Yena Kim

Welcome!

I am Yena Kim, a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the O’Brien Notre Dame International Security Center.

My research lies at the intersection of international relations, the domestic politics of foreign policy, and mixed-methods research. I study how leaders and the domestic audiences they answer to shape whether states cooperate with or confront one another—and, more precisely, when leader-level factors matter for foreign policy. My work develops along three strands: the leader-level sources of international cooperation and their domestic constraints; the effects of leaders' foreign policy choices on their accountability at home; and how states form beliefs about one another and act on them. 

My dissertation, Populist Leaders in Power and International Cooperation, asks under what conditions populist leaders in democracies actually undermine cooperation—a puzzle motivated by how differently they behave once in office. I argue that a populist reduces cooperation when confronting a partner carries a low net domestic political cost, and that three independent conditions make that cost low: high populist demand in the leader's own public, a democratic target, and an allied target. Populist retreat is therefore not across the board but directed—it concentrates on the democratic and allied partners that anchor the liberal international order and largely spares the rest. I test this argument with an original cross-national panel, a survey experiment, and process tracing.

Besides my dissertation topic, I am also interested in alliance politics, provocation, and cooperation within international institutions and organizations.

Before pursuing my Ph.D., I earned a B.A. (Highest Honors) in Political Science and Russian Language and Literature and an M.A. in Political Science from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.

Please feel free to reach out at yena.kim@wisc.edu.