Jiyoon Kim

Hello, and welcome!

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at The Ohio State University on the 2025-2026 job market, specializing in international relations and the political psychology of foreign policy and conflict.

My research centers on the political psychology of international security, broadly construed. I advance this agenda through an array of advanced methods to address how psychological mechanisms manifest in various empirical contexts spanning foreign policy, public opinion, migration, and human rights.

In my dissertation, I demonstrate that emotions are the causal link between how a country is perceived and the foreign policies it attracts. I employ a mixed-method approach, combining survey experiments, large-N quantitative analysis, text analysis, and qualitative case studies with semi-structured interviews to uncover the emotional mechanisms driving foreign policy decisions.

Before coming to Ohio State, I earned my M.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Korea University in South Korea. If you’re interested in my work or would like to connect, I’d love to hear from you.