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 conditionality to almost all of its preferential trade agreements. In this paper, using novel data, I argue that EU partners are more likely to resist the EU’s human rights pressure through trade relations when they are embedded more into regional trade agreements with human rights-violating members. This is because 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. These trade relations also empower actors with outside options and collective bargaining power against the EU.  I find that when the embeddedness is high, EU human rights conditions becomes less effective, and trade negotiations are more likely to fail. Contradicting EU goals, condition stringency does not have a significant effect on behavior. 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 effectiveness of trade-human rights linkages.

Threat Perception of China and AI Regulation in Europe

The Effectiveness of Trade Adjustment Assistance Programs 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)

Peer-reviewed Publication

"Linking the Death Penalty to Trade: Bureaucratic Politics among European Institutions." (2000) East and West Studies 30(3), 67-99 with Min Gyo Koo.