Research

How do some human rights issues spark large-scale individual mobilization that generates transnational pressure, while others fail to do so? Existing research explains successful advocacy movements primarily through top-down information dissemination strategies, but the micro-level mechanisms that render those strategies effective remain largely unarticulated, despite their pressing importance as advocacy increasingly migrates to digital platforms. This paper introduces the ``Emotional Loop" as a theoretical framework that specifies the microfoundations of transnational pressure by identifying empathy as the central psychological mechanism and social media as the structural catalyst that sustains and amplifies it. Drawing on a triangulated mixed-methods design, I find strong evidence that empathy constitutes the causal pathway through which information about an issue gains attention and is converted into participation. First, I trace the unfolding of the emotional loop in the case of Aylan Kurdi, drawing on search trend data and digital traces of social media reactions. Second, I report on a novel survey experiment that isolates the effects of empathy and social media engagement on mobilization, complemented by computational text analysis of open-ended responses. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the role of emotions and social media in public opinion and human rights advocacy.

How are public foreign policy attitudes formed, and what accounts for variation in responses to similar threats across countries? Despite the field's growing recognition of psychological mechanisms and status perceptions, an integrated approach to public opinion in foreign policy remains underdeveloped. Building on psychological theory, I argue that perceptions of international status generate collective emotions that structure foreign policy preferences. I employ a mixed-methods design that combines a cross-national survey experiment with a qualitative case study. Survey data from the United States, Australia, and Singapore demonstrate that status perceptions elicit systematic patterns of collective emotions that motivate foreign policy attitudes. The case study corroborates this mechanism among elites using process tracing and emotion discourse analysis of semi-structured interviews with key decision-makers. I find that the public systematically organizes the international domain along perceptions of goal capability and compatibility. These perceptions elicit status emotions, defined as group-based admiration, contempt, envy, and pity, that motivate public attitudes toward foreign policy. Status emotions mediate the link between cognitive appraisals and policy preferences, explaining variation in public responses to similar threats.

States have been increasingly offering apologies to redress past human rights violations. However, states select specific human rights violations to apologize for. In other words, states apologize for certain types of human rights violations more frequently, while they do not apologize for specific types of human rights violations. We know much less about what explains this selectivity regarding the human rights violations that states apologize for. States rarely apologize for sexual slavery or sexual violence in armed conflicts. It is striking that even the states that often apologize for other human rights violations choose not to apologize for sexual violence that happened in the same period. What drives states’ selectivity of political apology across the types of human rights violations during armed conflicts? This paper advances a framework for analyzing variation in the targets of state apologies. We argue that collective guilt drives states to apologize for non-gendered war crimes, while collective shame makes states distance themselves from sexual war crimes, resulting in non-apology. The lens of gender enables us to distinguish between different moral emotions that are entangled with the types of human rights violations. Eventually, gender can explain why states do not apologize for certain types of human rights violations, whereas they do not apologize for specific human rights violations. We propose a survey experiment as one of the adequate methods to examine whether collective guilt leads to a political apology, whereas collective shame induces non-apology for sexual violence. The paper’s findings help broaden our understanding of conditions in which states apologize.

This paper investigates how national sentiments towards trading partners act as a determinant factor of trade policy. It has long been questioned why countries do not always engage in the level of free trade that is expected by their material interests. Political Scientists have pointed to various reasons within domestic politics that could alter the economic interest calculation associated with policy decisions. However, the recent surge of nationalism reflects that economic interests are not sufficient to explain international trade. I draw on social identity theory to argue that nationalistic protectionism can be an important factor that impedes free trade, as observed in the 2019 South Korea-Japan trade dispute. In this paper, I first examine how identity acted as a causal variable in the 2019 South Korea-Japan trade dispute context. Then I will draw general implications of how to understand the upcoming challenges of international cooperation in the wave of nationalism.

This paper develops a theory of state-level emotions to explain how immigration attitudes reflect international status dynamics. While globalization has liberalized trade and capital flows, the movement of people remains politically constrained, generating tension between cosmopolitan and nationalist visions. I argue that natives evaluate immigrants through stereotypes of their countries of origin, which shape emotions such as admiration, pity, envy, and contempt. Drawing on the Stereotype Content Model, I theorize that perceptions of state warmth (goal compatibility) and competence (goal capability) structure these emotions, which in turn map onto distinct behavioral tendencies. Using survey and experimental data from the United States, Australia, and Singapore, combined with migration and visa data, I show how stereotypes and emotions about countries shape public opinion toward immigrants. This framework links micro-level perceptions to macro-level international dynamics, advancing the study of immigration and International Relations.