Greetings!!

Welcome to my website! I am currently a postdoctoral researcher for Patterns of Conflict Emergence project at Trinity College Dublin. Also, I am an affiliated faculty member at the Ford Institute of Human Secruty at the University of Pittsburgh. My research interests center on international rivalry, foreign policy, political behavior, and East Asia security. While studying these topics, I employ quantitative methods including survey experiments and computational text analysis.

I earned my Ph.D. degree in Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh with a focus on International Relations and Research Methods. Prior to this, I completed my MA in International Relations from Peking University in Beijing, China, as well as a double-BA degree in Political Science and Economics from Stony Brook University and in Public Administration from the University of Seoul.

The central motivation of my research is to advance understanding of the microfoundations of international rivalries, particularly with a regional focus on East Asia. Despite repeated attempts at cooperation between rival states in this region, many citizens continue to hold negative perceptions of adversaries and oppose conciliatory policies. My research examines these socio-psychological barriers that sustain the public’s resistance to peace. Along with this theme, two published works at Conflict Management and Peace Science and Journal of Contemporary China show how identity-based biases shape public interpretations of rivals’ cooperative gestures, often neutralizing or even reversing their peace-promoting effects.

Furthermore, I have several working projects on the impact of more broader political contexts on public opinion on rapprochement, foreign intervention in civil wars, and online violence during electoral campaigns. About further details about my research, please see my CV or contact me via email (jhan@tcd.ie).