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South Korea

South Korea FlagSouth Korea Map

Population: 48,508,972 (July 2009 est.)

Government: republic; Chief of State: President Lee Myung-bak (since Feb. 25, 2008); Head of Government: Prime Minister Han Seung-soo (since Feb. 29, 2008)

Economy Overview

Asian studies center

Dennis Hart

Associate director, Asian Studies Center, and adjunct associate professor,
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
office: 412 624-3487
dmhart@pitt.edu

For assistance in reaching this faculty member, contact
Amanda Leff
office: 412-624-4238
cell: 412-337-3350
aleff@pitt.edu

Areas of Expertise

Nationalism, culture and identity, politics in the Koreas

Background
Dennis Hart is the associate director of the Asian Studies Center in Pitt’s University Center (ASC) for International Studies. He is also an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and an affiliated faculty member of ASC.

Hart is currently working on a pair of book projects: Politics and Culture in North and South Korea, to be published by Routledge Press, and Letters from the Empire, a collection of political essays written in the Korean language. Hart has lived, studied, and worked in South Korea for more than nine years. Hart received his PhD in political science from the University of Washington.

School of Education

Weidman

John C. Weidman

Professor of education and sociology;
Chair, Department of Administrative and Policy Studies,
School of Education
office: 412-648-1772
cell: 412-680-1684
weidman@pitt.edu
Faculty bio

For assistance in reaching this Pitt faculty member, contact Patricia Lomando White
office: 412-624-9101
cell: 412-215-9932
laer@pitt.edu

Areas of expertise

Comparative higher-education reform; postsecondary education and development; higher- education policy; quality assurance and accreditation in higher education

Background
Weidman was educated at Princeton University and the University of Chicago. He has written extensively on higher-education reform in countries undergoing the transition from command to market economies. He is coauthor of the book, Higher Education in Korea: Tradition and Adaptation (Falmer Press, 2000) as well as more recent pieces on the internationalization of higher education in South Korea.

Graduate School of Public and International Affairs

William W. Keller

Wesley W. Posvar Chair in International Security Studies,
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
office: 412 624-7399
cell: 412-596-0431
bkeller@pitt.edu

Faculty Bio

For assistance in reaching this faculty member, contact
Amanda Leff
office: 412-624-4238
cell: 412-337-3350
aleff@pitt.edu

Areas of Expertise

internal security, terrorism, Homeland Security, China, weapons of mass destruction, proliferation, East Asian economic and security issues, the political economy of multinational corporations, and the arms trade

Background

Formerly the director of the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies at Pitt and executive director of the Center for International Studies and the research director of the Japan Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Keller is the author of China's Rise and the Balance of Influence in Asia (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), Hitting First: Preventive Force in U.S. Security Strategy (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006), The Myth of the Global Corporation (coauthor; Princeton University Press, 1998), Arm in Arm: the Political Economy of the Global Arms Trade (Basic Books, 1995), and The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover: Rise and Fall of a Domestic Intelligence State (Princeton University Press, 1989). He also is the coeditor of the book Crisis and Innovation in Asian Technology (Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Rudra

Nita Rudra

Associate professor of international affairs,
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
office: 412-648-7612
rudra@pitt.edu

For assistance in reaching this faculty member, contact Amanda Leff
office: 412-624-4238
cell: 412-337-3350
aleff@pitt.edu

Areas of expertise

International political economy, politics of welfare in developing countries, globalization studies, comparative politics, labor in developing countries

Background

Nita Rudra’s research interests include the impact of globalization on social welfare expenditures in developing countries, the political foundations of different welfare regimes, and the causes and effects of democracy in developing nations. She is the author of Globalization and the Race to the Bottom in Developing Countries: Who Really Gets Hurt? (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which focuses, in part, on South Korea.