöötsiig sudalgaag yaraltai khiij, khünsnii khomstloos uridchilan sergiilekh, emch, emnelgiin mergejilten negdsen udirdlagaar khanguulakhaar KHÖSUT-iin nariin mergejilten tatan ajilluulakhaar shiidverlelee). 4. The results were encouraging at the time, but the approach has subsequently been critiqued as flawed, see Dorjdagva, Batbaatar, and Kauhanen 2021. 5. The woman was repeatedly called nyalh biyetei, i.e., ‘with a baby’, in the media, a phrase that underlines the sense of a newly-born child. 6. First instituted in 1957, the Order of Mother Heroine 1st Class is awarded for raising eight or more children, 2nd Class for those raising five to seven children. 7. A good example of such an honorific state ceremonial was President’s Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj’s 2017 award ceremony for recipients of the Order of Mother Heroine, video clips of which can, at the time of writing, still be seen (Mongolian National News Agency 2017). 8. At the time of the pandemic this was Major General Gombojavyn Ariunbuyan. NEMA’s roots lie in the Civil Defence Directorate (NEMA: https://nema.gov.mn/albanii-tuuh) that was estab lished at the height of the Cold War, affiliated with the Mongolian People’s Army. 9. Mongolian: Manai uls jild 10 saya malyn makh eksportlokh bolomjtoi. Acknowledgements Joanna Dolińska would like to acknowledge the support of the Sigrid Raising Scholarly Exchange Programme of the Mongolia Inner Asia Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge which enabled her to carry out research presented in this article at the University of Cambridge from 15 January 2022–15 March 2022. The authors are thankful to Dr Tuya Shadgar from the University of Cambridge for her valuable comments on the manuscript. Disclosure Statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). Funding The support of the Sigrid Raising Scholarly Exchange Programme of the Mongolia Inner Asia Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge enabled Joanna Dolińska to carry out research presented in this article. 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Zhang, C. 2022. “Contested Disaster Nationalism in the Digital Age: Emotional Registers and Geopolitical Imaginaries in COVID-19 Narratives on Chinese Social Media.” Review of International Studies 48 (2): 219–242. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210522000018. CENTRAL ASIAN SURVEY 519 https://iris.Who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/373062/WPR-DDC-2023-003-eng.pdf?sequence=1 https://www.who.int/mongolia/mn/emergencies/covid-19-in-mongolia/information/mental-health https://www.who.int/mongolia/mn/emergencies/covid-19-in-mongolia/information/mental-health https://sonin.mn/news/culture/110156 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210522000018 Abstract Introduction A chronology of the response to the pandemic Nationalist imaginary and its key objects of concern during the pandemic period Ideational resources and the state Conclusion Notes Acknowledgements Disclosure Statement ORCID Data Availability Statement References