Joan Cho

Dr. Joan Cho's research and teaching focus on authoritarianism, democracy, and social movements in Korea and East Asia. She is the author of Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea's Democracy (University of Michigan Press, 2024). Her current project examines partisan polarization in East Asian democracies. Her research has been published in Electoral Studies, the Journal of Democracy, the Journal of East Asian Studies, Studies in Comparative International Development, and the Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society. She has also written for the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Pacific Affairs, The Diplomat, and The Conversation. In addition, Dr. Cho has provided commentary on Korean politics in major outlets, including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Vox.

Dr. Cho is an Adjunct Fellow (Non-resident) in the Office of the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Associate-in-Research of the Council of East Asian Studies at Yale University. She serves on the APSA Committee on the Status of Asian Pacific Americans in the Profession (2024-2027). Previously, Cho was Vice President of the Association of Korean Political Studies (2022-2024), faculty co-convener of the Korean Political Studies Colloquium (2022-2024), and a 2018-2019 U.S.-Korea NextGen Scholar. Her academic appointment and research have been supported by the Korea Foundation and the Academy of Korean Studies. She hold a PhD and an AM in Political Science from the Department of Government at Harvard University and BA (cum laude with honors) in Political Science from the University of Rochester.