Visiting Researcher: Dr. Ratih Adiputri

In June and July 2017 Dr Ratih Adiputri (Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland) is visiting the Department of Political Science and the Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute Freiburg for conducting fieldwork on a research project funded by a three-year grant of the Kone Foundation (2017-2019) on “Unity and Diversity? International Parliamentary Institutions for Southeast Asia and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).”

The research examines international parliamentary institutions, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the European Parliament (EP), the Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership (ASEP) and the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) in their policies related to Southeast Asia and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Agreed by 193 countries in the United Nations (UNDP, 2015), the SDGs have committed states to end “poverty, hunger and inequality” on a global level during the next 15 years, and it is certainly also the parliament’s task to ensure that countries’ agendas are committed to the goals. The research seeks a new perspective on inter-parliamentary institutions and its policies, Europe-Southeast Asia cooperation and SDGs. It attempts to draw the institutions mentioned above and Southeast Asia into a more comprehensive conversation, enabling parliamentary “voices” for SDGs to be heard along with executives’ dominant views. The SDG topic is relevant, the goals - including eliminating poverty - are targeted to be achieved by 2030. A New Institutionalism theory and policy analysis will be applied to address questions on how parliamentary assemblies can be effective in overseeing/controlling the implementation of SDGs on the international and national levels. Research materials are statues, declarations, speeches in the assembly, websites of the international institutions, and interview members of parliament and staffs in these organizations.