Working Papers 

(Dissertation chapters,  available upon request)

Linking Human Rights to Trade: 

Institutional Trust and Disguised Protectionism of the EU 

(under review)

The European Union is the most active trading entity in the world that includes human rights clauses (HRCs) into almost all its trade agreements.  However, HRCs vary substantially across agreements, which I demonstrate using novel data.  I argue that the stringency of human rights clauses-as well as the selection of countries into EU trade agreements--is conditioned by institutional politics between the legislative and the executive bodies of the EU. Specifically, when the European Parliament (EP) has more bargaining leverage relative to the European Commission, human rights will be a more prominent component of EU foreign policy, reflecting public interests in the European electorate.  I find that when the EP has strong protectionist incentives and institutional bargaining power-a decline in public trust in the Commission-- the EU becomes less likely to conclude trade agreements with human rights violators, and more likely to insert stringent HRCs in the agreements. I also find that these effects are magnified after the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, which institutionally empowered the EP. I find little evidence of human rights conditions in partner countries affecting HRCs. The implication is that institutional politics within the EU are at least as important as actual human rights conditions in shaping the substance of EU trade agreements, as well as negotiations.

 Illiberal Human Rights Norms and Trade Nexus:

 Undermining Western Human Rights-Trade Linkage? (JMP)

Are international organizations still able to promote liberal norms through economic integration and issue linkage? The EU is the most prominent actor that attaches human rights conditionalities to almost all of its preferential trade agreements. In this paper, using novel data, I argue that EU trading partners are more likely to resist the EU’s human rights-trade linkage when they are embedded more into regional trade agreements with human rights-violating members. RTAs with these partners reinforce countervailing, illiberal human rights institutions—authoritarian human rights laws and norms that emphasize relativist approaches to human rights and sovereignty—that are loosely linked to economic integration. This new nexus of regional trade and illiberal human rights reduces the cost of noncompliance by providing outside options and collective bargaining power, but also reducing domestic public pressure and reputational costs through illiberal norm diffusion. I find that when the embeddedness is high, EU human rights conditionalities become less effective, and trade negotiations are more likely to fail. Contradicting EU goals, conditionality stringency does not have a significant effect on compliance. Yet, this embeddedness does not undermine the effects of EU pressure during negotiations, implying that the EU’s normative influence is short-lived but existent. This study contributes to the declining liberal international order literature and the understanding of the effectiveness of trade-human rights linkages.

Threat Perception of China and a Human Rights-Oriented AI Regulation in Europe: Evidence from Survey Experiment 

Comparing the Effects of Trade Adjustment Assistance Programs on Political Trust in the US and EU (with Rachel Yu and Soeren Etzerodt)

Distinguishing Labor and Human Rights Issues in Trade: Partisanship and Interest Group Mobilization (dissertation chapter)

Why do States Talk about Regional Organizations in the UN General Debate? 

Peer-reviewed Publication

"Linking the Death Penalty to Trade: Bureaucratic Politics among European Institutions." (2018) East and West Studies 30(3), 67-99 with Min Gyo Koo.