Latest Activities

170915_Korean social science journal_Easley

Professor Easley published an article on South Korea’s middle power diplomacy in the LSE-based SSCI-listed journal,International Politics.
The article addresses the puzzle of why Seoul successfully pursued middle power diplomacy on the world stage — via multilateralism, institution building, and contributions to global public goods — but struggled to project South Korea’s middle power identity and interests in East Asia.

“South Korea’s Mismatched Diplomacy in Asia: Middle Power Identity, Interests, and Foreign Policy,” (with Kyuri Park), International Politics, (October 2017), pp. 1-22.

Full text available at:http://rdcu.be/w3xC.

* ​This article was published on October 25 at International Politics. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.​

About Experts

Leif-Eric Easley
Leif-Eric Easley

Visiting Research Fellow

Dr. Leif-Eric EASLEY is a visiting research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Dr. Easley is also an associate professor of International Studies at Ewha Womans University where he teaches international security and political economics. His research interests include contested national identities and changing levels of trust in the bilateral security relationships of Northeast Asia. He was the Northeast Asian History Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford University. He was also a visiting scholar at Yonsei University and the University of Southern California’s Korean Studies Institute. He is actively involved in US-Asia dialogues (Track II diplomacy) with the Asan Institute and the Pacific Forum-Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Dr. Easley received his B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.