UGM, University of Oslo (Uio), and University of Agder (UiA) conducted a research collaboration in social welfare and democracy, which was started in 2012.
After the research completion in 2017, researchers presented outcomes as the basis for democracy development and welfare improvement.
“The programme aims at seeing the development and issues in democratisation, to show critical elements for future agenda,” said
Dean of Faculty of Social and Political Sciences UGM, Dr. Erwan Agus Purwanto, in a seminar on Monday (12/3) in UGM Main Office.
With the theme Popular Control and Effective Welfarism (PACER) that was divided into two research groups, Power Welfare and Democracy (PWD) and In Search of Balance (ISB). These were, said Erwan, realised into activities such as thematic studies related to citizenship and welfare, networking and database, publication and dissemination, also scholarships for master and doctoral degrees.
In five years, the PWD has produced Democracy Baseline Survey on democratisation process across Indonesia, reports on emissions due to deforestation, 24 journal articles, 9 books, 3 monographs, and public activities.
Erwan added they planned to build interdisciplinary master programme and projects in public issues such as democratisation, welfare creation, and environmental sustainability.
“Other projects to build are campus based activities through sociopreneur programme that facilitates students to initiate and make creative solutions to social issues,” said Erwan.
During the event, UGM researcher, Linda Yanti Sulistiawati, described her research on the implementation of legal pluralism in East Indonesia. “Like in many places in Flores island, social life in Manggarai is based on a special law that gives authorities to the indigenous people to rule and allocate their natural resources in their communal territories,” said Linda.
Customary law implementations in legal pluralism system in Indonesia, she said, are plentiful. It was believed that customary law can also enhance the state law and government of Indonesia. But, she maintains, implementation of legal pluralism also created customary conflicts, including land possession issues. To resolve this, Linda mentioned several conflict resolution options such as negotiation, mediation, and arbitrary by customary senior figures, or state law procedures.