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Stephan Haggard

Director of the Korea-Pacific Program
UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy
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About Stephan Haggard

Stephan Haggard is a member of the Board of Directors at the Korea Economic Institute and the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies at UC San Diego. He also serves as the university’s director of the Korea-Pacific Program. He teaches courses on the international relations of the Asia-Pacific at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy covering political economy as well as security issues. He has done extensive research on North Korea in particular. In addition, he has a long-standing interest in transitions to and from democratic rule and the current phenomenon of democratic backsliding.

His most recent books include “Developmental States” (2018) on the rapid growth of East Asia. His work on North Korea includes three books with Marcus Noland: “Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid and Reform” (2007), “Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea” (2011) and “Hard Target: Sanctions, Inducements and the Case of North Korea” (2017). His work on transitions to and from democratic rule includes “Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites and Regime Change” (2016) and the forthcoming “Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World” (2020).

He has provided commentary for major news outlets, such as CNN International and currently writes for the Korea Economic Institute’s Peninsula blog. He is editor of the Journal of East Asian Studies.

Dr. Haggard received his doctorate in political science from UC Berkeley.

With Joe Biden headed to the White House, North Korea watchers are speculating how the incoming administration will deal with this long-standing foreign policy irritant. One place to look for cues is to review the spate of Obama-era memoirs on his administration’s first year with North Korea. In a previous post, I detailed the early…

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January 7, 2021

With Joe Biden headed to the White House, North Korea watchers are speculating how the incoming administration will deal with this long-standing foreign policy irritant. One place to look for cues: how Obama’s first year with Kim Jong Il panned out. In doing so, we now have the advantage of several new memoirs—from Susan Rice,…

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January 5, 2021

By Stephan Haggard How are we to interpret Kim Jong-un’s surprising decision to call a Party Congress for early 2021? The regime held ad-hoc Party Conferences in September 2010 and April 2012—before and after Kim Jong-il’s death—in order to cement the succession. But Party Congresses are still rare: the one held in May 2016 was…

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August 27, 2020

By Stephan Haggard Whatever we think of John Bolton’s motives or policy approach, The Room Where It Happened adds detail to our understanding of the Singapore (Ch. 4) and Hanoi (Ch. 11) summits. In a previous post, I discussed the Singapore summit (and linked to a review of Bolton's Surrender is Not an Option). Today,…

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July 29, 2020

This introduction provides a broader framework for the first four papers in this issue of Korea Policy by examining five distinct ways or areas wherein trade and investment intersect with…

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Region: Asia, North America

January 4, 2024

Most analysis of the extended nuclear crisis that first broke in 2002 has focused, quite legitimately, on the realm of high politics: the diplomatic and military strategies of the contending…

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Region: Asia

October 6, 2016

Park Geun-hye’s Trustpolitik envisioned incremental, step-by-step exchanges, including economic ones, that would build trust. The strategy was disrupted by North Korean provocations during the first half of 2013 and had…

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Region: Asia

June 16, 2014