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 in Trade and the Effectiveness of Western Conditionalities (JMP)

Are international organizations still able to promote liberal norms? The European Union (EU) is a leading actor in linking human rights issues to external relations, particularly through conditionalities in preferential trade agreements. In this paper, using novel data from all EU trading partners between 1990 and 2020, I argue that EU trading partners are more likely to resist the EU’s human rights-trade linkages when they are deeply embedded in regional trade agreements (RTAs) with human rights-violating members. These RTAs reinforce countervailing illiberal human rights institutions—authoritarian laws and norms that adopt relativist approaches to human rights and sovereignty—loosely tied to economic integration. This nexus of regional trade and illiberal human rights norms lowers the cost of noncompliance by providing attractive economic outside options and collective bargaining power, while also diminishing domestic public pressure and reputational costs through the diffusion of illiberal norms. My findings indicate that high levels of embeddedness reduce the effectiveness of EU human rights conditionalities and increase the likelihood of trade negotiation failures. Moreover, conditionality stringency does not significantly impact compliance. However, this embeddedness does not negate the positive effects of EU pressure during negotiations, and EU agreements improve human rights outcomes in countries with low embeddedness. This suggests that the EU’s normative influence through trade agreements is short-lived but existent. This study contributes to the literature on the declining liberal international order and offers new insights into the effectiveness of trade-human rights linkages. 

Threat Perception of China and a Human Rights-Oriented AI Regulation in Europe: Evidence from a Survey Experiment (with Johannes Geith) 

The Effectiveness 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 International 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.