Seowoo Chung

Welcome! I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Columbia University, specializing in international political economy and international institutions. My research examines how governments and firms navigate institutional constraints in global economic governance, particularly in trade, investment, and climate. Some topics I explore are the relationship between WTO escalation and foreign lobbying, oil and gas firms' utilization of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), and authoritarian censorship of trade disputes.

You can view my CV (updated October 2025) here.

Working Papers

"Strategic Censorship? Public Opinion, Authoritarian Politics, and the International Trade Regime" Revise and Resubmit at International Studies Quarterly [abstract] [paper]

International organizations promote cooperation by diffusing information among states and the public. But how does this information reach the public under authoritarian regimes? I examine how an authoritarian government with a censorship apparatus can use government-controlled media to offset international organizations’ information effects. The authoritarian government selectively censors IO news based on the likelihood of success in invoking a defensive reaction, suppressing complaints made by neutral counterparts that may lead to concerns for noncompliance while allowing limited attention toward provocative complaints by hostile states. I find support for my arguments through analysis of an original dataset of Chinese newspaper articles by 116 newspapers on all WTO disputes involving China. Survey experiment on Chinese citizens tests the microfoundations of the information strategy, finding that exposure to information about China being sued in a WTO dispute significantly reduces support for international law, especially for those disputes against the United States.

"Global Governance Unbound? Expansion Dynamics in the IMF" with Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark [abstract] [paper]

While some scholars argue that bureaucratic IOs tend to outgrow their mandates, others claim that IOs curtail their activities under pressure. We introduce a new measure of scope expansion in IOs to adjudicate this debate. We argue that IOs broaden their remits during stable periods, incorporating salient issues to maintain relevance and competitiveness. However, during crises, they retrench and refocus on core priorities. To test this argument, we analyze novel text data from IMF working papers, tracking the breadth of topics covered by Fund researchers over time. We then assess whether shifts in IMF funding align with these trends. Our findings show that the IMF moder- ately expanded its purview in the 21st century, incorporating gender issues and climate change into its work, but significantly narrowed its focus during the 2007–2009 global financial crisis. These results carry important implications for claims of IO overreach and offer insights regarding the legitimacy and adaptability of global governance.

"In the Shadow of Crisis: Lobbying and Trade Strategy Beyond the WTO" [abstract]

Five years after the paralysis of the WTO dispute resolution mechanism, how has the mode of trade politics transformed? Existing scholarship lacks a framework for understanding how firms navigate alternative channels of foreign trade influence. I theorize that firm behavior reflects both agent-level factors, such as nationality, state ownership, and industry characteristics, and structural conditions, such as the institutional environment, which jointly shape the choice between WTO escalation and direct foreign lobbying. Firms allocate scarce resources strategically, shifting toward alternative pathways when certain channels become less effective. To test this, I combine two designs on firm-level lobbying and trade exposure: a panel analysis estimating the effect of the WTO crisis, and a triple-differences (DDD) design that compares how firms of different nationalities respond to tariff exposure before and after their country’s WTO accession. This methodological strategy provides a novel way to capture substitution across influence strategies, with implications for literature on business and politics, trade politics, and the role of international organizations.

Research in Progress

"Political Barriers to the Energy Transition: Climate Risk, Investment Protection, and Firm Behavior"

"Revolving Door Diplomats" with David Lindsey, Matt Malis, and Calvin Thrall

"Too Many Ties to Bind? Regime Complex and the Costs of Defection"