Anne-Marie Slaughter

1. Introduction

Anne-Marie Slaughter (b. 1958) is an American international lawyer, policy thinker, and public intellectual whose work bridges international law, international relations, and feminist political theory. She is best known for theorizing a networked model of global governance and for arguing that care should be treated as a central public value in democratic societies.

Trained at Princeton (A.B.), Oxford (D.Phil. in International Relations), and Harvard Law School (J.D.), Slaughter has occupied prominent academic posts at the University of Chicago, Harvard, and Princeton, as well as significant policy roles, most notably as Director of Policy Planning in the U.S. State Department (2009–2011) and later as President and CEO of New America, a Washington-based think tank.

Her early scholarship recast international law and liberal internationalism in terms of transgovernmental networks of judges, regulators, and legislators that cooperate across borders. This led to her influential notion of a “new world order” in which authority is dispersed and sovereignty is relational rather than absolute.

Later, Slaughter extended ethics of care into debates on work, family, and social policy, making the case that caregiving is a precondition for productivity, citizenship, and freedom. Her widely discussed Atlantic essay “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” and the subsequent book Unfinished Business helped reframe work–family tensions as structural questions of justice and the social contract.

Across these domains, commentators often treat Slaughter as a representative of liberal internationalism adapted to a globalized, networked age, and as a major contributor to contemporary discussions about how states, markets, and families should be organized to sustain both order and human flourishing.

2. Life and Historical Context

2.1 Biographical Outline

Slaughter was born on 27 September 1958 in Charlottesville, Virginia, into an academic family environment that exposed her early to public affairs. She studied at Princeton University (A.B., 1980), where she won the Daniel M. Sachs Scholarship to Oxford. At the University of Oxford, she completed a D.Phil. in International Relations (1985), and then earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School (1987).

Her academic career began at the University of Chicago Law School and continued at Harvard Law School, before she moved to Princeton University, where she became dean of the Woodrow Wilson School (2002–2009). From 2009 to 2011 she served as Director of Policy Planning in the U.S. State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reportedly the first woman to hold this role. In 2014 she became President and CEO of New America.

A schematic timeline:

2.2 Historical and Intellectual Setting

Slaughter’s formative decades coincided with the late Cold War and the subsequent post–Cold War “unipolar moment,” when many policy and academic elites expected a rules-based liberal order to deepen. Her early work responded to debates about whether international law could meaningfully constrain sovereign states and how liberal democracies should organize cooperation.

The post-9/11 period shaped her focus on security, intervention, and the legitimacy of U.S. power, while the spread of digital technologies and globalization provided the empirical backdrop for her emphasis on networks. Later, the global financial crisis, rising populism, and renewed contestation over gender roles formed the context for her arguments about care, inequality, and the need to renew the social contract.

3. Intellectual Development

3.1 Formative Education and Foundations (1976–1987)

During her studies at Princeton and Oxford, Slaughter engaged with liberal political theory, international relations (IR), and the English School emphasis on international society. Her D.Phil. work linked questions of order and justice to the evolution of international legal institutions. Legal training at Harvard added analytic jurisprudence and U.S. constitutional law, equipping her to move between legal and IR discourses.

3.2 Liberal Internationalist Legal Theorist (late 1980s–1990s)

Writing often under the name Anne-Marie Burley, she focused on how liberalism justifies and constrains international law. Influenced by regime theory and liberal IR, she examined how liberal democracies build and comply with cooperative legal regimes and explored the idea of constitutionalism beyond the state. Proponents see this period as grounding her later work in a normative defense of a rules-based order; critics sometimes describe it as aligned with post–Cold War liberal triumphalism.

3.3 Network Governance and Global Constitutionalism (1998–2008)

From the late 1990s, Slaughter developed her theory of transgovernmental networks, arguing that national officials increasingly collaborate across borders. This work culminated in A New World Order (2004). She presented networks as both a descriptive account of how global governance actually operates and a normative opportunity to realize liberal values of rule of law and accountability in a non-hierarchical system.

