Research
Research
Research Interests: International Relations Theory, International Security, East Asian Regionalism, Asian Security, Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Overseas U.S. Military Presence, Civil Society, Korean Politics, North Korea, Formation of Ideas and Beliefs, Narratives and Discourse
Research Statement (Revised June 2019)
My research and teaching interests revolve around four different areas of interest.
1. East Asian International Relations
My most recent book, Asia's Regional Architecture: Alliances and Institutions in the Pacific Century, and a collection of several published and working papers and short policy pieces address several issues central to East Asian international relations including Asian security, Asian regional architecture, East Asian regionalism, Northeast Asia cooperation, Indo-Pacific Strategy, Korea-Japan relations, and North Korea. Much of this research attempts to connect theory with policy-relevant research and I have the Bridging the Gap network and Joseph Nye's Scholars on the Sideline op-ed to thank for encouraging me to take this route (it's also somewhat inevitable if you live in Washington DC).
Asia's Regional Architecture describes the evolution of East Asia's regional architecture. The book challenges teleological assumptions about regionalism in East Asia which suggest that bilateral alliance structures will give way to strong multilateralism in the region. Instead, I draw insights from historical institutionalism to explain how pre-existing ideas and structures from the Cold War have influenced the trajectory of East Asia's institutional development. Taking into account processes of change and continuity, the book addresses how the push for multilateralism must rest on the bilateral hub-and-spokes system producing a regional architecture characterized by a patchwork of overlapping institutions. Long dominated by rationalist perspectives, the book makes an appeal for taking temporal and ideational context more seriously in the design of institutions.
Additionally, the papers I'm currently working on either try to make sense of the academic literature on East Asian international relations or attempt to bring something "new" into the literature. Much of what I read in this area (particularly on the policy end) is either repetitive or redundant. I can't say I've done much better or discovered any path-breaking new ground. I have, however, found some of the literature on historical institutionalism to be helpful in thinking about how policymakers assess U.S.-China relations or determine long term strategy in East Asia at any given point in time.
Finally, I conduct a fair amount of policy research on Korean politics and U.S.-South Korea relations. At least in Washington DC, I seem to be tapped as a South Korea expert so I frequently give talks, participate in panels, and attend conferences related to Korea.
North Korea
I have three areas of research related to North Korea. The first is part of a two-year (2014-2016) Korea Foundation sponsored project titled, "Evolution of North Korean Human Rights Discourse and Activism: Domestic and Transnational Dimensions." Danielle Chubb (Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia) is the co-principle investigator. Sandra Fahy (Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan) and Jiyoung Song (Lowy Institute, Sydney Australia) are collaborators. We try to understand the contentions, the hurdles, and the assumptions underpinning North Korean human rights by examining discourses within different domestic contexts. We hosted a closed workshop in Melbourne in June 2015, and will host an international conference in Washington DC in October 2016.
The second project I have in mind is to explore the politics of human rights and humanitarian aid in North Korea. Why do human rights and humanitarian aid groups with noble intentions of alleviating human suffering at times distrust one another? At the core of the argument is the tension between human rights and humanitarian engagement approaches. Some initial thoughts appear in 38 North, North Korean Review, and in a forthcoming article in Asia Perspective.
The third project relates to North Korean civil society, and explores whether/how the rise of markets and the flow of information might foster the growth of civil society in North Korea. This project is in a very early stage and is conjunction with a broader study with the Center for Strategic and International Studies Korea Chair.
Politics of Overseas Military Bases and Anti-Base Protests
I published Activists, Alliances, and Anti-U.S. Base Protests in 2011 but continue to follow-up on research related to base politics and overseas U.S. military presence. A related side piece on transnational anti-base activism was published in International Studies Quarterly. Currently, I have several working papers including research on anti-base protests on Jeju Island, a review essay on base politics for Perspectives on Politics, and a co-authored paper on the expansionary logic of overseas U.S. military bases since since 1898.
