KEI Contributor

Andrew Yeo is a senior fellow and the SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korea Studies at Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His latest book, “State, Society and Markets in North Korea” is out now with Cambridge University Press.

Yeo is also the author or co-editor of four other books including “Asia’s Regional Architecture: Alliances and Institutions in the Pacific Century” (Stanford University Press 2019), “North Korean Human Rights: Activists and Networks” (Cambridge University Press 2018, with Danielle Chubb); “Living in an Age of Mistrust: An Interdisciplinary Study of Declining Trust in Contemporary Society and Politics and How to get it Back” (Routledge Press 2017, with Matt Green), and “Activists, Alliances, and Anti-U.S. Base Protests” (Cambridge University Press 2011).

Yeo is currently working on a project that examines South Korea’s role in the Indo-Pacific region and how South Korea can support a rules-based order outside its traditional focus on Northeast Asia. He is also conducting research that examines marketization in North Korea and its impact on state-society relations. His other research interests address the Indo-Pacific strategies of the United States and its allies, Asia’s regional architecture and institutional change, U.S. grand strategy and force posture, Chinese influence in Southeast Asia, the role of narratives and discourse in U.S. foreign policy, and civil society and democracy.

Yeo’s scholarly publications can be found in International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Politics, Comparative Strategy, Journal of East Asian Studies, and International Relations of the Asia-Pacific among others. His other writings have appeared in the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, The Diplomat, and 38 North and offered commentary in a variety of media outlets including MSNBC, Channel News Asia, CBS radio, Wisconsin Public Radio, Voice of America, RTHK-Hong Kong, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, South China Morning Post, Al Jazeera, Japan Times, Korea Times, Hankyoreh, Kyunghyang Shinmun, and Joongang Ilbo.

As part of the Bridging the Gap network, Yeo is a firm believer in connecting academic theory with policy relevant research. Yeo is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the National Committee on North Korea. He was awarded the Young Faculty Scholar's Award from Catholic University in 2013. He is part of the first cohort of the Mansfield-Luce Asia Scholars Network (2020-21) and the first cohort of the Korea Foundation-Mansfield Foundation Scholar-Policy Nexus (2013-14). He is a two-time recipient of a U.S. Fulbright grant conducting research as a senior scholar in the Philippines in 2020, and as a graduate student in South Korea in 2005-06.

Yeo received his doctorate in government from Cornell University, and bachelor's in psychology and international studies magna cum laude from Northwestern University.