Department History
In September 1945, following national liberation, Bosung College, the predecessor of Korea University, reorganized its existing Departments of Law & Commerce into the Department of Political Science & Law and the Department of Economics & Business, respectively. The Department of Political Science & Law offered majors in Political Science and Law, while the Department of Economics & Business offered majors in Economics and Commerce. When Korea University was established as a research university on August 15, 1946, students who were admitted to the Department of Political Science & Law in Bosung College became second-year students in the College of Political Science & Law, Department of Political Science at Korea University. In June 1949, the department produced its first graduates, and in September of the same year, began the graduate program.
After the Korean War, the department underwent another phase of transformation. In 1955, Korea University abolished the College of Political Science & Law and established the College of Law, which included the existing Department of Law and the newly established Department of Public Administration, while the Department of Political Science & Law of the abolished College of Political Science & Law and the Department of Economics of the College of Economics & Business were included in the Division of Politics & Economics and attached to the College of Liberal Arts. In April 1959, when the Division of Politics & Economics at the College of Liberal Arts has been raised as the College of Politics and Economics, the name of the Department of Political Science was changed to the Department of Political Science & International Relations. Since 1960, the Department of Political Science & International Relations has been located within the College of Political Science & Economics. Apart from the implementation of the undergraduate program that allocated specific majors to second-year students from 1999 to 2013, there have been no major changes in the existing educational system.
With more than 70 years of history and tradition, the Department of Political Science & International Relations at Korea University occupies an unquestionably prominent position in the field of political science in Korea. This has been consistently proven not only by its status in Korean society, academia, and achievements of its graduates, but also through various domestic and international departmental evaluations that have been conducted over the past 20 years. In the first Brain Korea 21 (BK21) project launched by the Ministry of Education to support outstanding graduate programs in 1999, oudepartment was selected as a sole recipient in the field of politics, and subsequently, it was selected as a member of the second BK21 project in 2008 and the third BK21 project in 2013. Since 2010, it has been ranked first in the Chosun Ilbo departmental evaluations and maintained its position in the top 40 in the field of political science in the academic subject rankings published by QS from 2012 to 2017.
Currently, the Department of Political Science & International Relations at Korea University is striving to enhance its status as a world-class educational and research institution while contemplating its social role and public contributions.