In March 2015, the interdisciplinary research project on "Political Authority in Transnational Governance Arrangements" funded by the Mercator Research Center Ruhr (MERCUR) at the Mercator Foundation has begun.

The project combines a political science and legal perspective represented by its principal investigators and UA Ruhr GC members, Dr. Cornelia Ulbert, Executive Director of the Institute of Development and Peace (INEF) at the University of Duisburg-Essen, and IEE Director Markus Kaltenborn. The research team also includes Christian Scheper, political scientist and research fellow at the INEF, Johannes Norpoth, jurist and research fellow at the IEE, and Dr. Nina Reit, jurist and research assistant at the Law Faculty.
The research project covers two components: a pilot study on political authority transnational governance arrangements, based on the regulation through public and private labour, social and environmental standards in the Asian textile and apparel industry and the formation of a more comprehensive group of researchers comprising further disciplines, such as sociology and economics. The first months of the project are devoted to preparing the pilot study, which will include field research phases, both in Europe, and Bangladesh and Cambodia - which have been selected as case studies. Moreover, the project participants met for the first time on 28 April 2015 at the INEF at the University of Duisburg-Essen for a workshop with interested researchers of other disciplines to discuss ideas for a framework of the envisaged interdisciplinary research consortium. This project has been set on a promising path by the lively exchange and mutual interest in each other's research angles.

Johannes Norpoth, LL.M.
Research Fellow
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