Krzysztof Pelc is the Lester B. Pearson Professor in International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Relations, and Professorial Fellow at St-Anne’s College. He received his PhD from Georgetown University in 2009. Before joining Oxford, he spent his postdoc in the Niehaus Center at Princeton University, and spent over a decade at McGill University. He has been a visiting professor at NYU, the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Studies in New Delhi, and the University of Copenhagen.
His research is situated at the juncture of international political economy and international law. It is especially concerned with how the design of rules affects the odds of cooperation between states, and benefits some countries over others. This has led him to examine questions around the optimal ambiguity of rules, participation in international institutions, the case for (non)transparency in international bargaining, the effects of (il)legitimacy on political outcomes, precedent in public international law, whether judges should write their own rulings, whether those rulings have effects on financial markets, and whether workers can be effectively compensated for losses from globalization.
The unifying theme of this work is the idea of credibility. Being believed is the most valuable asset in both political and commercial markets. The question is, how do market actors and political leaders get others to believe they are reliable types, when unreliable types abound?
His most recent book is "Beyond Self-Interest: Why the Market Rewards Those Who Reject It" (Oxford Press and Bloomsbury), which argues that market societies reward market actors who appear credibly disinterested in gains.
His research has been published in International Organization, the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of International Law, the European Journal of International Law, the Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, World Politics, and the International Studies Quarterly, among others.
Aside from this academic research, he regularly publishes in the popular press, including the Atlantic, the Financial Times, Wired, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Literary Review of Canada, the Washington Post, and The Hill.
