Inside Stanford: An Exclusive Interview with a Political Science PhD Candidate

Last week, I sat down with Peter Kyungtae Park, a PhD candidate in Political Science at Stanford University. Before coming to Stanford he studied business and international relations at Seoul National University. Currently, he is researching political science and working on numerous publications.

Q: You’re currently a PhD candidate in Stanford, what inspired you to go into the field of political science?

A: It’s actually an interesting story. I initially went into college as a business student but I was never really interested in business from the getgo. After my sophomore year, I joined the military for two years. And right after, I began travelling across Western Europe. This wasn’t my first time in Europe, but when I went there it was early 2017 and there was a big terrorist scare going on in Europe— Paris, Belgium, etc. I recall one of my friends was in Westminster at the time and he almost got involved in a terrorist attack. He quite literally left the square 30 minutes before the attack took place. After this, I got interested in why these things happen across the world. And honestly speaking, I was very ignorant about world history and I didn’t really think of Europe as just a bunch of small countries. But after this, I learned about the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. I got curious about what's going on in the world and when I went back to college I began taking Poli-sci. and international relation courses. I started getting absorbed into real politics, the theory of politics and what motivates people. Fast forward, I did my masters and thought that maybe I was interested in general research. So now I’m doing a PhD—well although I started in the international relation aspect of Poli-sci. But now I’m doing almost purely stat theory. So now I’ve really gone in an interesting direction for Polisci. So the research interest has really gone a long way, since I started studying.

Q: So you’re approaching Polisci from a more statistical angle? 

A: So more specifically, I say that a statistical approach has always been the mainstream approach of political science, my methods aren’t exactly unorthodox. Through my research I’m helping other people try and use these tools to answer their own research questions. So if other political scientists deal with the real world problems themselves, I’m there in the background adding another layer to their analysis. The things they do in academia are basically fact-checked and corrected by me.

Q: Based on your experience in Europe—like the terrorist attack— how do you use data from real world situations and apply it to real world politics?

A: In academia, they rarely make policy suggestions to real politicians—thats usually done by think tanks or other organizations outside of universities. And people in political science try to understand why these things happen and how people react to it. So we look at the world and try to understand what mechanisms facilitate many events happening in the world. For example, there were many terrorist attacks going on in Europe and many political scientists went to the Middle East and collected data on the inner workings of organizations like ISIS. It’s very crazy work. This is interesting but it turns out that the mechanism that drives these organizations are similar to the cartels and gangs in Latin America so they need money and have to recruit people. Political scientists look at how they recruit people by studying the online pages run by the terrorist groups and what content drives people into these organizations. Also once an attack happens, we can analyze the repercussions and see what it impacts. Like if the attacks happen completely randomly we can use this data to create our own research question. For example, maybe a question like “to what extent are terrorist attacks instigating anti-immigration sentiments across Europe?”  Of course, no single study can influence the policy direction of real world politics. But when you look at each individual research project and put it all together to make a bigger picture, you will be able to give a correct viewpoint to politicians. And I believe giving this data to make some difference in the world is the ultimate goal of political scientists and all social scientists in academia.

Q: To swing it back to modern politics, currently social media has taken over political analysis— think back to the recent death of Charlie Kirk and how his influence started from platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok— and many people have gotten radicalized through social media. So what role do you think social media has in shaping political life for young people?

A: I think younger people definitely spend more time on social media. But I think older people also increasingly spend more time on social media as well. So I believe the reason that younger people—especially teenagers— are radicalized is not only social media, as increased usage of social media is a trend for all age groups. I don’t have any concrete evidence right now cause I have never done real research into this topic but based on what I have heard from other scholars and my experience, it definitely is a puberty, teenager thing. I grew up in Korea and the students around me were always into Andrew Tate or certain people. And since the students believe in this radical content come off as edgy or cool many other students follow suit. Although many of the students talk about these memes and content as a simple joke, it can and does subliminally affect the way many of these kids think or behave, many of them internalizing the ideology they learn from the internet. Going back to your question, I think not just political but social life and other things shape the perspectives of young people. When a teenager interacts with certain far-right dog whistle memes and finds commonality with people who believe those things, it really does change the way they interact with people and view politics. 

Q: You mentioned the kids around you when you were younger were into alt right-wing content and I also notice that many of my peers fall into the same rabbit hole. Do you believe that many teenagers just naturally fall into this phase or is there a shift particularly for my generation to the right? And if so, is it a dangerous shift that might cause harm to our society?

