I am a PhD Candidate at Northwestern University, Department of Political Science. I will be an incoming tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington in the fall of 2024. 

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I research the politics of international cooperation in areas of global illicit economies, international investment and trade, and international criminal law.

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During my PhD training at Northwestern University, I was fully funded along with stipend support by the University of Chicago Law School to gain further expertise in law, where I received a Master's degree in Legal Studies.

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My dissertation project explores the different institutional paths taken to regulate the illicit economies. I focus on the delegates and their agency, exploring how self-created norms within negotiations impact the outcome of institutional design. The cases analyzed in my dissertation include international institutions which regulate firearms trafficking and drug trafficking. I draw from archival materials, semi-structured interviews with delegates who participated in creating these institutions, and did an embedded fieldwork as an intern to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime for six months. 

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In the future, this project will be expanded into a book where I analyze the institutional design of all cases involving the regulation of illicit economies, which include flora and fauna trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking and cybercrime.

 

Aside from the dissertation project I hope to pursue other research related to international institutions, both their design and impact, in areas of investment regimes, trade, and international criminal law. 

 

Attached please find my CV here

Email: BoWonKim2022[at]u.northwestern.edu