Governing Dzud: Community Capacity and Migration Outcomes in Mongolia

Abstract

Mongolia's pastoral economy faces recurring threats from dzud, extreme winter disasters combining severe cold, drought, and heavy snowfall, which trigger mass livestock mortality and drive large-scale rural-to-urban migration. While dzud has frequently been treated as an inevitable natural shock, this study argues that disaster outcomes are fundamentally shaped by the quality of disaster risk governance, in this case, local governance rather than climatic severity alone. Drawing on a qualitative comparative case study of Jinst soum, Bayankhongor province, across two major dzud events (1999–2002 and 2009–2010), the study examines how community-based governance capacity mediates disaster impacts and migration decisions. Primary data from semi-structured interviews with local government officials, program managers, and herders, conducted in July 2025, are triangulated with existing literature on dzud governance and pastoral livelihoods. The findings reveal that the 1999–2002 dzud produced severe livestock losses and widespread outmigration largely due to a governance vacuum following post-socialist decentralization, while the 2009–2010 dzud resulted in substantially reduced losses and migration as a result of governance capacity built through a UNDP-supported grassland management program. However, the study also documents the fragility of externally driven governance interventions, as community-based arrangements partially deteriorated following program withdrawal. These findings underscore the need for governance strategies that prioritize long-term institutional sustainability, meaningful authority transfer to local actors, and the complementary roles of community resilience and national disaster safety nets.