Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

International Security, alliance politics, nuclear strategy; nuclear proliferation, nuclear deterrence, and Two Korea issues.

Jinwon Lee is PhD candidate of Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana– Champaign. She served as a researcher at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy and a research associate at the Korea Institute for National Unification. (She/her)

Things I Can Do

I can locate my previous papers and dissertation project as part of security studies, especially in alliance politics and extended deterrence. In my dissertation project, I will closely examine the unanswered questions in alliance politics: when do alliance member states fulfil peacetime military commitments? How can a patron’s peacetime alliance military commitments influence the protégée’s decision to initiate militarized disputes? To answer these research questions, I collected an original dataset to examine peacetime military commitments – patron’s actions taken after the signing of the alliance treaty. My project reveals that alliance peacetime commitments are strong signals of alliance credibility. This investigation into alliance commitments is essential to enhance our understanding of alliance dynamics and inform policy decisions in managing existing allies.

A Few Accomplishments

Hans J. Morgenthau Predoc Fellow, University of Notre Dame (2023-2024)