Darcie Draudt, Ph.D. Candidate
ddraudt1@jhu.edu
Johns Hopkins University
About Me:
Darcie Draudt is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Johns Hopkins University. She is currently in Seoul as a Korea Foundation dissertation fieldwork fellow and a visiting scholar at the Yonsei University Department of Political Science. She holds a non-resident James A. Kelly Korean Studies fellowship at Pacific Forum and serves as senior editor for Sino-NK, an online scholarly blog that focuses on the transnational links that bind China, the DPRK, and the ROK. Draudt’s research comprises US-Northeast Asian relations, policy processes and elite networks, Korean national identity, and citizenship and migration studies. Draudt previously was a research associate for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. Prior to that, Draudt lived in Seoul for several years, where in addition to studying Korean language and history at Yonsei University, she worked as a field researcher for the International Organization for Migration Research and Training Center and as publishing manager for the Yonsei University Journal of International Studies. Draudt received an MA in Political Science from the Johns Hopkins University, an MA in Korean Studies from the Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies, and a BA in Anthropology from Davidson College.
Research Interests
Asian Politics
Immigration & Citizenship
Foreign Policy
Networks And Politics
Research Methods & Research Design
Gender and Politics
Countries of Interest
South Korea
North Korea
Publications:
Journal Articles:
This article begins by describing the broad strategic challenge that North Korea, once armed with an operational nuclear weapons capability, poses to the United States and its allies. It then reviews the history of maritime clashes between North and South Korea in the Yellow Sea (“West Sea,” in Korean) and describes the ongoing risk of violent provocations and war. Finally, the article proposes measures that could reduce tension, arguing that they would be mutually beneficial to the United States, South Korea, North Korea, and China, and would contribute to, rather than detract from, an ideal U.S.-led strategy for deterring and containing a nuclear-armed North Korea.
South Koreans and their government maintain a national identity based on the concept of a one-nation state, a homogenous people with a continuous 5,000-year history captured in pervasive Korean ethnic nationalism, the dan-il minjok (“unitary nation”). The effort to become deeply involved with larger global flows and processes while staunchly advocating national uniqueness prevents the country from fully addressing the increasingly growing numbers and visibility of non-ethnic Koreans choosing to immigrate to and permanently reside in South Korea. For a nation that aims to be part of the global elite—from Kim Young-sam’s segyehwa (“globalization”) policy in 1994 to Lee Myung-bak’s “Global Korea” in 2008 —the way the South Korean state treats immigrants and children of immigrants will mark its evolution as a modern democracy.
North Korea’s immediate neighbors, particularly China, perceive a first-mover disadvantage in responding to North Korean instability. This paper seeks to project the path-dependent strategic considerations factoring into intervention in North Korean instability. Making specific reference to the political context and capacity for response on the part of China, the authors evaluate the benefits and costs to a first-mover in five scenarios of instability, including complex humanitarian emergency and collapse of state control, North Korea’s lashing out, infighting and protracted struggle, infighting followed by humanitarian crisis, and North Korean nuclear proliferation. The paper concludes with analysis of the geopolitical context in 2015 and China’s evolving strategic interests for the Korean peninsula.
Book Chapters:
In addition to the ethnocultural field of national membership that has been the traditional target of national membership literature, I emphasize here economic membership as key to the state view of members of its national project. Rather than citizenship, which tends to focus on the contestation for rights acquisition, the Korean case demonstrates theoretical value in analyzing hierarchized membership (not legal citizenship) in the national project. This paper focuses on the latter field by examining the state motivations and policies what the South Korean government calls “multiculturalism” (tamunhwachu-ŭi) as a strategy for development. In the next section, I review the literature on national membership that looks past dichotomies of sociocultural or ethnic belonging and instead focuses on hierarchized spaces for participation in the national political economy. I then turn to discussion of the South Korean state’s developmental project, which has privileged economic development as a key part of becoming a “Global Korea.” I then parse the development and trajectory of South Korea’s multiculturalism (or multiculturalism policy, tamunhwachu-ŭi chŏngch’aek) found in the Basic Plans for Immigration. I am here concerned with official, national-level motivation and formulation of immigration and incorporation policy, not its implementation or practice. I put these plans in conversation with a larger goal to achieve a “Global Korea” to demonstrate how multiculturalism is a state policy for continued economic development. I conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications, as well as with suggestions for future research.
Media Appearances:
TV Appearances:
In the lead-up to Donald Trump's summit with Kim Jong-un in Singapore, spoke with two anchors on the politics, expected outcomes, and potential setbacks of the historic US-North Korea leader summit.
Spoke with South Korea-based English-language news anchor on the politics surrounding Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un's summit in Singapore.
Newspaper Quotes:
Interview with editor on President Moon's 2-Year Anniversary, discussing public opinion, economic strategy, and inter-Korean relations.
Spoke on the series of cultural and people-exchanges between North Korea and South Korea with Tokyo bureau chief
Spoke with bureau chief in the lead-up to Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump's summit