Citizen Participation, Governance Quality, and Economic Dependence: Determinants of Community Acceptance of Mining among Herders and Public Servants

Author (s)

Usukhbayar Vaanchig, Chimgee Dari, & Oyuntungalag Buyantur

Abstract

Mining occupies a central place in resource-dependent economies, and arid rangeland communities often bear a disproportionate share of its social and environmental consequences. Citizen participation is commonly treated as the primary instrument for managing these tensions, yet grievance and protest persist where participation is not supported by credible governance. This study examines the determinants of community acceptance of mining and compares whether the same determinants operate among two differently positioned groups: public servants and herders. Data were collected through two parallel surveys in three mining-affected soums (district-level administrative units) of a southern province. The sample included 682 respondents: 438 public servants and 244 herders. Because the data consist of ordered response categories, the analysis used polychoric correlations, parallel analysis, ordinal reliability estimates, and proportional-odds ordinal logistic regression. The results show that participation, transparency, fairness, and consent-related items are not empirically separable in either group. Instead, they form an integrated perception of governance quality. Governance quality is the strongest predictor of acceptance among both public servants and herders. Economic dependence is positively associated with acceptance among public servants, but household-level mining employment is not associated with acceptance among herders. Site-level results indicate that the copper-gold site has higher acceptance, while its acceptance is more closely associated with economic dependence than with governance quality. The study concludes that social license research should distinguish the level of acceptance from its basis: acceptance grounded in institutional credibility is more durable than acceptance grounded mainly in material dependence.

Key words: Citizen participation, Community acceptance, Social license to operate, Governance quality, Economic dependence, Mongolia.

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Vaanchig, U., Dari, C., & Buyantur, O. (2026). Citizen Participation, Governance Quality, and Economic Dependence: Determinants of Community Acceptance of Mining among Herders and Public Servants, Journal of Scientific Reports, 15(1), 18-35.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.58970/JSR.1237

About Author (s)

Usukhbayar Vaanchig, School of Economics and Business, Ulaanbaatar Erdem University, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Chimgee Dari, School of Engineering and Environment, Ulaanbaatar Erdem University, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4500-995X

Oyuntungalag Buyantur (Corresponding Author), School of Management, Mongolian University of Science and Technology, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2600-8698

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.58970/JSR.1237

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