Los Angeles, Ulaanbaatar, 2014, 284 p.
The author of the book - V. V. Graivoronsky - is known for many scientific works on the history and modernity of Mongolia, primarily on the issues of social development of this country. It is enough to recall such works as "From a nomadic lifestyle to a settled one", " Modern Aratstvo of Mongolia: social problems of the transition period (1980-1995)", "Reforms in the social sphere of modern Mongolia" and many others.
The presented work is extremely interesting both in its design and in the way it is implemented. Three territories with different state-administrative status were chosen as the object of research : the Republic of Buryatia (RB), which is a subject of the Russian Federation, the independent State of Mongolia,and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (ARVM) within the PRC. The fact that most of the population of these territories has deep historical, economic, cultural, religious, and blood ties allowed the author to distinguish them into a separate region, often referred to in the scientific literature as Inner Asia.1 In addition, we should not forget that until relatively recently Buryatia, Mongolia and Inner Mongolia were part of a single socialist state.-
1 See, for example: Abaev N. V., Ayupov N. G. Ethnoecological traditions of the Turkic-Mongolian peoples in the Tengri-Buddhist civilization of Inner Asia. Kyzyl: TyvGU Publishing House, 2010; Humphrey S., Sneath D. The End of Nomadism? Society, Slate, and the Environment in Inner Asia. Duke University Press Books. 1999.
social space with its characteristic socio-economic and political systems.
At the same time, when studying the chosen topic, a number of methodological and conceptual problems cannot be avoided. The status and country differences, according to the author himself (p.11), determined a number of difficulties in the research process - serious discrepancies in the methodology and methodology for calculating income and expenses of the population, limited published sources on the socio-economic development of ARVs, and others. However, despite these difficulties, Vladimir Viktorovich made an attempt to identify commonalities and differences in the social development of the three territories, tracing changes in the standard of living of their population.
At the very beginning of the book, the author identifies the main question of this study - "which way of reforming a rigid centrally planned, administrative-command economy and a one-party political system turned out to be more effective, and most importantly, less painful and more acceptable for the majority of the population of these countries" (p. 9). It is a comparative study of the standard of living on the example of three selected according to the author's plan, the application should provide an answer (even if not exhaustive) to the given question.
Chapter I of the book "Russia, Mongolia and China on the Path of Transformation" is intended to show the national contexts of the reform processes in three countries, within which social changes of a regional scale took place. This chapter provides a comparative analysis of the nature and progress of the reforms, highlighting their common and distinctive features. In particular, the author points to the earlier start of reforms in China in comparison with Russia and Mongolia (p. 18), which could not but affect the dynamics of reform. It is true that the situation in Mongolia in the early 1990s, even against the background of the acute socio-economic crisis in Russia, was close to a national catastrophe. The country lacked the basic foodstuffs necessary for physical survival. This was explained by the high degree of dependence of the country on external lending and assistance, which ceased with the collapse of the USSR (p. 34). The author cites a curious similarity between the course and results of privatization processes in Russia and Mongolia, which led to an unfair distribution of property and property stratification of the population of the two countries (pp. 63-64).
Chapter II " Socio-economic development of the Republic of Buryatia (RF) and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (PRC)" continues the analysis of the reforms, but already in their regional dimension on the example of the Republic of Belarus and the Autonomous Republic of South Ossetia. What is common from the point of view of socio-economic development of these regions is their lagging behind the national level. At the same time, in comparison with the Republic of Belarus, which experienced de-industrialization in the post-Soviet period (p.111), the ARVM, on the contrary, is experiencing an increase in industrial development, primarily due to coal mining (p. 141).
Chapters III, IV and V deal with specific aspects of the problem of the standard of living of the population in three selected regions. A comprehensive interpretation of quantitative and statistical indicators of the standard of living of the population in each of the considered territorial entities is given. These are perhaps the most significant and interesting chapters of the monograph from the point of view of research novelty.
In chapter III, the author consistently analyzes the structure of income and expenses, consumption issues and housing conditions of the population of the studied territories, where significant transformations have occurred as a result of socio-economic transformations. One of the important dynamic trends is that during the entire period under review (1990-2012), the average per capita monetary income of the population of Buryatia was significantly less than the national average (by 25-30%) (p.154), and more than half of the income was spent on food. A similar situation is typical for ARVs, although from the end of the 1970s to the present, there has not been a sharp decline in the main indicators of income and expenditure of the population. The opposite trend is observed in Mongolia: according to 2012 data, monetary expenditures on food products accounted for only 19.1%, while expenditures on non-food products and services accounted for 54.8% (p. 162). Another feature identified is that all three compared territories are characterized by a significant income gap between the urban and rural populations (p. 163, 182).
