Judith Kelley

Judith Kelley is the dean of the Duke Sanford School and an expert on international relations. She researches how international actors can promote democratic and human rights reforms. Kelley is also a senior fellow with the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.

Kelley's work focuses on how states, international organizations, and NGOs can promote domestic political reforms in problem states, and how international norms, laws and other governance tools influence state behavior. Substantively, her work addresses human rights and democracy, international election observation, and human trafficking. Past work has focused on the International Criminal Court, the European Union, and other international organizations. 

Her book, Monitoring Democracy: When International Election Observation Works and Why It Often Fails (Princeton 2012) was "One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2013" and also received the Chadwick F. Alger Prize, which is awarded by the International Studies Association to recognize the "best book published in the previous calendar year on the subject of international organization and multilateralism." Details on her election monitoring project are on the web at Project on International Election Monitoring.

Kelley's more recent work focuses on the global fight against human trafficking. Her recent book, Scorecard Diplomacy: Grading States to Influence their Reputation and Behavior (Cambridge University Press, 2017), assesses the US policy on trafficking around the world.  

Relatedly, the book is also an examination of the rising phenomenon of global ratings and rankings, a topic on which Kelley has worked extensively, editing another book, The Power of Global Performance Indicators from Cambridge University Press. This body of work also covers an assessment of the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Indicators, as well as a survey of the global emergence of indicator systems.

Kelley's work has been published by Princeton University Press, Cambridge University Press, and in journals such as American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of Common Market Studies. Her work has been discussed by media outlets such as the Economist, the BBC, the Washington Post, and US News and World Report.

In 2012, Kelley was inducted into the Bass Society of Fellows at Duke, which recognizes faculty for excellence in both teaching and scholarship. Kelley has also been awarded the Susan E. Tifft Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring Award, and she was the 2016 inaugural recipient of the Brownell-Whetten Award for Diversity and Inclusion. The Smith Richardson Foundation has supported her as a Policy and Strategy Fellow. In 2009-2010 she was a visiting fellow at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. She also was elected Chair of the Editorial Board of International Organization. She serves on several boards, including the Hunt Institute, and the Government Accountability Office Board of Academic Advisors.

Judith Kelley became the Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy in July 2018. Prior to serving as dean, she was the Senior Associate Dean since January 2014.

Kelley is a native of Copenhagen, Denmark, where she grew up.