Ph.D., Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles
Expertise
Immigration Politics, Political Economy, Gender Politics, Asian Politics
Background
Jieun S. Park joined the department of political science at Concordia College in 2025. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her research interests include immigration politics, Asian politics, the political economy of gender and immigration, race and ethnicity, and political psychology.
Dr. Park's dissertation examines immigration attitudes in East Asia and among the Asian diaspora in Australia and the United States, using survey experiments and text analysis. In her recent work published in Comparative Political Studies, she explores the relationship between gendered labor markets and gender differences in immigration attitudes in Japan. Her findings reveal that women tend to oppose immigration more than men due to women's labor market vulnerabilities, highlighting the complexities of anti-immigrant sentiments and underscoring the importance of gender-sensitive approaches in immigration policy. Dr. Park is currently working on several projects, including examining attitudes and policy preferences related to climate-induced migration as well as studying the Asian diaspora.
Her research has been published in leading journals and platforms, including Comparative Political Studies, and has been supported by the APSA Summer Centennial Center Research Grant, the NSF-APSA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (DDRIG), the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) Dissertation Fellowship, the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate (ISH) Research Innovation Fund, and the Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies, among others. When she is not busy teaching or researching, Dr. Park enjoys spending time with her family and her dog, Luca.
Course Taught
PSC 256 Comparative Politics
PSC 380 Immigration Politics of Asia