Research

2013 to 2022 was a tumultuous decade in South Korean politics and especially in its foreign policy. Through two changes of its own presidency, as well as the rise and fall of the Trump administration in the United States, South Korea’s politicians and diplomats have pursued different attempts at bridge-building with North Korea before arriving at a more cautious and defensive position. The authors track those attempts by Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in toward reconciliation, and how they were thwarted by excessive idealism, domestic divisions, and broader great power rivalries―notably with Russia, China, and Japan.

What role do ideological differences play in great power relations? Existing studies often treat ideological differences as fixed variables that exacerbate frictions between great powers. Instead, we treat ideologies as dynamic systems of ideas that evolve through domestic contestation and international adaptation. Our framework separates ideological content—whether states believe that their ideology is universally applicable—from the scope of ideological promotion—to what extent states seek to promote their ideology abroad. Specifically, our typology distinguishes between ideological strategies that are universalist or particularist in content, and expansive or selective in their scope of promotion. We use this framework to show how states can shift strategies over time without altering their underlying ideological commitments. We apply this framework to the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev and to China under Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping. Our case studies show that there was no single Cold War, and that contemporary China differs in important ways from the Soviet Union.

This paper explores how democratization can reconstitute understandings of nationhood by empowering a new class of “storytelling elites”---those with the institutional and rhetorical resources to challenge the state’s narrative. In this critical juncture, storytelling elites may challenge (1) the bottom-line premise or (2) the sideline elements of the prevailing national narrative. Their narrative strategies, in turn, shape how the terms of the debates are redefined and structured under democracy. I develop this argument through a comparison of “One Korea” and “One China” narratives in postwar South Korea and Taiwan. Using interpretive process tracing of archival and other qualitative data, I find that democracy helped entrench “One Korea” narratives in South Korea but displace “One China” narratives in Taiwan, as new storytelling elites challenged dominant narratives of “oneness” to varying degrees. This resulted in increasingly divergent support for unification as a national objective, with enduring implications for peace.

Awards and Recognition

• Winner of the 2025 Best Article Award, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration Studies Section, International Studies Association

• Winner of the 2024 Barbara W. Tuchman Prize, Historical International Relations Section, International Studies Association

• Winner of the 2024 Martin O. Heisler Award, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration Studies Section, International Studies Association

• Honorable Mention for the 2024 Elise Boulding Award, Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section, American Sociological Association

Hedging, conceptualized as a set of improvised alignment practices, allows states to maintain maneuverability in the face of uncertainty. Using this conceptual framework, we re-examine the evolving foreign policy perceptions and strategies of Japan and South Korea in response to the growing US–China competition in the last decade. While Japan has consistently aligned with the US since 2013, when Xi Jinping took power in China, South Korea has undergone a more notable shift—from hedging to balancing against China. Surprisingly, the changes in perceptions of Chinese threat can be traced to the progressive administration of President Moon Jae-in. This analysis highlights the dynamic nature of alignment strategies and their implications for regional security and the US–China rivalry.

How does collective memory shape politics in the domestic and international spheres? I argue that collective memory—an intersubjective understanding of the past—has no inherent meaning and its salience is entirely contextual. What it means politically depends on the historical trajectory through which it came to form and the political exigency for which it is mobilized in the present. I propose three strategies by which social actors mobilize collective memory: framing—negotiating how the past can be interpreted; accrediting—redefining which narrators are authorized to speak; and binding—enforcing the narrative bounds to which narrators must conform. Using this framework, I reassess the failure of South Korea–Japan reconciliation and find that it has as much to do with the mobilization of collective colonial memory in South Korea over the course of its democratization as with Japanese impenitence. Anti-Japanese memory reflects continued domestic political contestation about how South Korea remembers and identifies itself.

Awards and Recognition

• Winner of the 2023 Catherine McArdle Kelleher Article Award, International Security Section, American Political Science Association

• Winner of the 2023 Alexander L. George Article Award, Qualitative and Multi-Method Research Section, American Political Science Association

• Winner of the 2023 Fred Hartmann Award, International Studies Association–Northeast

• Winner of the 2022 Women’s Caucus for International Studies Award, International Studies Association

• Winner of the 2022 Pre-PhD Award, International Theory Section, International Studies Association

• Honorable Mention for the 2022 Barbara W. Tuchman Prize, Historical International Relations Section, International Studies Association

How has ideology shaped Chinese foreign policy—particularly under Xi Jinping? Comparing Chinese rhetoric and behavior, we find that the CCP has employed ideology conditionally and opportunistically in the service of strengthening one-party rule. Abroad, the CCP’s ideological activism has selectively centered around norms and practices that are antithetical to its domestic survival and international legitimacy as an authoritarian, single-party regime. At home, the CCP has often employed what we call “ideological bluster”—vague appeals to principles without corresponding action—and tolerated domestic contestation within foreign policy issues that are more peripheral than central to its domestic legitimacy. In this manner, ideology in Xi’s China has been far from monolithic, shaped by the CCP’s desire to protect internal unity and produce external validation.

Students with disabilities are often left out of discussions surrounding diversity and inclusion in academia. Yet, many students cope with disabilities during graduate school, including physical disabilities such as immobility, blindness, hearing impairments; chronic health conditions including cancer and autoimmune diseases; and mental health issues such as depression. Disabilities can be more or less visible, and require different levels of ongoing medical interventions. Yet, regardless of type, students with disabilities share challenges in balancing their needs against the pressures of graduate school, finding adequate institutional support, and confronting discriminatory actions including implicit bias. In this paper, we document some of these challenges and identify possible resources students may seek out in their respective departments, universities, and beyond. In doing so, we hope to acknowledge the unique needs of students with disabilities as well as inform, based on our lived experiences, how academia as a whole may better accommodate those needs.