Speaker: Joan E. Cho, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University
Moderator: Jonathan Corrado, Korea Society policy director
Join us for a discussion with Dr. Joan E. Cho, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University, on her 2024 book Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea's Democracy, which explores the nonlinear nature of South Korea’s democratization. Using oral interviews, original protest datasets, and publications by student and labor activists, Cho illustrates how modernization structures such as industrial complexes and tertiary education initially bolstered authoritarian regimes before facilitating protests by various social movement groups, which ultimately succeeded in ushering in the country’s democratization. During the discussion, Cho also describes how this historical legacy continues to impact Korean politics, including the generational divide and the recent martial law and impeachment episodes.
Speaker's Bio: Dr. Joan Cho’s primary research and teaching focuses are authoritarianism, democracy, and social movements in Korea and East Asia. She is the author of Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea's Democracy (University of Michigan Press, 2024). Her research has been published in Electoral Studies, Journal of Democracy, Journal of East Asian Studies, Studies in Comparative International Development, and Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society. Dr. Cho is an Adjunct Fellow (Non-resident) in the Office of the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Associate-in-Research of the Council of East Asian Studies at Yale University. She serves on the APSA Committee on the Status of Asian Pacific Americans in the Profession (2024-2027). Previously, Cho was Vice President of the Association of Korean Political Studies (2022-2024), faculty co-convener of the Korean Political Studies Colloquium (2022-2024), and a 2018-2019 U.S.-Korea NextGen Scholar. She holds Ph.D. and A.M. degrees in Political Science from the Department of Government at Harvard University and B.A. (cum laude with honors) in Political Science from the University of Rochester.
This event is hosted by the Korea Society and co-sponsored by the Center for Korean Research.
For more details and registration, please click HERE.
