TOWARDS PERSONALIST PARTY: HOW DOES THE MONGOLIA’S CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AFFECT REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY?
Abstract
The Mongolian constitutional amendment on executive power and decline of voters’ trust in political parties are emerging as highly elevated risks stimulating the growth of personalization of politics. This situation is weakening the check and balance system in Mongolia’s democracy. This study aims to explore how the constitutional amendments on party regulations and changes of central tendency of voting behavior are related to the rapid growth of personalization of party politics. It also focuses on capturing what patterns are appearing as consequences or effects of growth of political personalization. To find answers to my research questions, I employed grounded theory research approach that develop a theory from the qualitative and quantitative data. I generated primary data by having face-to-face interviews and collected secondary data from articles published in mass media by utilizing purposive sampling. As a grounded theory approach, I performed data collection and analysis concurrently. The results showed that voters are more likely to make their voting decisions on the basis of evaluations of individual candidates rather than parties. The evidences indicate that the constitutional amendments have significantly increased the powers of individual party leaders and helped them emerge as a personalized dominant leader. This personalization of party politics is accompanied with political monopolization. This is doing harm to the development of Mongolia’s democracy.
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