Chapter IV is devoted separately to the study of poverty issues in close connection with the category of"living wage". Based on the above statistical data, the author comes to the conclusion that the level of poverty remains very high in all the studied regions, which can be considered a serious threat to socio-political stability in the studied countries.-
nakh. At the same time, it is noted that the greatest success in reducing poverty was achieved in the PRC, including the ARVM (p.227).
The final chapter of the monograph is devoted to the analysis of one of the most universal and capacious indicators of the life of the population living in countries with different levels of socio-economic development - the development of human capital. The author, relying on a number of fundamental works on this issue (T. I. Zaslavskaya, N. P. Fedorenko, I. V. Soboleva, etc.), international reports and statistical data, proves that human capital is one of the main benchmarks for investment in the modern world. In this context, for modern Russia, China and Mongolia, the strategic goal is the development of a person, his physical, intellectual, creative potential and abilities, which will make it possible to overcome the lag in economic and social development from the most developed countries of the West and East in the future.
Of course, the statistical data presented in this paper provide systematic averaged indicators that allow us to judge the state and main trends of the studied processes occurring in Buryatia, Mongolia, and the Autonomous Republic of Tatarstan. Given the close relationship with statistical data, it would be possible to strengthen the work by referring to expert assessments and the results of sociological research conducted in the territories under consideration. Data based on the local population's self-assessment of the problems of well-being and living standards could significantly expand the reader's general understanding of the specifics of social well-being and become a serious addition to the statistical materials used.
In general, the book contains a large amount of statistical data on the socio-economic development of Mongolia and the regions of Russia and China. V. V. Graivoronsky has done a truly titanic job of finding and combining quantitative data for the three countries.
However, not all of the author's theses and conclusions can be accepted. For example, one cannot agree with singling out the simultaneity of its political and socio-economic components as a feature of the Mongolian reform process (p. 34). This simultaneity was also characteristic of post-Soviet Russia, which in the early 1990s experienced the democratization of the political system and "shock therapy" in the economy. It is necessary to clarify the thesis that the decline in the population growth rate in Mongolia in the period from 1989 to 2012 was due to the deterioration of the socio-economic living conditions of the population during the transition period (p. 84). In addition to socio-economic problems, an equally significant factor in this trend can be recognized as the country's urbanization and related changes in family planning.2
The following conclusion is somewhat contradictory: in Mongolia "in 1990-2012, as a result of the efforts of several governments... Progress has been made in reducing the poverty of the majority of the population...The level of poverty... it does not significantly decrease, and its share remains at a high level-30-35% of the total population" (p. 214).
The work is not without a number of inaccuracies. For some reason, China is classified as a federal state (p. 11). On page 44, it is erroneously stated that "the President of Mongolia cannot be re-elected to this post more than twice" (p. 44). According to the Mongolian Constitution, the President cannot be re-elected more than once. The political bloc of the MPRP and MND "Justice" (EU Sudarga) is designated as "Solidarity" (p. 53). It should be noted that in addition to the Republic of Belarus, Mongolia, and the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (p.105), Buryats live compactly in such Russian regions as the Irkutsk Region and the Trans-Baikal Territory.
Unfortunately, the monograph does not contain a list of references and sources, without which it is difficult to judge the structural integrity of a scientific publication. The author is limited to page-by-page footnotes in the text.
The comments made do not affect the overall high assessment of the monograph and can be considered as suggestions for further study of this topic.
In conclusion, it is worth emphasizing once again that no other country has ever worked with such a question before. It is no exaggeration to say that V. V. Graivoronsky's book is a significant contribution to world Mongolian studies. Moreover, this initiative needs to be continued, as the implementation of trade and economic cooperation projects between Russia, Mongolia and China, which were planned as a result of the two - and trilateral negotiations in 2014, can directly affect the living standards of the border regions of the three countries.
2 See, for example: Hun am, oron suutsny 2010 ony ulsyn toollogyn ur dun (Results of the State Population and Housing Census 2010). Ulaanbaatar, 2011. X. 16.
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