Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell

Senior Lecturer and Assistant Director

Johns Hopkins University

I am a Senior Lecturer and Assistant Director of the Data Analytics and Policy Program and a Faculty Affiliate at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. My primary research focuses on authoritarian nostalgia and related political behavior in post-authoritarian democracies. I further develop research projects in the intersection of domestic and international politics of China’s expansion in Asia. My regional focus is on South Korea and other Asian democracies. I introduce various research methods in answering key research questions, including experiments and text and image analysis. I received my PhD in Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2022 and MA and BA at Korea University. My research has appeared in International Journal of Press/Politics, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of East Asian Studies, Party Politics, Social Science Quarterly, and World Development.

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 nostalgia
  • Comparative political behavior
  • Post-authoritarian democracies
  • Political economy in Asia
  • Computational research methods

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

Authoritarian nostalgia

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 voter behavior. In my book project, I further explore cross-national variation in authoritarian legacies by introducing a political psychological perspective with an emphasis on symbolic politics, in addition to the conventional focus on political economy.

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell, Emily Sallenback (2024). Mnemonic Politics among Philippine Voters: A Social Media Measurement Approach. Democratization.

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell (2023). Personality Traits, Democratic Support, and Authoritarian Nostalgia. Social Science Quarterly.

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell (2023). Alternative Ideological Legacies of Authoritarianism: Pro-dictator Bias in Post-developmental States. Party Politics.

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell (2023). Authoritarian Legacies and Partisan Bias in Corruption Voting. Journal of East Asian Studies.

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

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.

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell, Yujeong Yang, Shuyuan Shen, Do-Young Gong (2024). Money Backfires: How Chinese Investment Fuels Anti-China Protests Abroad. World Development.

Yujeong Yang, Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell, Shuyuan Shen, Do-Young Gong (2023). Kill Protests with Kindness: Anti-China protests and China’s public diplomacy. International Studies Quarterly.

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.

Nikki Usher, Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell (2023). How Loud Does the Watchdog Bark? A Reconsideration of Local Journalism, News Non-profits, and Political Corruption. International Journal of Press/Politics.

Research

Working Papers

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell (2023). Authoritarian Nostalgia, Group Sentiment, and Political Behavior. R&R.

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell, Yujeong Yang (2023). Prejudice and protest: the long-term effects of ethnic discrimination on anti-China protest in Indonesia. Work in Progress.

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell (2023). Legacies of Nationalism and Authoritarian Retention. Working Paper.

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell (2020). Right in the Past, Left in the Present?: Ideology and Political Nostalgia.

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

Instructor

  • AS470.667 Machine Learning Methods and Applications (Fall 2023)
  • AS470.681 Probability and Statistics (Summer, Fall 2022; Summer, Fall 2023)
  • AS470.708 Unleashing Open Data with Python (Summer 2023)
  • AS470.854 Fundamentals of Quantitative Methods (Spring 2023)
  • AS470.669 Mathematics for Data Scientists (Fall 2022; Spring 2023)
  • 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)