Minseon Ku 

Hello! I'm Assistant Professor at the Grace School of Applied Diplomacy at DePaul University.

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My primary research interests are in understanding diplomacy as a social practice of states, with profound implications for international security, by shaping how the public understands and experiences world politics. 

 

My first book project, The Power of Performance: Summit Diplomacy and World Politics, which was selected for the Scholar's Circle at 2024 ISA Northeast Baltimore, is based on my dissertation and develops a theoretical approach to understanding summit diplomacy as a performance of foreign policy reproducing what I call the "social international," or the international system of states as a social space occupied by states behaving like people with social relations, shaping profoundly the domestic public's beliefs about inter-state relations and the long-term trajectory of foreign policy.

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My research has been published or is forthcoming in European Journal of International Relations, the Hague Journal of Diplomacy, International Organization, International Studies Perspectives, Media, War & Conflict, and Review of International Studies. My other research interests include International Relations Theory, social theory of international politics, political psychology and IR, ontological security, diplomacy and public opinion, public diplomacy, and a regional focus on the US and Northeast Asia (China, Japan, and the two Koreas).  

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Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Diplomacy Project at William & Mary Global Research Institute, and the 2023-24 Spencer Fellow in US Foreign Policy and International Security at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth. I earned my MA and PhD in Political Science from The Ohio State University and Master's in Global Affairs and Policy and BA in Political Science & International Relations from Yonsei University in Seoul.