LISTEN: Who Should Speak for South Korea? Invigorating South Korea’s Unification Diplomacy Efforts in the U.S.

With Minseon Ku
In conversation with Susan A. Thornton
November 2024

Susan Thornton, Director of the NCAFP’s program on Asia-Pacific security, sits down with Minseon Ku, Postdoctoral Fellow at William and Mary, to discuss her research into South Korea’s unification diplomacy efforts in the U.S.

Read more about our Next-Generation Korean Peninsula Specialists Program here.

Minseon KU is Postdoctoral Fellow with the Diplomacy Project at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute and an incoming Assistant Professor of Applied Diplomacy at DePaul University.  She is working on a book project on the rise of summitry as a state practice in world politics. Her other research interests include International Relations theory, diplomatic practices, the international politics of rapprochement, US-Northeast Asia relations, and South Korea’s foreign policy and diplomacy. Her research has been published in the International Organization, the Hague Journal of Diplomacy, and the Review of International Studies.  She has also contributed policy commentaries on Northeast Asia in various outlets including the Diplomat, 38 North, the National Interest, and the East Asia Forum. She was previously the 2023-4 Spencer Fellow in US Foreign Policy and International Security at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth. She received her MA and Ph.D. in Political Science from the Ohio State University, and a Master’s degree and a BA from Yonsei University in Seoul. Prior to her doctorate program, she was a visiting junior scholar at the Office of the Korea Chair at CSIS and a research assistant at the National Assembly Budget Office in South Korea.