Anne-Marie Slaughter (born September 27, 1958) is an American international lawyer, foreign policy analyst, political scientist, and public commentator. From 2002 to 2009, she was the dean of
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
's
School of Public and International Affairs and the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 university professor of politics and international affairs.
Slaughter was the first woman to serve as the
director of policy planning for the
U.S. State Department from January 2009 until February 2011 under
U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...
.
She is a former president of the
American Society of International Law
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, ...
and the current president and CEO of
New America (formerly the New America Foundation).
Slaughter has received several awards for her work including: the Woodrow Wilson School R.W. van de Velde Award, 1979; the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Law, University of Virginia and Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2007; Distinguished Service Medal, U.S. Secretary of state 2011; Louis B. Sohn Award for Public International Law, American Bar association, 2012.
Slaughter revived a national debate over gender equality with an article in ''
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 185 ...
,'' titled "Why Women Still Can't Have it All." She is on the global advisory board of
Oxford University
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
's journal ''Global Summitry: Politics, Economics, and Law in International Governance''.
Early life, family and honors
Slaughter was born and raised in
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city (United States), independent city in Virginia, United States. It is the county seat, seat of government of Albemarle County, Virginia, Albemarle County, which surrounds the ...
, the daughter of a Belgian mother, Anne Marie Denise Limbosch, and an American father, Edward Ratliff Slaughter Jr., a lawyer.
Her paternal grandfather was
Edward Slaughter, a football player, athletic coach, and professor of physical education. She is married to Princeton politics professor
Andrew Moravcsik, with whom she has two children: Alex and Michael Moravcsik.
Slaughter is a 1976 graduate of
St. Anne's-Belfield School in Charlottesville, Virginia. She graduated ''magna cum laude'' with an
B.A. from the
Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
in 1980, where she also received a certificate in European cultural studies. Mentored by Richard H. Ullman, she won the Daniel M. Sachs Memorial Scholarship, which provides for two years of study at
Worcester College, Oxford. After receiving her
M.Phil. in international affairs from Oxford in 1982, she studied at
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...
and graduated ''cum laude'' with a
J.D. in 1985. She continued at Harvard as a researcher for her academic mentor, international lawyer
Abram Chayes. In 1992, she received her
D.Phil. in international relations from Oxford.
Slaughter received honorary degrees from the
University of Miami
The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private university, private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. , the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over ...
in 2006, the
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...
in 2013, and
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...
in 2014. She also won the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...
's Thomas Jefferson Medal in 2007. She is a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
.
Academic career
Scholarship and teaching
Slaughter served on the faculty of the
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It employs more than 180 full-time and part-time facul ...
from 1989 to 1994 and then as J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law on the faculty of Harvard Law School from 1994 to 2002. She then moved to Princeton to serve as dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, the first woman to hold that position. She held that post from 2002 to 2009, when she accepted an appointment at the
US State Department. During the academic year 2007–2008, Slaughter was a visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institute for International Affairs. In 2011, she returned to Princeton as a professor.
As a scholar, Slaughter has had a focus on integrating the study of international relations and international law, using
international relations theory
International relations theory is the study of international relations (IR) from a theoretical perspective. It seeks to explain behaviors and outcomes in international politics. The three most prominent School of thought, schools of thought are ...
in
international legal theory. In addition, she has written extensively on
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
politics, network theories of world politics, transjudicial communication, liberal theories of international law and international relations, American foreign policy, international law, and various types of policy analysis. She has written books: ''International Law and International Relations'' (2000), ''A New World Order'' (2004), ''The Idea that is America: Keeping Faith with our Values in a Dangerous World'' (2007), and ''The Crisis of American Foreign Policy: Wilsonianism in the Twenty-first Century'' (with G. John Ikenberry, Thomas J. Knock, and Tony Smith) (2008), as well as three edited volumes on international relations and international law, and over one hundred extended articles in scholarly and policy journals or books.
Administration
Slaughter was director of the International Legal Studies Program at
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...
from 1994 to 2002, and a professor at
Harvard Kennedy School
The John F. Kennedy School of Government, commonly referred to as Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), is the school of public policy of Harvard University, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Harvard Kennedy School offers master's de ...
from 2001 to 2002.
During her tenure as dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton's international relations faculty hired scholars including
Robert Keohane
Robert Owen Keohane (born October 3, 1941) is an American political scientist working in the fields of international relations and international political economy. Following the publication of his influential book '' After Hegemony'' (1984), he h ...
,
Helen Milner, and
G. John Ikenberry. Other hires included
Aaron Friedberg and
Thomas Christensen. Slaughter was responsible for the creation of several research centers in international political economy and national security, the joint PhD program in social policy, the Global Fellows program, and the Scholars in the Nation's Service Initiative.
In late 2005, over 100 Princeton students and faculty signed an open letter to Slaughter and
Princeton president Shirley M. Tilghman criticizing the university in general and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs in particular of biasing selection of invited speakers in favor of those supportive of the
George W. Bush administration.
