Rate My Professor SungYong Lee

SungYong Lee served as Associate Professor (Reader) at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, from March 2014 to March 2024. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews, completed in June 2011, with a doctoral thesis entitled 'Dynamics of interplay between third-party interveners and national factions in civil war peace negotiations: case studies on Cambodia and El Salvador'. Prior to joining Otago, Lee was Senior Lecturer at Coventry University's Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies from August 2011 to February 2014. His academic career focuses on peace and conflict studies within the Humanities division.

Lee's research specializations encompass post-conflict reconstruction and development, conflict and conflict resolution, violence, local ownership in international peacebuilding, everyday reconciliation, and the roles of religious leaders and local actors as bridge-builders, with a particular emphasis on Southeast Asia, including Cambodia and Mindanao. He authored 'Everyday Reconciliation in Post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia' (Springer International Publishing, 2022) and co-edited 'Multi-level Reconciliation and Peacebuilding: Stakeholder Perspectives' (Routledge, 2021) with Kevin P. Clements and 'Local Ownership in International Peacebuilding: Key Theoretical and Practical Issues' (Routledge, 2015) with Alpaslan Özerdem. Key publications also include 'Understanding Everyday Peace in Cambodia: Plurality, Subtlety, and Connectivity' (Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 2021), 'Local Resilience and the Reconstruction of Social Institutions: Recovery, Maintenance and Transformation of Buddhist Sangha in Post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia' (Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2020), 'Liberal Peace Implementation and the Durability of Post-war Peace' (International Peacekeeping, 2019, with Roger Mac Ginty), 'Just How Liberal Is the Liberal Peace?' (International Peacekeeping, 2014, with Madhav Joshi and Roger Mac Ginty), 'The Intervention of “Neighbor” Countries in Civil War Peace Negotiations' (Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 2016), and 'The Revitalisation of Buddhist Peace Activism in Post-war Cambodia' (Conflict, Security & Development, 2017). Lee received the University of Otago Award for Excellence in Teaching in October 2018 and was among the Humanities lecturers awarded teaching excellence recognition in September 2022. He supervised numerous PhD theses on topics such as victims' suffering and reconciliation, authoritarian politics and nonviolent uprisings, local peacebuilding networks, and ex-combatant reintegration, contributing to the field's understanding of hybrid peacebuilding and local agency.