Working Papers and Peer-reviewed Publications (available upon request)  

Illiberal Human Rights Norms in Trade and the Effectiveness of Western Conditionalities (Job Market Paper, Dissertation Chapter)

Under Review

Conditionalities and issue linkages are core instruments of liberal international governance, yet their effectiveness remains disputed. We have not evaluated conditionality under today’s shifting order, as South-South trade and illiberal institutions expand while Northern-centered trade and multilateral systems fragment. I argue that effectiveness depends on the \emph{international institutional environment} in which conditionality is deployed. When targets are embedded in dense networks of illiberal regional trade agreements (RTAs), those networks provide economic substitutes and alternative justificatory norms, lowering the material and reputational costs of resisting Western pressure and turning conditionality into a site of norm contestation. I test this argument using novel data on EU trade partners, 1991--2019. I estimate heterogeneous effects of EU trade agreements on human rights outcomes conditional on partners’ illiberal RTA embeddedness, using synthetic difference-in-differences with staggered adoption and complementary case evidence. Results show that high illiberal embeddedness systematically attenuates post-ratification rights improvements, even as governments sometimes adjust during negotiations to secure agreement. These findings specify when trade-based conditionality retains leverage in a weakening liberal order.


Linking Human Rights to Trade: Institutional Politics and Disguised Protectionism of the EU (Dissertation Chapter)

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.


Regionalism as Rhetoric: How Non-Democracies Invoke International Organizations at the UN 

Revised and Resubmitted at International Interactions

The United Nations General Debate offers a unique platform for states to articulate their foreign policy priorities and frame their commitments to international norms. While the UN promotes universal values and multilateral cooperation, other international organizations beyond the UN are frequently referenced in the debate. This paper examines how non-democracies, as well as states experiencing democratic and human rights erosion, strategically reference regional organizations in the context of discussing regional solidarity and liberal international norms such as human rights, the rule of law, and democracy. I argue that non-democracies use this rhetoric to shield themselves from Western pressure and present an appearance of compliance with liberal norms while simultaneously emphasizing sovereignty, self-determination, and regional approaches to domestic issues. By framing these matters as regional concerns, these states strategically seek to undermine the universality of liberal norms and broader enforcement at the multilateral level. Drawing on AI-assisted text analysis of a readily available corpus, the study finds that autocracies and hybrid regimes are more likely to reference regional and illiberal international organizations (relative to the total number of IO references) and invoke liberal international norms when discussing these organizations. On the other hand, liberal democracies are not more likely to reference more liberal IOs. These findings shed light on the rhetorical strategies of backsliding states and contribute to our understanding of how international norms are referenced and contested by regional actors in a multilateral context.



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


Political trust is a key determinant of policy preferences and long-term policy outcomes. While trade adjustment assistance programs aim to mitigate the negative impacts of globalization, most research evaluates their effectiveness through electoral outcomes and public support for free trade. However, these programs may also have broader effects on political trust and long-term policy decisions, a relationship that remains understudied. This paper examines political trust as an alternative measure of trade adjustment program effectiveness, comparing the U.S. Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF). We argue that the EGF is more effective due to (1) its insulation from political and partisan influence in fund distribution and (2) its emphasis on education and training over direct cash transfers, as seen in the TAA. Using geo-located survey data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) and Eurobarometer, we assess how these institutional differences influence political trust. Addressing causality, we leverage a staggered difference-in-differences design with new panel data at the municipality level from Denmark. We find that trade adjustment assistance is increasing preferences for the EU in the short to medium term. Our findings suggest that political trust can serve as an alternative measure of trade policy effectiveness.



Domestic Foundations of Labor vs. Human Rights in Trade Agreements  (Dissertation Chapter)

Existing literature has often conflated or neglected to differentiate between labor and human rights provisions in trade agreements. This paper argues that distinct political dynamics underlie both the formation and compliance with human and labor rights conditionalities. Focusing on EU trade agreements, which negotiate human and labor rights clauses as separate chapters, I examine how partisanship and domestic political contexts influence the stringency and compliance of these conditionalities in partner countries. Using a difference-in-differences design with staggered adoption and two-way fixed effects, I find that right-leaning governments are more likely to accept stronger labor provisions and show pre-ratification improvements, driven by trade-oriented incentives and mobilization from business and labor constituencies. In contrast, human rights clauses face greater resistance due to sovereignty concerns and weaker domestic advocacy. Post-ratification, rights improvements stall or decline under right-wing governments, reflecting a gap between rhetorical commitment and policy follow-through. These findings are supported by qualitative case studies of Asian EU trade partners and legislative speech analysis from South Korea and Singapore. This study contributes to the literature on issue linkage by disentangling the political pathways of labor and human rights in trade policy, offering a more differentiated understanding of the limits and strategic uses of normative conditionalities.


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