Citizenship and Immigration Politics

Citizenship is commonly seen as a legal standing that grants people certain political and civil rights. I draw on immersive fieldwork and archival research to re-examine citizenship as both the rights and duties of citizens and immigrant in terms of national belonging. My original research pushes new theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of citizenship, nationalism, and political economic development.

Related Publications

Erin Aeran Chung, Darcie Draudt, and Yunchen Tian. Regulating Membership and Movement at the Meso-Level: Citizen-making and the Household Registration System in East Asia. Citizenship Studies 24, no 1 (2019): 76-92.

Darcie Draudt (2016). South Korea’s National Identity Crisis in the Face of Emerging Multiculturalism, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 17, no. 1.

Darcie Draudt (October 2019). South Korea’s Migrant Policies and Democratic Challenges after the Candlelight Movement. Korea Economic Institute of America Academic Paper Series.

Darcie Draudt (2019). Multiculturalism as State Developmental Policy in Global Korea. Korea and the World: New Frontiers in Korean Studies, Gregg A. Brazinsky, ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

South Korean Multiculturalism and the Next Step in Civic Nationalism. Asia Unbound at the Council on Foreign Relations. October 2, 2014

Gender, Politics, and the State

Investigating the mutually constitutive relationship between gender, ethnicity, and economic roles through interdisciplinary research on the Korean Peninsula, my work examines how gendered social institutions and symbols provide states with flexible tools for governance. I examine how policymakers adapted legal frames that govern gendered family roles as part of a comprehensive immigration policy framework that prioritizes productivity. Seemingly race-neutral policies allow for an exploration of how gender roles can permit the national state evade politically risky discussions on ethnic and racial diversity. I employ creative multimethod data production techniques to triangulate political economic patterns in both North and South Korean contexts. Through this relational approach, my research sheds light on how states reassert power amid local social change by coopting gender narratives.

Related Publications

Darcie Draudt (April 2022). The Changing Role of Entrepreneurs in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea. Understanding North Korea Roundtable Series, from the National Committee on North Korea and the Wilson Center’s Hyundai Motor - Korean Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy.

Darcie Draudt (2016). Family Tradition: Modern Representation and the Ideal Woman in Kim Jong-un’s First Year. Change and Continuity in North Korean Politics, Adam Cathcart et al., eds. New York: Routledge.

People’s Groups and Patterns in Neighborhood Surveillance: Another Tool in State Control Over Daily Life, 38 North at the Stimson Center, December 10, 2020.

The Rise of Women Leaders in North Korea, 38 North at the Stimson Center, September 2, 2020.

Co-opting the Narrative: How Changing Women’s Roles Provide Legitimacy to Kim Jong Un, 38 North at the Stimson Center, July 30, 2020.

Comparative Foreign Policymaking

How do policy elites’ social ties and shared resources reshape national strategy? My reseach on foreign policymaking challenges the methodological nationalism beneath scholarship on the policy process. Rather than separating domestic and foreign policy into distinct arenas, my research explicitly challenges past work by highlighting the agency of networked actors and institutional dynamics across borders. Based on policy analysis and elite interviews in Washington, New York, and Seoul, I examine generational differences in American policy elites’ attitudes and priorities for the Korean Peninsula, focusing on three domains: denuclearization, Korean unification, and alliance management. This project has received generous funding from the Korea Foundation’s 2022 U.S. Next Generation Research Program Grant.

Related Publications

Darcie Draudt (December 2021). Reframing US-DPRK Nuclear Diplomacy. Next-Generation Perspectives on Korean Peninsula Security. National Committee on American Foreign Policy. (See here for NCAFP podcast interview about the paper.)

Darcie Draudt and John K. Warden (2017). The Strategic Rationale for Maritime Tension Reduction in the Yellow Sea. The Washington Quarterly 40, no. 4 (2017): 183-197.