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 the different attempts by Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in to pursue attempts at reconciliation, and how they were thwarted by excessive idealism, domestic divisions, and broader great power rivalries―notably with Russia, China, and Japan.

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.

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.