Social Movements and World Politics
One of my ideas for a "next project" following my first book included crafting a more coherent theory synthesizing social movement approaches with international relations (IR) theory which I never got quite right in the first book. I've teased out various mechanisms which link social movements to systemic consequences (and vice-versa): the first set of mechanisms is the more obvious one for IR scholars: norms diffusion, persuasion, framing, discourse. But there is also a signaling, bargaining, emulation logic which IR scholars have overlooked - mainly b/c constructivists rather than rationalists/realists have picked up on the social and transnational movement literature (for reasons I outline in a working paper). I can take this research in two directions. The first is to present a framework outlining the processes and mechanisms demonstrating how social movements matter in international relations or how international factors shape domestic social movements. The second approach is to pick out cases where social movements helped bring about major transformations to the international system (i.e. protestant reformation, decolonization, the end of the Cold War). In some ways this might sound like Dan Philpott's work, Revolutions in Sovereignty except that the focus shifts from ideas to the carrier of ideas and how they mobilize to bring about major transformations.
I put together a graduate seminar on social movements in world politics in Spring 2011 to help me review some relevant literature. At some point, I plan to apply for funding to put together a conference panel or workshop on this topic. In the meantime, I am working on a theoretical/framing paper for eventual journal submission. In the future, I hope to conduct more in-depth research on specific case examples.
The Politics of Peace
My interest here stems from earlier research on base politics and interaction with peace activists. I'm fascinated by how and why activists and policymakers (or for that matter liberals and conservatives) often draw different conclusions about issues pertaining to peace and security. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the research hones in on socialization processes which lead individuals/groups to embrace particular assumptions about the world. This in turn produces fundamental clashes in the meaning of peace and security on controversial issues including the use of drones in warfare, missile defense, and nuclear disarmament. This research is ultimately about the formation of ideas and beliefs, and thus draws on the literature in psychology and sociology. The policymakers are the "baseline" group and activists are the target group I'm most interested in learning about. I'd like to conduct surveys for both populations as a starting point for understanding different worldviews. Perhaps an online survey circulated among peace groups, and a survey of an elite foreign policy population (i.e CFR members, officers in the military)?
Selected Publications:
Books:
North Korean Human Rights: Activists and Networks (Cambridge University Press 2018), with D. Chubb.
Politics and How to get it Back (Routledge, 2017), with M. Green.
Activists, Alliances, and Anti-U.S. Base Protests (Cambridge University Pres, 2011)
Journal Articles:
2018 "Realism, Critical Theory, and the Politics of Peace: Lessons from Anti-base Movements on
Jeju Island.” European Journal of International Security 3(2): 235-55.
2017 Overlapping Regionalism in East Asia: Determinants and Potential Effects. International Relations
of the Asia-Pacific 18 (2): 161-191.
2017 The Politics of Overseas Military Bases. Perspectives on Politics 15 (1): 129-36.
2015 Business as Usual: The Role of Norms in Alliance Management. European Journal of
International Relations (with Stephanie Hofmann)
2014 Alleviating Misery: The Politics of North Korean Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy.
North Korean Review 10 (2), 71-87.
2014 Security, Sovereignty, and Justice in U.S. Overseas Military Presence. International
Journal of Peace Studies. 18 (2), 43-67.
2012 Challenging U.S. Military Presence in the Philippines. South Atlantic Quarterly 111 (4), 857-
864.
2010 Ideas and Institutions in Contentious Politics: Anti-Base Movements in Ecuador and
Italy. Comparative Politics 42 (4), 435-455.
2010 U.S. Military Base Realignment in South Korea . Peace Review 22 (2), 113-120.
2009 Not in Anyone's Backyard: The Emergence and Future of a Transnational Anti-Base Network.
International Studies Quarterly 53(3), 571-594.
2006 Signaling Democracy: Patron-Client Relations and Democratization in South Korea and Poland .
Journal of East Asian Studies 6(2), 259-287.
2006 Local National Dynamics and Framing in South Korean Anti-Base Movements. Kasarinlan:
Philippine Journal of Third World Studies. 21(2), 34-69.
Works Under Review or In Progress
Historical Institutionalism and East Asia
Beyond U.S. Hegemony: Regional Security Order in Europe and Asia [co-author with Stephanie Hoffmann]
The Politicization of North Korean Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy
Security, Sovereignty, and Social Justice
Jeju Anti-Base Protests and the Politics of Peace
Global and Regional Polarity: Post-Cold War Asia Revisited
Social Movements and World Politics
Methodological Challenges (and Progress) in Ideational Research in International Relations (with
Stephen Nelson)