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 February 2026) here.

Working Papers

Strategic Censorship? Public Opinion, Authoritarian Politics, and the International Trade Regime
Seowoo Chung
Forthcoming 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
Allison Carnegie, Seowoo Chung, and Richard Clark
Revise and Resubmit at Review of International Organizations
[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 moderately 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.

Institutional Breakdown and Foreign Lobbying: Trade Remedies, Lobbying, and the WTO Crisis
Seowoo Chung
[abstract]

When foreign governments impose trade barriers, affected firms can pursue several strategies to seek policy relief. They may adapt economically, mobilize their home governments to initiate diplomatic or legal challenges, or directly lobby policymakers in the country imposing the restriction. What determines which of these strategies firms pursue? This paper argues that the effectiveness of multilateral trade institutions shapes firms’ strategic choices by altering the relative attractiveness of legal and political channels for changing policy. When multilateral adjudication weakens, state-mediated legal mechanisms become less reliable, increasing firms’ incentives to pursue direct lobbying. Using the weakening of WTO dispute settlement as an empirical case, I show that foreign firms are more likely to respond to trade barriers through lobbying when multilateral adjudication becomes less effective. These findings suggest that the erosion of the international economic order shifts the politics of trade disputes from formalized multilateral legal arenas into more opaque channels of domestic lobbying.

Works in Progress

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

Revolving Door Diplomats
Seowoo Chung, David Lindsey, Matt Malis, and Calvin Thrall