Slaughter responded to these claims by pointing to the dozens of public lectures by independent academics, journalists, and other analysts that the Wilson School hosts each academic year.
Others noted that, with Bush's
Republican Party controlling the
presidency
A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified b ...
and both houses of
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
, many of the most influential people in the federal government, and in the international relations apparatus in particular, were necessarily administration supporters. In 2003 the Woodrow Wilson School hosted an art exhibit titled "Ricanstructions" that opponents of the exhibit claimed was "offensive to
Catholics" and desecrated Christian symbols. Slaughter defended the exhibit.
From 2002 to 2004, Slaughter served as president of the
American Society of International Law
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, ...
. She was also one of the early members on the
Centre for International Governance Innovation international board of directors.
State Department
In January 2009,
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...
announced the appointment of Slaughter as the new
director of policy planning under the
Obama administration.
Slaughter was the first woman to hold this position.
At the State Department, Slaughter was chief architect of the
Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review whose first iteration was released in December 2010.
The QDDR provided a blueprint for elevating development as a pillar of American foreign policy and leading through civilian power. Commenting upon the skepticism that often greets such reports, and reiterating Secretary Clinton's strong desire that the QDDR become an essential part of the State Department policy process, Slaughter said: "I'm pretty sure you're thinking, 'I've heard this before,'
big plan to change the way a government agency worksBut this is different."
In February 2011, at the conclusion of her two-year public service leave, Slaughter returned to Princeton University. She remains a consultant for the State Department and sits on the secretary of state's
Foreign Policy Advisory Board. She has written that she came "home not only because of Princeton's rules (after two years of leave, you lose your tenure), but also because of my desire to be with my family and my conclusion that juggling high-level government work with the needs of two teenage boys was not possible."
A 2015 article in ''
Marie Claire'' magazine quoted Hillary Clinton as saying that "other women don't break a sweat" and choose to stay working in stressful government jobs. Since the article discussed Anne-Marie Slaughter in the same paragraph, Slaughter mentioned that she was "devastated" by the idea that Clinton had been referring to her specifically. After hearing confirmation from Clinton that the quotation was taken out of context, Slaughter stated that the two women were still on good terms.
Other activities
In the 1980s, as a student, Slaughter was part of the team headed by Professor
Abram Chayes that helped the
Sandinista government of
Nicaragua
Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...
bring suit against the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
in the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...
for violations of international law, in the case ''
Nicaragua v. United States'' (1986).
Since leaving the State Department, Slaughter remains a frequent commentator on foreign policy issues by publishing op-eds in major newspapers, magazines and blogs and curating foreign policy news on Twitter. She appears regularly on
CNN,
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
,
NPR, and
PBS and lectures to academic, civic, and corporate audiences. She has written a regular opinion column for
Project Syndicate since January 2012. She delivers more than 60 public lectures annually.
Foreign Policy
Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...
magazine named her to their annual list of the Top100 Global Thinkers in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.
She has served on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations, including the
Council of Foreign Relations, the
New America Foundation, the
National Endowment for Democracy, the
National Security Network and the
Brookings Doha Center. She is a member of the advisory board of the Center for New American Security, the Truman Project, and the bipartisan Development Council of the
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. From its founding in 1962 until 1987, it was an affiliate of Georgetown University, initially named the Center for Strategic and Inte ...
. In 2006, she chaired the
Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion. From 2004 to 2007, she was a co-director of the
Princeton Project on National Security.
She was elected to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
in 2011.
In the private sector, she started her law career at the corporate firm
Simpson Thacher and is currently on the corporate board of
Abt Global (formerly Abt Associates), a for-profit
government contractor involved in research, evaluation and implementing programs in the fields of health, social and environmental policy, and international development. She was previously on the board of the
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...
Corporation and that of the
Citigroup
Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services company based in New York City. The company was formed in 1998 by the merger of Citicorp, t ...
Economic and Political Strategies Advisory Group.
In 2013, Slaughter was named president and CEO of the
New America Foundation, a think-tank based in Washington, D.C.
dedicated to renewing America in the Digital Age. Their "Better Life Lab" key projects and initiatives include Family Policy and Caregiving, Redesigning Work and Gender Equality, a topic Slaughter has been outspoken about in several of her writings.
The responsibility to protect
In July 2005, Slaughter wrote in the ''
American Journal of International Law'' about the
responsibility to protect (R2P) that:
In her 2006 Levine lecture at
Fordham University
Fordham University is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in New York City, United States. Established in 1841, it is named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its origina ...
, Slaughter called the R2P "the most important shift in our conception of sovereignty since the
Treaty of Westphalia
The Peace of Westphalia (, ) is the collective name for two Peace treaty, peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and brought peace to the Holy R ...
in 1648," and founded it in the
Four Freedoms speech by
President Roosevelt. She referred to a speech by
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder a ...
, in which he saw that the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
had come to a "fork in the road" and in her words "that it was time to decide how to adapt the institution to not the world of 1945 but the world of 2005."
