WELCOME!
I am a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science at University of Rochester. Prior to my doctoral study, I studied business administration at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. My research specialization includes international political economy, politics of trade, firm lobbying and quantitative methods (with particular interest in causal inference, broadly construed).
If you'd like to know more about me when I'm off-duty, visit my Attic and get a sneak peek of my life as a painter and a LEGO aficionado! And one last thing - Go BILLS! 🏈
At Genesee Riverway Trail, 2022
MY JOB MARKET PAPER
"Trade as a Potent Threat: A Firm-Centered Approach to Economic Statecraft"
Today's economic interdependence among states has transformed firms into central actors in shaping security dynamics through their strategic business decisions. This paper aims to show the impact of a few elite firms' trade demands on security outcomes, in the context of the United States. The primary purpose of the 301 process is to redress US firms' grievances against trade barriers in their investment destinations, but the history of its usage has attested to its tactical use as political punishment on targeted countries, especially for emerging economies. Their lack of institutional capacity to retaliate, along with trade dependence on the United States make Special 301 targeting more effective. The security-relevant consequence is the strategic placement of ideology by the targeted emerging economies, closer to the ideal point of the United States. To test the argument, I construct an original dataset with semantic estimates of US perspective on trade barriers vis-a-vis its trading partners, using the corpus of National Trade Estimate (NTE) reports published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). Results find strong support to the influence of firm grievances on Special 301 process, vulnerability of emerging economies to Special 301, and its effect on the targeted countries' convergence of preferences with the United States.
CONTACT
Email jihye.park at rochester.edu
Postal 315A Harkness Hall, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627
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