Kwak Jun-hyeok

Kwak Jun-hyeok is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Korea University,[1] where he has taught political philosophy and theory since Fall 2007. He also serves as Director of EAI Center for Values & Ethics[2] and Head of Center for Political Theory, Peace and Democracy Institute[3] at Korea University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2002. Before joining the faculty at Korea University, he taught political thought at Kyungpook National University. His research interests lie at the crossroads of political thought from Socrates to Machiavelli and contemporary political/social theory, with concentration on republicanism, nationalism, constitutionalism, democratic leadership, and human rights. He teaches classes on constitutionalism and democracy, multiculturalism, politics and rhetoric, human rights, and classical and medieval political thought.

His research currently focuses on constructing reciprocal nondomination as a regulative principle that guides agonistic deliberation between peoples in conflict as well as cultures in tension, with special but not exclusive attention to classical republicans, such as Aristotle, Cicero, and Machiavelli. Besides, he inquires a way in which reciprocal nondomination can be applicable to various subjects, including patriotism without nationalism, deliberative democracy, democratic authority, civic responsibility, transnationalism, and multicultural coexistence, etc.. He is now working on books entitled, Liberty as Nondomination: Reconsidering Classical Republicanism, Machiavelli’s Silence, and Patriotism before Nationalism, and running projects “Inherited Responsibility” and “Republican Leadership.”