Research
Publication
[1] Jang, Hye Ryeon and Smith, Benjamin. “Pax Petrolica? Rethinking the Oil-Interstate War Linkage.” Security Studies 30, no. 2 (2021). [Link]
Abstract
In the last decade resource curse scholars have argued widely that oil-rich countries are more likely to initiate armed disputes with their neighbors. In this essay, we argue that the evidence points toward oil peace, not conflict, as a function of both domestic and international factors. We draw on analyses of our own dataset and two from past studies to show that the data is more supportive of petro-peace than of petro-aggression. We also demonstrate that the Iran–Iraq War is singularly responsible for what was believed to have been a radical-petro-aggression effect globally. We conclude that, to the extent that evidence suggests a trend, it is more likely for a Pax Petrolica.
[2] Jang, Hye Ryeon, Jordan Quinones-Marrero, and Juan M. Hincapie-Castillo. “Environmental Scan of COVID-19 Infection Dashboards in the Florida Public School System.” Frontiers in Public Health (2022). [Link]
[3] Lee, Jean Young and Jang, Hye Ryeon, “Bilingual Education Policy in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Uyghur Society.” The Korean Journal of Northeast Asia Studies 56 (2010): 105-132.
Work In Progress
1. “China’s Energy Vulnerability, Trade Dependence, and the Escalation of Its Militarized Maritime Disputes’’
Why has China escalated maritime disputes in the South China Sea but not in the East China Sea or Yellow Sea? Since China began its rapid economic development in the late 1980s, the rise of China has created both economic opportunities for, and security threats to, its neighbor states. As Southeast Asian states became more heavily dependent on bilateral trade with China in recent decades, the Chinese government has attempted to expand its influence in the South China Sea. The literature primarily focuses on China’s great power ambitions in East Asia as a whole. However, the puzzle of why China has not escalated its military actions in the East China Sea or Yellow Sea remains. I argue that two factors—China’s energy mercantilism (ambition to secure stable energy supplies) and its economic leverage over Southeast Asian states—explain this variation in strategy. Employing statistical analysis of an original dataset and GIS spatial analysis, I demonstrate that China is more likely to escalate disputes when it experiences greater energy vulnerability against more asymmetrically dependent neighbor states in which there exist higher geostrategic values, natural resources and proximity to major oil shipping lanes.
2. “Building Artificial Islands in Troubled Water: The Impact of Artificial Islands on Maritime Conflict’’
China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam have constructed competing artificial islands in the South China Sea. However, according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, man-made artificial islands cannot possess the status of islands (Article 60(8) and 80). If such artificial islands are not granted the legal status of islands to claim the associate rights of the exclusive economic zone or continental shelf, why have countries constructed them in this disputed region? Moreover, where have countries constructed them? How has the construction of artificial islands ultimately affected the maritime disputes? I use remote sensing on satellite images (USGS Landsat 7 and 8) to collect geospatial data on artificial islands involved in maritime disputes in the South China Sea. This remote sensing analysis provides geospatial information to explain why China has chosen to construct artificial islands in certain locations. This paper seeks to explain the spatial determinants in the construction of artificial islands and the effect of the construction of artificial islands on the duration of maritime disputes. I conclude that maritime claimants tend to construct their artificial islands in closer proximity to the sea lines of communication (SLOCs). While the construction of artificial islands is highly likely to increase the duration of maritime disputes, it is inconclusive whether the construction of artificial islands increases the chance of a certain maritime claimant obtaining any de facto jurisdiction over their contested maritime region.
3. “Wag the Dog? The Impact of Media on U.S. Foreign Policy towards China”
As the U.S.-China competition intensifies, the Biden administration has been imposing aggressive foreign policy toward China and news on China has flooded media platforms. In literature, there lacks a consensus the media’s impact on foreign policy. This paper aims to examine how the media contributes to the aggressive foreign policy towards China. We argue that the media’s projection of China’s hostility contributes to the US aggressive foreign policy. Recently, China has become considered as the potential enemy. However, it is contestable whether China is a real threat. Thus, the media has potential to perform as an independent actor to influence foreign policy under non-urgent situations, China’s hostile images prevalent in media tend to make the U.S. government less hesitant to implement aggressive foreign policy towards China. We conducted web scrapping and collected the New York Times articles and Biden’s speech in 2021. Using the text data, this research employed computational text analysis to measure the daily sentiment scores of the U.S. government and media’s projection of China. Based on a daily dataset, this paper used a non-recursive statistical model to measure how negative emotions surrounding China projected by news media outlets impact Biden’s rhetoric towards China with some feedback loop, and found results that align with our theory. The results of this paper provide a foundation for future scholarly research on the reevaluation of the media’s impact on foreign policy.
4. “Examining Post-Shelby Polling Location Closures in Georgia” with Kyshan Nichols-Smith, Myles Ndiritu, and Amari Gray
The Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision weakened federal oversight, coinciding with widespread polling-place changes. This study tests whether such changes in Georgia disproportionately burden Black voters - and how these effects interact with poverty, infrastructure, and distance. Using a novel panel combining statewide polling-place records, voter files across presidential cycles, and the American Community Survey (ACS) tract demographics from 2016-2024, we estimate event-history models of polling-place closure; use GIS to map relocations and distance; and fit voter- and tract-level models assessing how changes in proximity affect turnout, with attention to race-class intersections. A Fulton County case study provides process-level evidence on administrative decisions and community responses. Closures and relocations are more likely in tracts with higher shares of Black and low-income residents. Increases in distance to assigned polling places reduce accessibility and depress turnout among Black voters, with the largest effects in poor, infrastructure-constrained areas. The case study highlights unintended consequences of consolidation, including uneven information dissemination and transportation burdens. The paper extends cost- and habit-based models of voting to demonstrate how race and class jointly shape exposure to and impact of polling-place change. The results illuminate post-Shelby risks and the hidden costs of decentralized state voting practices.
5. “Powering Competition: Energy Vulnerability, Economic Coercion, and the Geopolitics of the Lithium Battery Supply Chain” with Myles Ndiritu
The global scramble for critical battery minerals – lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite – has intensified with the rise of electric vehicles, placing strategic weight on upstream refining and midstream processing dominated by China. We argue that lithium-battery security constitutes a “new energy security” centered on electrochemical capacity rather than fuel flows, and that U.S.-China rivalry over this supply chain reshapes trade networks through geoeconomic coercion. Combining multilayer trade-network analysis (raw carbonate, hydroxide, and finished cells) with interrupted time-series models, we examine how policy shocks and tariffs reconfigure countries’ positions (eigenvector, hub, authority, in-/out-degree). We find a consistent pattern of diversification without proportional volume growth: unweighted connectivity increases while value-weighted centrality declines, indicating risk spreading, partial re-shoring, and thinner ties per partner. Tariff increases compress weighted prominence but expand partner counts for both importers and exporters; alliance alignment conditions these adjustments, with U.S. allies diversifying and China-aligned states concentrating ties. Short-run COVID- and coercion-related disruptions reduce import partners, followed by gradual re-embedding, especially in intermediates. These results show how great-power competition over batteries propagates through network structure, illuminating the availability-affordability-resilience trade-offs that will shape the electrified economy.