Today (07/4), two ASEAN Studies Center’s Researchers, Dedi Dinarto and Dio Herdiawan Tobing took part in Roundtable discussion with delegates from the U.S. Embassy and National War College. The meeting aimed to overview the development of current Indonesia’s foreign policy and its impact towards the South China Sea, contemporary issues in Indonesia’s domestic politics, and the rise of religious extremism and political Islam in Indonesia.

The meeting was opened by debating whether U.S. loses its hegemonic control over the world or other hegemonic powers are rising to shape a new global order. Dr. Nur Rachmat Yuliantoro, Head of the Department of International Relations UGM stated that, “The U.S. remains as the world’s hegemony and not losing its influence. However, it should be noted that more countries like China, Russia, India, Indonesia, and Brazil are rising in terms of economy and military.”

Afterwards, the Head of Office of International Affairs UGM, I Made Andi Arsana, Ph.D, explored the international law approaches towards the South China Sea dispute. He argued that it is very difficult for the international community to find solution towards this issue when China rebels towards UNCLOS. For him, an alternative method to understand China’s logic is necessary to engage with them.

The session was then followed by discussing Indonesia’s foreign policy to the South China Sea dispute. Dio Herdiawan Tobing, ASC’s Research Manager addressed, “It is a very difficult moment for Indonesia because ASEAN is still the cornerstone of Indonesia’s foreign policy, and yet the regional organization could not produce any solution for the South China Sea issue”. For him, the fragmentation of ASEAN’s member states’ stance and consensus-building preference in the decision-making process led to stagnation, not only in the case of South China Sea but also in other cases such as the Rohingya.

Commander Timothy Barelli, U.S. Coast Guard and student at the National War College responded, “Then what is Indonesia’s practical solution in time of ASEAN’s stagnation?”

Dio argued further, “It seems like Indonesia prefers more on bilateralism and is moving away from ASEAN. It can be seen from the establishment of a new directorate for Southeast Asian affairs in Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry while it already has Directorate-General for ASEAN Cooperation.”

ASC’s Researcher, Dedi Dinarto, expressed then, “It seems that Indonesia plays a kind of hedging-style diplomacy, where it did not pose any active role in ASEAN, but remains to consider ASEAN as important for its foreign policy.” He argued that Indonesia lacks initiative after the failure of joint communique on the case of South China Sea in ASEAN Summit 2016 hosted by Lao PDR. In contrast, back to the foremost failure of ASEAN Summit in Cambodia, former Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa conducted a shuttle diplomacy to ensure extra-institutional approach working on the South China Sea crisis. In the era of President Joko Widodo, his foreign policy approach is much more pragmatic, rather than seeking more either in bilateral or multilateral engagement. If certain political or security issues will exacerbate the stability of Indonesian national sovereignty, thus it is unlikely to be discussed and prioritized.

Lastly, the discussion was closed by handing over the souvenirs from the representatives of U.S. embassy, Mr. Taylor Fincher and National War College, Dr. Bradley McAllister and Ambassador Piper Campbell to Dr. Paripurna P. Sugarda, LL.M, UGM’s Vice Rector of Cooperation and Alumni.

On Friday (31/3), ASEAN Studies Center (ASC) Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Universitas Gadjah Mada had successfully organized our first research workshop at Jogjakarta Plaza Hotel. The workshop aims to provide space for coordination and discussion between our researchers, who are going to conduct their research project starting on April 2017. Our Director Dafri Agussalim commenced the forum by congratulating all of the researchers who have acquired research grants from various providers, such as Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, SHAPE-SEA, Raoul Wallenberg Institute, and Australia-Indonesia Centre.

Afterwards, our Executive Secretary Ahmad Rizky Mardhatillah Umar provided general rules to help around eight research team. He suggested each team member to prepare timetable and field research schedule for coordination purpose. He also highlighted some important dates when each research team needs to submit their progress report and financial report. Through this mechanism, he wishes that each research team would be able to conduct their research in accordance to the schedule. Moreover, they should commit to provide research output at the end of research project, in which ASC strongly encourage them to produce journal article, policy brief, and working paper.

