Welcome

I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, focusing on international relations and comparative politics. Prior to joining the PhD program, I earned a Bachelor of Arts in international relations from the University of Washington at Seattle and a Master of Global Affairs & Policy from the Graduate School of International Studies at the Yonsei University.

My broad research interests include international cooperation, international political economy, and climate change politics.

My dissertation project applies a bottom-up approach. The previous literature on international relations examines the role of domestic politics in international cooperation. A two-level game approach perceives domestic politics as a constraint on states’ actions on international negotiation and ratification of international agreements. In this literature, domestic stakeholders are merely viewed as audiences leaders need to appease to stay in power. In contrast, a bottom-up approach sees domestic stakeholders as independent actors. They determine international relations and domestic politics, following their motivations. Thus, the project explores what motivates subnational governments to take independent actions to address climate change issues.