RESEARCH INTERESTS
International Organizations, International Law, Laws of War, Human Rights, Human Security, Gender, Non-state Actors, Culture, East Asia, Mixed-methods
BOOK PROJECT
Blacklisted Rebels: Commitment to Child Rights in Armed Conflict
PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
Minju Kwon and Claudia Sheng*. Forthcoming. Bad Idols: China’s Entertainment Securitization of K-pop Culture. The Journal of Asian Studies. [Equal contribution]
This article analyzes the Chinese government’s framing of Korean popular music (K-pop) idol culture and its underlying motivations for recent regulations in the 2020s. There has been limited theorization and empirical investigation on the government’s recent reactions to K-pop idol culture. Using the concept of “entertainment securitization,” this article argues that the government attempts to securitize K-pop idol culture as a threat to the harmonious social order. Analyzing official documents and news media sources, this study demonstrates that the government frames transnational K-pop idol culture as immoral and irrational. This culture is viewed as encouraging harmful online behavior, lowbrow content, and deformed gender expression, especially to impressionable minors, which all contradict the Xi administration’s aspiration to uphold nationalistic agendas. This research expands the literature on China’s cultural policy on transnational entertainment media by theorizing its framing for securitization and providing new empirical evidence from its recent regulations.
Minju Kwon. 2026. All but the Death Penalty: Incomplete Protection for Civilian Internee Mothers. Feminist Legal Studies. Online First.
Minju Kwon and Wukki Kim. 2026. Through the Rule of Law: United Nations Mission Mandates and Foreign Direct Investment. World Development Perspectives 42, 100780 [Equal contribution]
Minju Kwon. 2025. Short-Haired Modern Girls: Colonial Korean Women’s Fashion as the Standards of Civilization. European Journal of International Relations 31(3): 561–585.
Iara Gonzalez-Ascencio** and Minju Kwon. 2025. Cohabitation with Criminals: Civilian Women’s Everyday Cooperation with Mexican Drug Cartels. International Feminist Journal of Politics 27(2): 304–326. [Equal contribution]
Inho Choi and Minju Kwon. 2025. Ontological Complexity of Interpolity Orders: The Encounter of Choson and Tibet in Qing. European Journal of International Relations 31(1): 28–52 [Equal contribution]
Minju Kwon and Kaye Valdez*. 2024. Sarcasm or Sexism? Media Framing of Duterte’s Misogynistic Speeches. Asian Journal of Women's Studies 30(2): 85–109. [Equal contribution]
Minju Kwon and Ya Su. 2024. Relatively Unworthy Victims? Middle-Aged Women as Rape Survivors. Violence Against Women 30(8): 1804–1824. [Equal contribution]
Minju Kwon. 2022. The United Nations in the Indo-Pacific Era and Competition for Legitimacy in East Asia. Journal of Peace and Unification Studies 14(1): 5–63 [In Korean, KCI]
Research Review, Global NK Zoom & Connect, East Asia Institute, August 29, 2022 (Summary of the article with a focus on North Korea, Translated by the East Asia Institute)
Chapter 2 in Sang-Yoon Ma (ed.), Indotaepyeongyang Sidaeui Pyeonghwawa Hanbando (Peace and the Korean Peninsula in the Indo-Pacific Era), Seoul National University Press, Forthcoming.
Minju Kwon and Jeeye Song. 2020. The Korean War and Lottery: The Legislation of the Patriotic Lottery. Society and History 128: 125–165. [Equal contribution, In Korean, KCI]
* Chapman Undergraduate Student ** Chapman Graduate Student
WORK IN PROGRESS
Naming and Shaming, and the Laws of War: When the ICRC Violates Discretion and Goes Public (with Brooke Greene and Tanisha M. Fazal)
Legitimate Hunters: Legitimacy-Making Process of the Civilian Joint Task Force in Nigeria (with Dinah Lawan)