The session was then followed by each team disseminating their research progress for comments and suggestions among research members. Umar also added information that ASC will host three visiting scholars who will be our collaborative research partner, namely Dr. Avery Poole from University of Melbourne, Australia, Assoc. Prof. Mohamed Battour from Tanta University, Egypt, and Prof. Ronald Holzhacker from University of Groningen, Netherlands. Next, we also invite each researcher to sign a contract as a commitment to participating in the whole process of research project.

Lastly, Rahayu—one of our researchers from Department of Communication Universitas Gadjah Mada—proposed that this remarkable development of ASC’s research project should be followed by creating a kind of ‘data management center’, of which all of the data collected from fieldwork research are archived and accessible to all of our researchers. This initiative will be very helpful for our researchers to produce various academic works from the available data. Our Director welcomes this noteworthy suggestion for the future development of ASEAN Studies Center.

Yth. Kepada seluruh peserta seleksi Panitia AYIEP 2017,

Setelah melalui proses seleksi yang panjang dan dengan kompetisi yang tinggi, kami mengumumkan hasil seleksi wawancara panitia ASEAN Youth Initiative Empowerment Program 2017, sebagai berikut:

 

1	V. Y. Seto Damar
2	Hasya Nindita
3	Galuh Octania Permatasari
4	Fadilah Rahma NR
5	Rostya Septiana Putri
6	Heidy Melia Nefertiti
7	Anang Wahid Efendi
8	Alifiandi Rahman Yusuf
9	Patricia Martina Tobing
10	Dzikrullah Umam

 

Bagi nama yang telah disebutkan diatas, kami akan mengirimkan pengumuman kepada e-mail masing-masing.  Bagi yang tidak mendapatkan email, kami dengan berat hati menginformasikan bahwa anda belum diterima pada kepanitian kali ini. Terima kasih atas perhatian dan kerjasamanya.
Informasi lebih lanjut silahkan hubungi: aseanyiep@gmail.com

ASEAN Studies Center UGM held the second meeting of Bincang ASEAN in Friday (17/3), which invited Indri Dwi Apriliyanti (Lecturer at Department of Public Policy and Management, FISIPOL UGM and PhD Candidate from University of Agder, Norway). The meeting discussed Indri’s dissertation paper about the Politics in the Boardroom, which draws upon her on-going research about state-owned enterprises in Indonesia.

In her paper, Indri develops a theoretical framework to examine the relationships between decision making process and dynamics between Board in emerging market’s state-owned enterprise. She explained some issues related to diverse power distribution of Board members, decision making style, and attentional selection that was resulted from dynamics in the boardroom. She argues that effective decision can be obtained when there is balance of power, the majority of Board uses rational approach, and good corporate governance is operated within the company.

She concluded that Boards is inseparable part in national politcal economy, and more researches is needed to understand state-owned enterprises in emerging market countries, including Indonesia.

Next meeting of Bincang ASEAN will be held in Friday (31/3) to discuss IORA and Possible Shifts in Indonesia’s Foreign Policy.

ASEAN Studies Center UGM, in collaboration with the Coordinating Ministry of Politics, Law and Security arranges a Focused Group Discussion to the discuss the review of ASEAN charter, which will be brought into discussion at the upcoming ASEAN Summit.

Dr Dafri Agussalim, the Head of ASEAN Studies Center UGM, spoke on some issues related to Human Rights in ASEAN.

Dr Dafri spoke alongside Dr Edy Prasetyono (University of Indonesia), Dr Riefqi Muna (Senior Researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences), Mr Sanga Pangaribuan (staff of Indonesian Permanent Representative in ASEAN) and several staffs from Directorate of ASEAN Political and Security Cooperation. This forum was also attended by several staffs from various Ministries and Directorates, as well as researchers from ASEAN Studies Center.

The Focused Group Discussion is conducted on Friday, February 24 th 2017, which takes place in Dean’s meeting Room FISIPOL UGM. In this meeting, the speakers debate the possibilities of revision in ASEAN Charter, particularly with recentupdates in ASEAN institutional development.