Deliberative Polling "Fosters Peace and Instigates Positive Change Among People of Mongolia"
Gombojavyn Zandanshatar, Chairman of the State Great Khural (the Parliament of Mongolia) and a former CDDRL visiting scholar, reports that a second National Deliberative Poll in his country has successfully led to a new Constitutional Amendment.
Deliberative Polling®, a process pioneered by Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab (DDL), housed within the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, has been used successfully for the second time to help change the Constitution of Mongolia.
Following a 2015 city-wide Deliberative Poll for the Capital City Ulaanbataar, conducted with support from DDL (then called the Center for Deliberative Democracy), the national Parliament in Mongolia decided to pass the “Law on Deliberative Polling.” This law, approved in 2017, requires that deliberative polling be conducted on potential amendments to the Mongolian Constitution before they can be considered by the Parliament.
The first national Deliberative Poll following the new law was convened in 2017. After extensive parliamentary debate, Mongolia amended its constitution by a two-thirds vote on November 14, 2019. Gombojavyn Zandanshatar, Chairman of the State Great Khural (the Parliament of Mongolia) and a 2014-16 visiting scholar at CDDRL, noted in a letter to Professor James Fishkin, Director of the Deliberative Democracy Lab, that Deliberative Polling “was a critical part of the process of consultation and discourse that helped shape the final amendments. You will see that most of the major changes made in these latest amendments can be traced back to the key issues the citizens discussed during the Deliberative Poll.”
In February of 2023, a new national sample of nearly 800 people — a stratified random sample of citizens from throughout the country — gathered in the Government Palace (the seat of government in Ulaanbaatar) for a long weekend to deliberate about proposed amendment topics. The new sample was selected by the National Statistical Office, the governmental body also responsible for conducting Mongolia’s National Census. The topics were gathered from nearly 1,100 suggestions from experts, the public, civil society, and professional organizations around the country. They were then screened by the Deliberative Council, an independent non-partisan body required by the “Law on Deliberative Polling.”
Two of the proposals that received very high support at the end of the deliberations provided a clear basis for the amendment. One was to expand the size of the Parliament (to increase its capacity to represent the public), and the other was to adopt a mixed electoral system, combining majority districts with Proportional Representation. Expanding the size of the parliament had the support of 82% of the participants, who had an opinion for or against the proposal. Adopting a mixed electoral system for the parliament (with both majority districts and proportional representation) ended with 71% support from those deliberators who had an opinion for or against the proposal by the end of the proceedings. The amendment successfully increased the representation in the parliament from a total of 76 members elected by majority vote in districts to a total of 126 members, with 78 elected by majority vote in districts and 48 elected by proportional representation. Subsequently, the quota for female candidates in the parliamentary elections of 2024 was raised to 30%, with plans to further increase it up to 40% by 2028.
“The outcome of the Deliberative Polling has paved the way for significant amendments to the Constitution in 2023, and the impact is already evident,” said Zandanshatar in a letter to Fishkin earlier this month. “The amendment ensured the strengthening of the parliamentary democracy, wider representation in the parliament, and gender parity across political decision-making levels.”
He concluded his letter by sharing, “We firmly believe that the two iterations of Deliberative Polling have contributed significantly to fostering peace and instigating positive change among the people of Mongolia. By prioritizing the voices of the people in our decision-making processes and continually striving for improvement, we are poised to ascend to greater heights.”
Fishkin commented, “By passing the Law on Deliberative Polling and then twice successfully using it to amend its constitution, Mongolia has set a great example for how to realize deliberative democracy with the aid of social science.”
A systematic report on the Deliberative Poll compiled by the National Statistical Office can be found below, along with details of the amendment in English and Mongolian.
For additional information on the Deliberative Poll, please contact James Fishkin (Director) or Alice Siu (Associate Director) at the Deliberative Democracy Lab, Enkh-Undram Bayartogtokh (Chief of Staff) at the Office of the Chairman of the State Great Hural (Parliament) of Mongolia, or Nora Sulots (Communications Manager) at CDDRL.
