Anne-Marie Slaughter

43

Anne-Marie Slaughter : biography

September 27, 1958 –

As a scholar, Slaughter has had a focus on integrating the study of international relations and international law, using international relations theory in international legal theory. In addition, she has written extensively on European Union 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 published four 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), 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.

She has been active as a teacher of numerous doctoral students in both law and political science, as well as other undergraduate and undergraduate students. At Princeton University, she is currently jointly appointed in the Politics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School, where she teaches and advises PhD, Masters and undergraduate students.

On leave from her responsibilities as dean, Slaughter spent the academic year 2007-2008 based in Shanghai, China, as a fellow at the Shanghai Institute for International Affairs.

Administration

From 1994 to 2002, while at Harvard University, Slaughter was Director of the International Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School from 1994-2002, and a Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government from 2001-2002.

During her tenure as dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, she was credited with vigorously building the faculty, research and teaching activities of the school. She expanded the school by 30%, adding scholars from history, sociology, engineering and the natural sciences, and expanded the School’s Masters in Public Policy Program to include medical doctors, lawyers, and Ph.D. scientists. She was credited with rebuilding Princeton’s international relations faculty, including hiring a bevy of well-respected senior scholars including Robert Keohane, Helen Milner, and G. John Ikenberry. She also retained or hired influential right-of-center scholars including Aaron Friedberg and Thomas Christensen. Slaughter was also responsible for the creation of several research centers in international political economy and national security, the joint Ph.D. 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 Tilghman criticizing the University in general and the Woodrow Wilson School in particular of biasing selection of invited speakers in favor of those supportive of the 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 and both houses of Congress, 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 "anti-Catholic" and desecrated Christian symbols. Slaughter defended the exhibit.

From 2002-2004, Slaughter served as president of the American Society of International Law.

Honors

Slaughter has received an honorary degree from the University of Miami (2006) and the University of Virginia’s Jefferson Medal (2007).

Career at the State Department

On January 23, 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton 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.