Meanwhile in Mongolia...

Talking of semi-presidentialism, Mongolia has been seen as something of a success story for that institutional setup, with writers like M. Steven Fish crediting the bifurcating power structure with helping to embed democracy and protect Mongolia from dominance by either of its larger and more populous neighbours. Recently, however, the country has seen disputed elections and a state of emergency declared following riots accusations of electoral fraud against the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (the country's former communists). Perhaps not even semi-presidentialism can save Mongolia from sliding down the road towards the authoritarianism of other post-communist steppe countries like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkemenistan, etc.. I don't know that much about Mongolia, but I wonder if this kind of thing suggests a triumph of objective social conditions over institutions - supporting quasi-marxist ideas about institutions being fluff that sits on top of the real economic determinants of socio-politicals life.