David Chan-oong Kang (, born January 17, 1965) is a Korean American political scientist.
Born to a family of the Sincheon Kang clan, he holds a bachelor's degree in Anthropology and International Politics from Stanford University from 1988 and a doctorate in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, 1995. Since 2009, Kang has been a professor of the University of Southern California, where he is a professor in both international politics and organization and management. He leads the Institute for Korean Studies at the same university. Kang has previously been a professor at Dartmouth College and guest professor at Stanford University, Yale University, Seoul National University, Korea University and Université de Genève.
In 2024, Kang was sued by a former Ph.D. student who alleges Kang repeatedly made unwanted sexual advances, including inappropriate touching, late-night messages, and suggestive comments, retaliated after she rejected him by failing her qualifying exam and ending her research job, and attempted to coerce a sexual relationship while leveraging his academic authority. The lawsuit also claims Kang engaged in grooming behavior, targeted harassment during their time in South Korea, and created a hostile academic environment.
In his publication of They Think TheyâÂÂre Normal : Enduring Questions and New Research on North Korea - A Review Essay, David C. Kang talks about North KoreaâÂÂs foreign and domestic policy, North KoreaâÂÂs behavioral motivation, and lastly, to what extent North KoreaâÂÂs behavior predictable or not. He uses three scholarly works from Patrick McEachern, Stephan Haggard, Marcus Noland, and Suk-Young Kim to fundamentally understand North KoreaâÂÂs way of survival as a communist regime and their future endeavors.