Dong Jung (DJ) Kim is a Professor in the College of International Studies and in the Graduate School of International Studies at Korea University. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining GSIS, Dr. Kim was an Associate Professor at Sogang University and an Assistant Professor at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. He also worked as a pre-doctoral research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. His research interests include great power politics, economy-security nexus, balancing strategies, alliance politics, and US grand strategy. Dr. Kim’s works on these topics have appeared in International Security, International Affairs, Geopolitics, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Strategic Studies, Pacific Review, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Relations of the Asia Pacific, and Political Science Quarterly, among others. His monograph, Compound Containment: A Reigning Power's Military-Economic Countermeasures against a Challenging Power (University of Michigan Press, 2022), examine a leading great power’s employment of multi-faceted containment measures in dealing with a rising power.

Academic Appointments

Korea University

Professor, College of International Studies/Graduate School of International Studies, March 2021-

Yale-NUS College

Assistant Professor of Political Science, July 2015-February 2020

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Predoctoral Research Fellow, June 2014-June 2015

Education

University of Chicago

• Ph.D, Political Science, June 2015
• M.A., Political Science, June 2010

Korea University

• M.A., Political Science, June 2008
• B.A., Political Science, June 2005

Research Topic

Research Interests

• - International Relations Theory; Alliance Politics; US Grand Strategy; Economy-Security Nexus

Book

• - Compound Containment: A Reigning Power’s Military-Economic Countermeasures against a Challenging Power. University of Michigan Press, 2022.

Articles

• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2025. “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: How Clients Evade Patrons' Costly Strategic Demands.” International Security 50 (2): 130-161.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2024. “US Protectionism and Competition with China.” The Washington Quarterly 47 (2): 71-86.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2024. “A Twenty Years’ Crisis? Rethinking the Cases for U.S. Economic Engagement with China.” Perspectives on Politics 22 (1): 280-293.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2022. “Avoiding the Geoeconomic Domino Theory.” Orbis 66 (3): 334-349.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2022. “Europe as a Geoeconomic Pivot: Geography and the Limits of US Economic Containment of China.” European Security 31 (1): 97-116.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2021. “Making Geoeconomics an IR Research Program.” International Studies Perspectives 22 (3): 321-339.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2021. “A Case for Geoeconomic Restraint: Offensive Realism and the Inflated Threat of Chinese Economic Initiatives.” Geopolitics 26 (5): 1421-1441.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2020. “Unfaithful Allies? U.S. Security Clients in China-led International Institutions.” International Relations of the Asia Pacific 20 (1): 61-90.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2019. “Economic Containment as a Strategy of Great Power Competition.” International Affairs 95 (6): 1423-1441.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2019. “A Prologue to Manifest Destiny: Why Britain Allowed the United States’ Unchallenged Rise in North America, 1836-1848.” Political Science Quarterly 134 (3): 477-506.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2019. “The Perils of Geoeconomics.” The Washington Quarterly 42 (1): 153-170.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2019. “Economic Deterrence through Economic Engagement.” Foreign Policy Analysis 15(2): 176-186.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2018. “Realists as Free Traders: The Struggle for Power and the Case against Protectionism.” International Affairs 94 (6): 1269-1286.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2017. “Trading with the Enemy? The Futility of US Commercial Countermeasures against the Chinese Challenge.” The Pacific Review 30 (3): 289-308.
• - Kim, Dong Jung. 2016. “Choosing the Right Sidekick: Economic Complements to US Military Grand Strategies.” Journal of Strategic Studies 39 (5/6): 899-921.

Teaching

Korea University

• - World Politics (graduate)
• - Principles of International Relations (undergraduate)
• - International Dispute Settlement (undergraduate)

Yale-NUS College

• - Study of Modern Wars
• - Global Governance
• - US Foreign Policy
• - International Security
• - Comparative Social Inquiry
• - The Economy and Security Nexus

University of Chicago

• - Competition and Cooperation in Northeast Asia