3.4 Policy Planning and Applied Normativity (2009–2011)

At the State Department, Slaughter sought to operationalize ideas about networked diplomacy, responsibility to protect, and a values-based U.S. foreign policy. Her experience highlighted tensions between principled commitments and political feasibility, informing later reflections on the limits and responsibilities of expert advice.

3.5 Care, Gender, and the Social Contract (2012–present)

Following her 2012 Atlantic article, Slaughter redirected significant attention to care ethics, gender equality, and work–family policy. In Unfinished Business and related work, she developed a conceptual link between caregiving and the social contract, arguing that democracies must structurally support dependency and interdependence. This phase also integrates her network thinking into broader debates on domestic and global inequality.

4. Major Works and Key Texts

4.1 Overview Table

4.2 A New World Order (2004)

This book synthesizes Slaughter’s work on transgovernmentalism, arguing that networks of national judges, regulators, and legislators form a “new world order” that partly supplants traditional diplomacy and international organizations. She examines sectors such as antitrust, finance, and human rights, proposing that these networks can be harnessed to promote rule of law, accountability, and liberal values across borders.

4.3 The Idea That Is America (2007)

Addressing a broader audience, Slaughter explores core American values—liberty, equality, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights—and contends that U.S. foreign policy should reflect these principles. The book responds to controversies of the “war on terror,” connecting domestic constitutional commitments with international legitimacy.

4.4 Gender and Care Texts

Her Atlantic article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” (2012) used her own experience to argue that structural conditions, rather than individual failings, inhibit gender equality in professional and family life. Unfinished Business systematizes these claims, advancing a normative framework in which caregiving is central to economic and civic life.

4.5 The Chessboard and the Web (2017)

Slaughter contrasts a traditional “chessboard” view of geopolitics—focused on states and territory—with a “web” view emphasizing networks and flows. She develops strategic implications for governments and non-state actors, proposing that effective action in a globalized world requires mastery of both logics of power.

5. Core Ideas: Networks, Sovereignty, and Global Order

5.1 Transgovernmental Networks

Slaughter’s core contribution to global governance debates is the concept of transgovernmentalism. She argues that national officials—judges, regulators, legislators—routinely collaborate across borders in flexible networks that exchange information, coordinate enforcement, and sometimes develop shared norms. Proponents see this as a more accurate description of contemporary governance than purely state-centric or treaty-based models.

"

“The chessboard is a world of states, national interests, and military force. The web is a world of networks, interdependence, and flows. We must learn to play on both boards at once.”

— Anne-Marie Slaughter, The Chessboard and the Web (2017)

5.2 Rethinking Sovereignty

Slaughter reconceives sovereignty as relational and embedded, rather than absolute territorial control. A state’s sovereignty, on this view, depends on its participation in and recognition by a wider community:

"

“Sovereignty is not a wall but a web of relationships: a state is sovereign when it is embedded in and respected by a community of other states and peoples.”

— Paraphrased from Slaughter, A New World Order (2004)

Supporters argue that this framework reconciles state autonomy with deep interdependence and supports liberal internationalism by justifying cooperative institutions and shared norms. It also provides a basis for doctrines such as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), in which state authority is conditioned on protection of populations.

5.3 Liberal International Order and Global Constitutionalism

Slaughter defends a rules-based liberal order in which law, not unilateral power, structures international relations. She treats transgovernmental networks as potential sites of emerging “global public law,” raising questions of constitutionalism beyond the state: rights protection, checks and balances, and accountability in cross-border regulatory regimes.

An influential distinction in her work is between:

Critics worry that such networks may lack transparency and democratic control; advocates view them as pragmatic and normatively promising responses to complex global problems.

6. Care, Gender, and the Social Contract

6.1 From Work–Family Dilemma to Structural Justice

Slaughter’s later work reframes work–family conflict as a systemic rather than individual problem. In “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” she contends that professional and policy structures built around an ideal, unencumbered worker make it impossible for many caregivers—disproportionately women—to meet both professional and family expectations.

