Esther Song

• PhD
• Associate Professor at University of Bergen

We introduce a novel dataset mapping career transitions of 505 elites in North Korea. Despite ample attention to granular data on elites, there is a lack of comprehensive information spanning state, party, military, and parastatal sectors. Granular rank and position data enable tracing intra- and inter-institutional elite transitions, opening new r...

How does China signal foreign policy intentions to domestic and international audiences during territorial conflicts? While China can signal its resolve by provoking nationalism at home, doing so may risk appearing threatening to neighbouring countries in the region. We argue that China resolves the dilemma by sending different types of messages to...

This chapter traces Chinese official discourse and regulatory frameworks concerning civil society, scrutinizing their impact on the evolution of the Chinese third sector and their broader implications for China’s governance. The analysis unfolds over two distinct eras – the Hu Era (2002–2012) and the Xi Era (2013–present) – delving into how the Par...

Evidence points to an increasing personalisation of political power by chief executives in recent years. It is often argued that such personalisation contributes to the current trend of autocratisation and the global decline of democracy. Yet our understanding hereof remains fractured, not least because there are a plethora of tacit understandings,...

What explains the exponential growth of the number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in China during the recent decades? Moving beyond the extant literature that focuses on the strategic relationship between NGOs and the local state, this article argues that the growth can be also attributed to the central state which has focused on the promo...

How has COVID-19 affected the personalization of executive power in South Korea? To answer this question, we draw on the conceptual framework of personalization concerning democracies and autocracies. We find that, personalization attempts were made via mechanism of personnel management (e.g., the appointment of allies within the pandemic-response...

COVID-19 generated significant anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea. Domestic elite-level narratives regarding China at the pandemic’s onset were highly polarized: conservative parties advocated border shutdowns, emphasizing China as originating the virus, while progressive parties warned that this would incite xenophobia. Did these narratives sha...

Despite China's growing participation and accession to international human rights treaties, there exists a wide perception that China violates international human rights norms. When empirically assessing whether China adheres to international human rights norms outlined in international human rights law, we find that there is variation across treat...

Unlabelled: Air pollutants allegedly originating from China have become a thorny issue in South Korea. Despite a neutral view of the topic on the part of the South Korean government, recent public polls show a high correlation between the air pollution issue and negative sentiment toward China. How has the media reported on China regarding air pol...

What are the long-term effects of authoritarian repression on political trust in a post-democratization context? Using the Gwangju Massacre in South Korea as a case study, this article finds that indirect and direct experience of state-perpetrated violence of the critical-period cohort—who were aged 17–25 during the incident—can have long-term nega...

The Chinese Communist Party has recently acknowledged its attempts to bolster good governance by outsourcing public and social service functions to social organizations—non-profit organizations, either created by relevant government bureaus, developed through non-profit incubators, or voluntarily created civil society groups. Do these services gend...