A: I personally believe—although again I don’t have any evidence off the top of my head— that there is a tendency for teenage boys to act insensitive to look tough or edgy. But when I was in high school, the kids who were saying these things were high schoolers who probably were mature enough to differentiate their personal beliefs with jokes. Versus these days, you can see kids in middle school and even elementary school say things that are dog whistles and genuinely full of hatred. And I don’t think these things are something that kids are supposed to say out loud to their friends. This is probably happening because kids have access to social media from a younger age. I think that’s the biggest reason why there might be a more radical shift for kids your age. And if I believe this is a harmful tendency? Yes, to some extent. When older children say certain insensitive things, I would hope that many of them are simply saying a joke and not actually meaning it. But when I see younger people say things of that sort I don’t think that’s the case. For example, when children say things they usually mean what they say, right? I guess there is a real danger in the age they start getting exposed to harmful content and the earlier they are exposed to these beliefs the dangerous rabbit holes that lead down to does increase. So I do believe this could be a genuine problem for society in the future.

Q: Do you think students can make a genuine difference in politics?

A: I think the radicalized kids are definitely more visible on social media. But that also means that a lot of younger people have begun following political news more actively than before. If you follow the New York Times or any news source, it's very easy to get information. So, on average, I think the overall level of informedness is a lot higher than before. Polarization is one thing but the level of political knowledge many people have now is a good thing. I think that one thing younger people can do when they consume information is just cross-checking information and making sure it isn’t from a biased source. I think getting a balance of information is very important. Cause when you eventually go out to the ballot and contribute to the election itself, knowing something makes a huge difference. I mean beyond that I see a lot of my friends organizing protests or associations to make a difference in politics. Personally I don’t really do those things but if you feel the need to do it go for it.  Young people can definitely make a difference, like if you’ve seen the protests in Nepal, Gen Z protesters were the ones who toppled the government. Another thing about American politics is that the politicians in congress are unbelievably old. The average age in congress is 65-70 while the country is only around 40. I don’t know how these old people could possibly represent the agenda and voice of the younger generation as they have different life experiences and different interests. So your participation in politics really might make your voice heard. Of course, I’m not saying you should participate in these protests but if you are into them nothing prevents you from doing it. And you have a right protected by the Constitution to speak out on these issues. These rights should be protected in all democracies. I don’t know how it is in Mexico but it is a democracy in principle. So please stay tuned in to what's going on in the world and speak out. I have seen my friends make a difference.

Q: In your resumé you have many working papers so can you describe the work that you do?

A: My research is about, as I said earlier, on the use of statistical methods and focus science or social science research. And what I learned is that there is huge statistical machinery that works behind the scenes. Sometimes it's very hard to know what you’re doing. Because A: its very complicated work. And B: maybe statisticians like me might have not done a good job explaining what our work was really about. My mission is to make work better by correcting the statistical practices done in political science. Of course I develop my own methods; for example, Shift-Share Designs in Political Science which can be found on my website shows a new method that can be used in situations where no viable analysis is available.This paper is a summary of the recent developments in the statistical world to make research easier for my peers. This might sound boring because the target for my papers is not people outside of academics, but students and professors inside academia to use these methods. But in general, I think that the core question of my research is what can be learned from data. The reason I got into this specific aspect of studies is because when I was in high school I learned about quantitative studies vs. qualitative studies and I honestly thought it was complete bullcrap. I really thought that there wasn’t a fine dimension that could possibly represent us as humans. I learned that behind every stat is a philosophy of epistemology—so what can be learned from data. When we observe data in real life, I want to maximize the amount of learning from that living data. 

Q: To any high school student that is interested in political science or statistics, what is your advice to them?

A: This is a really tough question for me because the path that led me to this is very long. I think there are a lot of coincidental things that really led me down this road. I really try to be flexible, as flexible as possible, especially because college is a very long journey. But if you stay flexible, there will always be options that will come to you even if something goes wrong for you. When I joined college I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and only got into this at the end of my masters. So that’s my general advice to all students. But for students that like political science it's really important to be into real world politics and be a good citizen. But political science is very different. I mean all the colleges have different approaches. But reading articles even beyond mainstream news outlets like the New York Times. Read sources like Foreign Affairs, which is written by diplomats. These sources can really broaden your view of politics. For stats, just really learn how to analyze data and why this person has organized the data like this or why his analysis is in a certain way. And learn the philosophy behind it all, it really makes the math part easier. If you’re really interested—I mean you have a lot more resources on the internet like there are free MIT courses on stats that you can find on the internet— you can really look into these things. So take advantage of the resources you have online and if you really want it you can get it, only a few clicks away. Most importantly though, stay curious. That’s my last piece of advice to anyone that wants to make a difference and learn. Stay open-minded.