Libyan intervention
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 and
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, on the situation in Libya, were adopted on 26 February and 17 March 2011, respectively. Resolution 1970 was the first case where the Security Council authorized a military intervention citing the
R2P; it passed unanimously. One week after the adoption with many abstentions of the latter Resolution, Slaughter wrote a strong endorsement of Western military intervention in Libya.
[ft.com: "Why Libya sceptics were proved badly wrong"]
24 August 2011
In this
op-ed
An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page," is a type of written prose commonly found in newspapers, magazines, and online publications. They usually represent a writer's strong and focused opinion on an issue of relevance to a targeted a ...
, Slaughter states her support for the
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
use of force in Libya, describing a lack of NATO as an invitation for other regional regimes to increase their repression to remain in power. She frames the conflict as between value-based and interest-based arguments on intervention, stating that they cannot be distinguished from each other, and states her support for the role of President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
in helping to form an international coalition to oppose
Muammar Gadhafi. Slaughter states that she supports the Libyan
Transitional National Council draft constitutional charter and states that she supports comparisons to Iraq, arguing they might prevent similar mistakes in Libya.
On 25 August 2011, she was roundly criticized by
Matt Welch, who sorted through many of Slaughter's prior op-eds and concluded that she was a "situational constitutionalist".
Clifford May on 15 October 2014 wrote a piece in which he drew a straight line between Annan and Slaughter's R2P "norm", and the failure in Libya. May noted that President Obama had cited the R2P norm as his primary justification for using military force with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who had threatened to attack the opposition stronghold of
Benghazi
Benghazi () () is the List of cities in Libya, second-most-populous city in Libya as well as the largest city in Cyrenaica, with an estimated population of 859,000 in 2023. Located on the Gulf of Sidra in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, Ben ...
.
On 26 February 2015, ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
'' magazine published a piece by
Doug Bandow which called for Washington policymakers to be held accountable for another war gone bad. Slaughter was singled out for criticism, for her statement that "it clearly can be in the U.S. and the West's strategic interest to help social revolutions fighting for the values we espouse and proclaim
in an article Bandow characterized as "celebratory" concerning the outcome of NATO intervention in Libya.
Gender policy
Slaughter's article titled "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" appeared in the July/August 2012 issue of ''
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 185 ...
''.
In the first four days after publication, the piece attracted 725,000 unique readers, making it the most popular article ever published in that magazine. In the same period, it received over 119,000 Facebook "Recommends," making it by far the most "liked" piece ever to appear in any version of the magazine. Within several days, it had been discussed in detail on the front page of ''The New York Times'' and in many other media outlets, attracting attention from around the world. Although Slaughter originally tried to call the article "Why Women Can't Have it All Yet," she has since stated that it was a mistake to use the phrase "Have it All" in general. In 2015, Slaughter clarified that she hoped to stimulate a discussion about a wide range of working mothers, not only those in prestigious or lucrative careers.
Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family
The article in ''The Atlantic'' became the basis of the 2015 book ''
Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family''.
The book argues that a number of challenges remain for the women's movement in the US. It allows her to expands on her position in the article and respond to her critics. In Unfinished Business, she attempts to create a framework to understand the problems faced by all working parents, not just women.
[Williams, Joan C. "Look how Far We've Come (Not)Unfinished Business: Women, Men, Work, Family. by Anne-Marie Slaughter. New York: Random House, 2015." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 42, no. 2, 2017, pp. 561-563.]
President and CEO of New America
Slaughter was named president and CEO of the think-tank
New America in 2013.
In 2017, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''
alleged that Slaughter had closed the Open Markets research group and dismissed its director Barry Lynn because he had criticized Google, a major donor of New America, and called for it to be broken up. Slaughter denied that Open Markets was closed because of pressure from Google and said Lynn was dismissed because he had "repeatedly violated the standards of honesty and good faith with his colleagues." New America co-chair
Jonathan Soros wrote in a letter that Google had neither "attempted to interfere" nor "threaten
dfunding" over Open Markets research critical of monopolies. In a letter to New America's board and leadership, 25 former and current New America fellows said that although they had "never experienced any efforts by donors or managers at New America to influence
heir
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...
work," they "were troubled by the initial lack of transparency and communication from New America's leadership" and "remained deeply concerned about this sequence of events".
Bibliography
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References
External links
Princeton faculty page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slaughter, Anne-Marie
1958 births
Living people
Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford
American nonprofit chief executives
American people of Belgian descent
American women chief executives
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American women lawyers
Atlantic Council
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
Directors of policy planning
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Harvard Law School alumni
Harvard Law School faculty
Presidents of the American Society of International Law
New America (organization)
Obama administration personnel
People from Charlottesville, Virginia
Princeton University alumni
Princeton University faculty
Responsibility to protect
University of Chicago Law School faculty
American women legal scholars
American legal scholars
21st-century American academics
21st-century American women academics
Members of the American Philosophical Society
21st-century American women civil servants