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Myunghee Lee

Myunghee Lee
  • Assistant Professor
  • Faculty

BIOGRAPHY

Myunghee Lee

Assistant Professor 

Ph.D., University of Missouri - Columbia, Political Science

Professor Lee's teaching and research interests include authoritarian politics, democratization, protest and foreign policy. Her regional focus is East Asia, particularly the Korean Peninsula and China.

She is currently working on a book project that examines predemocratization authoritarian education and post-democratization authoritarian legacies in South Korea and Poland. Her work appears in many prominent journals such as International Security, Journal of East Asian Studies, Politics and Gender, and International Studies Review. Before joining James Madison College, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Copenhagen. Her research has been supported by the Korea Foundation and the Academy of Korean Studies.

JMC Field Affiliation:

International Relations

PUBLICATIONS

Peer-reviewed

  • "Protectors of Liberal Democracy or Defenders of Past Authoritarianism?: Authoritarian Legacies, Collective Identity, and the Far-right Protest in South Korea.” Democratization, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2024.

  • “Authoritarianism at School: Indoctrination Education, Political Socialization, and Citizenship in North Korea.” Asian Studies Review, Vol. 48, No. 2, 2024

  • “Authoritarian Successor Parties, Supporters, and Protest: Lessons from Asian Democracies.” Journal of East Asian Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2023.

  • “Field Research: A Graduate Student’s Guide.” (with Ezgi Irgil, Anne-Kathrin Kreft, Charmaine N. Willis, and Kelebogile Zvobgo). International Studies Review, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2021.

  • “The Global Diffusion of the #MeToo Movement.” (with Amanda Murdie). Politics & Gender, Vol. 17, No. 4, 2021.

  • “Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression: China’s Changing Strategy in Xinjiang.” (with Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Emir Yazici). International Security, Vol. 44, No. 3, 2020.

Book chapters 

  • “China’s Surveillance and Repression in Xinjiang.” (with Emir Yazici). in Cambridge Handbook of Race and Surveillance. Cambridge University Press. 2023

Other publications 

  • “South Korea shook a presidential power grab – failure to impeach now risks damaging democracy.” (with Sungik Yang). The Conversation, December 12, 2024.

  • “What South Korea’s short-lived martial law says about nation’s democracy and the autocratic tendencies of President Yoon.” The Conversation, December 3, 2024.

  • “Bricks in the wall: How North Korean textbooks indoctrinate support for regime.” NK Pro, July 15, 2024.

  • “President Yoon is lauded in West for embracing Japan, in South Korea it fits a conservative agenda that is proving less popular.” (with Sungik Yang). The Conversation, March 6, 2024.

  • “Fieldwork.” (with Ezgi Irgil, Anne-Kathrin Kreft, Charmaine N. Willis, and Kelebogile Zvobgo). in Strategies for Navigating Graduate School and Beyond. American Political Science Association. 2022.

  • “South Korea-EU Global Health Governance.” (with Szymon Zareba). in South Korea-EU Cooperation in Global Governance. KF-VUB Korea Chair Report. 2021.

  • “Understanding China’s Preventive Repression in Xinjiang.” (with Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Emir Yazici). Lawfare, March 1, 2020.

Rook reviews

  •  “Top-down Democracy in South Korea by Erik Mobrand.” Korean Studies, Vol. 46, 2022.

  • “From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia by Dan Slater and Joseph Wong.” International Affairs, Vol. 99, No. 4, 2023.