Profile
Biography
Ed Goldring is a comparative political scientist interested in authoritarianism across the world, and especially in North Korea. His primary research interests are autocratic elite politics and how they relate to authoritarian survival. He is also interested in the international determinants of authoritarian breakdown and democratization.
Before starting at York in 2021, Ed was a postdoctoral fellow at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and prior to that a predoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California’s Korean Studies Institute. Ed holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Missouri, an MA in Intelligence and International Security from King’s College London, and a BSc in Politics from the University of Bristol.
Research
Overview
Ed’s main research project is a book manuscript, Purges: A Dictator’s Fight to Survive, which examines the causes of elite purges and their effects on autocratic survival. The book argues that threats to a dictator’s survival not just from elites, but also from the people affects patterns of purges, and that rather than fomenting instability, purges help dictators survive. A book workshop was held in July 2021.
A second book project (with Peter Ward) examines the leadership transition in North Korea from Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un. The book explores how Kim Jong Il manipulated elites so that Kim Jong Un was accepted as successor, and also how Kim Jong Un managed elites after he took power. The project relies on an original dataset of all North Korean leadership events between 1994 and 2021, as well as biographical data on hundreds of North Korean elites.
Additional projects include empirical analyses of why dictators purge specific individuals (with Austin S. Matthews), quantitative analysis of North Korean propaganda to understand North Korea’s mindset to negotiations with the US during the Trump administration (with Ji Yeon ‘Jean’ Hong), and a study of Chinese surveillance technology (with Sheena Chestnut Greitens). Methodologically, Ed’s work relies on diverse research methods (quantitative, qualitative, text-as-data, and experimental) and original data to gain leverage over theoretically important questions with implications for real-world politics.
Publications
Selected publications
Ed’s publications include: