Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell

Senior Lecturer and Program Coordinator

Johns Hopkins University

I am a Senior Lecturer (full-time faculty) with the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins University. I received my PhD in Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2022. My research interests focus on authoritarian nostalgia and related political behavior in post-authoritarian democracies. My regional focus is on South Korea and other Asian democracies. My research has appeared in Party Politics and the Journal of East Asian Studies and is forthcoming at International Studies Quarterly and Social Science Quarterly.

My current book project, The Past that Binds, provides theoretical and empirical foundations for nostalgic behavior and democratic development. I argue that authoritarian nostalgia is an important source of group sentiment in post-authoritarian democracies, which produces large and surprising effects on voter attitudes and behaviors. My book will build much needed theoretical and empirical foundations for nostalgic behavior and democratic development and bolster its comparative implications by drawing on South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Philippines as case studies.

My research has received support from various sources, including a Faculty Grant Award from the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, a Taiwan Fellowship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan, a Doctoral Fellowship from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, and multiple institutions at the University of Illinois.

Interests

  • Authoritarian legacies
  • Korean Politics
  • Comparative political behavior
  • Personality and political attitudes
  • Post-authoritarian democracies

Education

  • PhD in Political Science, 2022

    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  • MA in Political Science, 2016

    Korea University

  • BA in Political Science; Economics, 2011

    Korea University

Research

Book Project

The Past that Binds: Authoritarian Nostalgia, Group Sentiment, and Voter Behavior (Under Review)

More than three decades has passed since the Third Wave of democratization at the end of the twentieth century. While the statues and statutes of former dictators have long been destroyed, nostalgia for the former dictatorship still drives individual political attitudes and related behavior in many democracies. Among sixty-five Third Wave democracies, former authoritarian ruling parties are still active in democratic elections across forty-seven countries, with twenty-eight of them winning more than 20% of vote share.

Research

Authoritarian legacies

My research explores authoritarian nostalgia and how it shapes voter behavior in post-authoritarian democracies. The primary focus of my research is understanding the role of authoritarian nostalgia as a source of social identity and its effects on heightened partisanship. I also develop new instruments for measuring the individual nostalgic sentiment.

Research

Political Economy in Asia

I have developed a separate research project understanding the political economy in East Asia. This work has focused on the expansion of China’s presence in the neighboring countries and how this can shape voters’ attitudes toward China.

(2022). Money Backfires: How Chinese Investment Fuels Anti-China Protests Abroad. Under Review.

Research

Political Communication

From my work on corruption, I have developed an interest in studying factors that can promote political accountability. In collaborative projects with Nikki Usher, I examine the impacts of declining local journalism on political accountability.

Teaching

I received an Excellence in Teaching Award in 2023 at Johns Hopkins University and the A. Belden Fields Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching as a Teaching Assisant in 2019 at the University of Illinois. Teaching evaluations are available upon request.

Johns Hopkins University, Advanced Academic Programs

Instructor

  • AS470.854 Fundamentals of Quantitative Methods (Spring 2023)
  • AS470.669 Mathematics for Data Scientists (Fall 2022, Spring 2023)
  • AS470.681 Probability and Statistics (Summer, Fall 2022)
  • AS470.768 Programming and Data Management (Summer 2022)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Instructor

  • PS230 Introduction to Political Research (Spring 2021, Spring 2022)
  • PS241 Comparative Politics in Developing Nations (Online, Spring 2020)
  • GLBL296 Global Politics of Intellectual Property Protection (Spring 2019)
  • PS100 Introduction to Political Science (Online, Spring 2019)

Teaching Assistant

  • PS231 Strategic Models (Fall 2020, Fall 2021)
  • PS241 Comparative Politics in Developing Nations (Spring 2018, Fall 2018)
  • PS220 Introduction to Public Policy (Fall 2017)
  • PS322 Law and Public Policy (Spring 2017)
  • PS321 Principles of Public Policy (Fall 2016)

ICPSR, University of Michigan

Teaching Assistant

  • Causal Inference for the Social Sciences (Summer 2021)