Brief Introduction Top

Erik is a comparativist with interests in the politics of the developing world, urban politics, social policy, organized crime, migration, Chinese politics, Korean politics, and regional issues in Northeast Asia. His research agenda is driven by questions that he finds especially intriguing: how leaders in developing societies try to shape the place of the poor in cities, how major social changes like rapid urbanization affect power relationships, and how authority structures beyond the state challenge or recast central state programs. Erik has conducted fieldwork in Chinese and South Korean cities for his dissertation project on the responses of rural-born migrants and their allies to state policies that were unfavorable to them. He is expanding that study into a book manuscript that examines how the urban poor in developing countries respond to the exclusionist policies of authoritarian states. Erik's current research takes up the link between organized crime and politics in new democracies. He aims to explain why a country such as South Korea has become relatively free of gang involvement in politics, while others like Taiwan continue to have such problems.  

Through a program sponsored by the Social Science Research Council and the Korea Research Foundation, Erik completed a project on the remittance patterns of South Korean internal migrants that has implications for the links between migration and development in sending communities. He has also recently completed a comparative study, in collaboration with Brad Williams, of South Korean and Japanese responses to abductions of their citizens by North Korea.

At NUS, Erik oversees the Peers Programme, a department initiative through which student mentors offer writing advice to other Political Science students. Erik also blogs on Korean and Chinese issues, and life in SE Asia.

On this page, you can find links to Erik's course syllabi and his published and unpublished papers.

Teaching Areas Top

Comparative politics; politics of the developing world; state-society relations; social policy; Chinese politics; Korean politics in comparative perspective; international relations of East Asia

Courses at NUS: PS2235 (3263): Comparative Study of Development

Modules offered in AY2008-09: PS1101E Introduction to Political Science; PS3263 Comparative Study of Development; PS 4222 Politics of Social Policy

Publications Top

ARTICLES IN JOURNAL

• "Explaining Divergent Responses to the North Korean Abductions Issue in Japan and South Korea: Political Maneuverings for Nationalist Ends." Journal of Asian Studies, forthcoming. (Co-author, with Brad Williams)
   
  
• “Endorsing the Exodus: How rural leaders backed peasant migrations in 1980s Sichuan.” Journal of Contemporary China, forthcoming.
   
  
• “Struggles over Unlicensed Housing in Seoul, 1960-1980.” Urban Studies, vol. 45, no. 2 (Feb. 2008).
   
  
• "Mobilization or Repression of Migrants in Urban China? Hometown networks, leadership, and lessons from international and historical comparisons." Journal of Comparative Asian Development, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 2007).
   
  
• “Politics of Cityward Migration: An Overview of China in International Perspective.” Habitat International, Vol. 30, No. 2 (June 2006).
   
  

BOOK REVIEWS

• Review of South Korean Engagement Policies and North Korea by Son Key-young. Asian Journal of Political Science, forthcoming.
   
  
• Review of China Modernizes: Threat to the West or model for the rest? by Randall Peerenboom, Asian Journal of Social Science, forthcoming.
   
  
• Review of Managers and Mandarins in Contemporary China: The Building of an International Business Alliance by Jie Tang, China Business Review, March/April 2006.
   
  
• Review of Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America by Diane E. Davis. Korean Studies, Vol. 29 (2005).
   
  

CONFERENCE PAPERS

• “What If Remittances Are Requited? Evidence from South Korean Internal Migration,” to be presented at conference on “International Migration, Multi-local Livelihoods and Human Security: Perspectives from Europe, Asia and Africa,” hosted by the Institute for Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands, Aug. 29-30, 2007.
   
  
• “Struggles over Unlicensed Housing in Seoul, 1960-1980,” presented at the Eighth Pacific Asia Conference on Korean Studies. Manesar, India, Dec. 15-17, 2006.
   
  
• “Rural Families, Migration to Seoul, and Korean Development,” presented at Summer Institute on International Migration, hosted by the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego, June 21-22, 2006.
   
  
• “Native-Place Organization in Urban China: A conduit for migrants’ demands?” presented at Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting. Also organized panel. San Francisco, April 6-9, 2006.
   
  
• “Workers’ Conflict in Chengdu,” presented at Asian Studies Conference Japan. Sophia University, Tokyo, June 18-19, 2005.
   
  
• “For the Home Team? Urban migrants and rural leaders in China and South Korea,” presented at Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting. Chicago, March 31-April 3, 2005.
   
  
• "Beyond Household Registers and Floating Populations: Migration controls and their demise in China,” presented at Urban China Research Network conference on Cities in China: The next generation of urban research. Hong Kong Baptist University, Dec. 12-14, 2004.
   
  
• “Residential Patterns and Migrant Politics: China in Comparative Perspective,” presented at conference on Globalization, the State, and Urban Transformation in China. Hong Kong Baptist University, Dec. 15-17, 2003.
   
  

THESES/DISSERTATIONS

• "Internal Migration and State Retreat in Chinese and South Korean Industrialization," PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 2006.