"

“The real solution lies not in women trying to ‘have it all’ but in making it possible for men and women to have the lives they want, in a system that values and supports care.”

— Anne-Marie Slaughter, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” (2012)

6.2 Care as a Public Value

In Unfinished Business, Slaughter develops a more general claim that care is a foundational social good:

"

“Care is not a ‘soft’ value to be added after the fact; it is the precondition for all the other things we say we value—productivity, creativity, citizenship, and even freedom itself.”

— Anne-Marie Slaughter, Unfinished Business (2015)

She aligns with and extends ethics of care by insisting that caregiving—of children, the elderly, the sick—should be recognized, supported, and fairly distributed through law, labor markets, and welfare institutions, rather than relegated to unpaid, private sacrifice.

6.3 A Revised Social Contract

Slaughter connects care to the social contract, arguing that modern democracies depend on citizens who are both productive and cared for. She proposes that a just contract must:

Proponents in feminist theory and social policy view this as a concrete way to institutionalize care ethics at macro level. Some critics question feasibility or worry about reinforcing gendered expectations, while others argue that market-based solutions receive too much emphasis. The debate situates Slaughter’s proposals within broader discussions on welfare-state reform and family justice.

7. Methodology and Scholar–Practitioner Role

7.1 Interdisciplinary and Pragmatic Method

Slaughter’s methodology combines doctrinal legal analysis, empirical observation of institutions, and normative argument. She routinely draws on case studies of regulatory and judicial cooperation, interviews with policymakers, and comparative legal materials, embedding them in IR and political-theory frameworks. Commentators often describe her approach as pragmatic and policy-oriented, aimed at designing workable institutions rather than elaborating abstract theory alone.

7.2 Normative Commitments and Public Reason

Her work typically proceeds by:

1. Identifying existing practices (e.g., judicial networks, work–family policies).
2. Interpreting them through liberal values like rule of law, equality, and care.
3. Proposing reforms that, she argues, better realize those values.

Supporters suggest that this immanent critique respects pluralism and aligns with traditions of public reason. Others contend that it presupposes a contested liberal framework and underplays alternative value systems.

7.3 The Scholar–Practitioner Model

Slaughter’s move between academia and government has made her a prominent example of the scholar–practitioner. As Director of Policy Planning, she attempted to apply concepts such as networked diplomacy and Responsibility to Protect in concrete settings. After returning to academia and leading New America, she continued to translate scholarly ideas into policy proposals on technology, democracy, and care.

Analysts highlight several features of her role:

Her career is frequently used in discussions about the ethics of expertise, the responsibilities of public intellectuals, and the relationship between social science and democratic decision-making.

8. Impact on International Law and Political Theory

8.1 International Law and Global Governance

In international law, Slaughter’s work is widely cited for shifting attention from formal treaties and organizations to networks of national officials. Scholars of global administrative law and global constitutionalism have used her framework to analyze cross-border regulation in areas such as finance, antitrust, and environmental protection. Many regard her as a key figure in legitimizing the study of informal international institutions.

Her relational account of sovereignty and endorsement of R2P-like ideas have influenced debates on humanitarian intervention, state responsibility, and the conditions under which the international community may act when governments fail to protect their citizens.

8.2 Political and Legal Theory

In political theory, Slaughter’s network model has contributed to rethinking sovereignty, authority, and democratic legitimacy beyond the state. Global theorists draw on her work to argue that political obligation and accountability must be reconceived for a world of overlapping jurisdictions. Some cosmopolitan thinkers view her as providing a realistic pathway toward constitutionalism beyond the state, while critics from republican or democratic perspectives question whether network governance can be adequately controlled by citizens.

Her later arguments about care and the social contract have intersected with feminist political theory and welfare-state theory, offering a detailed institutional agenda for embedding care ethics into labor and family law. They have been used as case studies in philosophical discussions of social rights, gender justice, and the distribution of unpaid labor.

8.3 Broader Public and Policy Influence

Beyond academia, Slaughter’s writings have shaped discourse among policymakers, journalists, and activists. A New World Order and The Chessboard and the Web inform conversations on networked diplomacy and hybrid threats, while her Atlantic essay and Unfinished Business are frequently cited in debates over parental leave, flexible work, and care infrastructure. The breadth of uptake has led some observers to classify her influence as both conceptual—providing new vocabularies of networks and care—and agenda-setting in policy circles.

9. Criticisms and Debates

9.1 Democratic Legitimacy of Networks

A central criticism targets the democratic legitimacy of the transgovernmental networks Slaughter describes. Critics argue that cross-border cooperation among judges or regulators may occur with limited transparency and weak accountability to citizens. From this perspective, her “new world order” risks entrenching technocratic governance and elite coordination.

Defenders respond that many such networks already exist and that Slaughter advocates designing them with stronger accountability mechanisms, not celebrating unregulated technocracy. An alternative view holds that networks are at best transitional forms on the road to more democratic global institutions.

9.2 Liberal Internationalism and Power

Slaughter’s liberal internationalism has been debated from both realist and critical perspectives. Realist scholars suggest that her emphasis on law and values underestimates power politics and the persistence of strategic competition. Critical and postcolonial theorists contend that her vision of a liberal order may mask U.S. and Western dominance, reproducing hierarchies under the guise of universal norms.

Supporters argue that her relational sovereignty and attention to multilateralism offer a more constrained and principled account of U.S. power, while acknowledging that implementation can depart from these ideals.

9.3 Feminism, Elite Experience, and Care

Slaughter’s interventions on gender and care have been both influential and controversial. Some feminist critics claim that her early framing reflects the dilemmas of professional elites, potentially sidelining the experiences of low-wage workers, single parents, or women outside the Global North. Others question whether her proposals rely too heavily on flexible work and employer accommodation instead of more radical transformations of economic structures.

In response, proponents highlight that Unfinished Business devotes increasing attention to class and race, and that her focus on public support for care can complement more redistributive agendas rather than replace them.

9.4 Scholar–Practitioner Tensions

Finally, debates surround her dual role as scholar and policy actor. Some observers praise her for embodying responsible engagement; others worry that close ties to U.S. foreign policy institutions may bias her theoretical frameworks or limit critical distance. These discussions form part of wider controversies about the relationship between academia, think tanks, and state power.

10. Legacy and Historical Significance

Slaughter’s legacy is often discussed along two intersecting axes: reconceptualizing global governance and elevating care in public theory and policy.

In international law and IR, she is widely regarded as a principal architect of the network paradigm. Her depiction of transgovernmental networks and relational sovereignty helped shift scholarly and policy attention from formal interstate bargains to the dense web of interactions among national officials and non-state actors. Even critics who dispute her normative conclusions frequently adopt her vocabulary of networks, chessboards, and webs, indicating the lasting imprint of her conceptual framing.

In political and feminist theory, Slaughter’s insistence that care is a central public value has contributed to a broader rethinking of the social contract in aging, unequal societies. Her synthesis of care ethics with concrete policy proposals—on parental leave, flexible work, and caregiving infrastructure—has provided a reference point for debates about how to institutionalize interdependence in liberal democracies.

Historically, she stands as a prominent example of the post–Cold War liberal internationalist who both theorized and helped implement aspects of the liberal order, and later confronted its crises amid populist backlash and geopolitical rivalry. Her trajectory from legal theorist to policy planner to think-tank leader illustrates the expanding role of expert networks in shaping governance, as well as the contested legitimacy of that role.

Many commentators therefore view Slaughter as a key figure for understanding the evolution of global governance thinking and the emerging effort to integrate care and interdependence into mainstream conceptions of justice and political order in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.