Madeleine Albright: Pioneer of Foreign Policy

President Bill Clinton made history on Dec. 5, 1996 when he nominated Madeleine Korbel Albright as secretary of state. After Albright was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, she was sworn in on Jan. 23, 1997 and became the 64th American secretary of state and the first woman to hold the position.

Professor and diplomat, Albright, who died on March 23, took deep inspiration from her beginnings, and left her mark on history with her exceptional career. She faced a world that was redefining itself as it worked to construct a “new world order” following the end of the Cold War, a concept evoked by the previous administration, though it struggled to define the new order and searched for a way to carry it out. Throughout her tenure, Albright worked to promote democratic values, but above all, she shattered the glass ceiling that history too often imposed on women who wished to help build the world.

Giving Women Their Voice

As a professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in the 1980s, she asserted herself in a tangible way to support a greater role for women in the world of foreign policy. She became the director of the Women in Foreign Service Program, meant to help women access careers in international administration.

As secretary of state, Albright continued to help women attain a prominent place in American government. Accordingly, she made sure that women were well represented among her closest professional entourage. She wanted to firmly show that, from the positions of special advisor to the secretary-general to counselor of the State Department, women could aspire to a career in federal government. Kristie Kenney, Wendy Sherman, and Bonnie Cohen paved the way.*

President Clinton was open to this development. At his Cabinet table, Albright was surrounded by other women who had his confidence – Attorney General Janet Reno, Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner, and U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky.

As a result, “the president’s support for women’s advancement as a foreign policy objective was welcomed in high administrative levels of international affairs,” says Albright biographer Thomas Lippman.**

Working for Democracy

For Albright, economic development and a better life for women all over the world also required putting democratic actions in place. Defending democracy motivated her just as much as fighting for women, and Albright favored this cause because she deeply believed in its power to liberate people and in America’s ability to promote democracy around the world.

Preserving America’s interests and values – democracy and respect for human rights – became the card the State Department played in all its interventions, and the way Albright used it depended on the countries she was negotiating with. But in return, the secretary of state constantly looked for ways to contribute to the debate about democratization in foreign policy. To some, this meant favoring the emergence of democracy more broadly throughout the world. To others, it was more about opening the formal foreign policy process and breaking down the walls that traditionally closed it off to the public. Albright worked toward achieving both of these ends.

Accordingly, in an effort to address public apathy about foreign policy, Albright spent many hours with citizen groups explaining how American foreign policy affected them directly. The secretary of state went directly to the people from the beginning. She traveled across the entire country to explain her position on lingering threats to the United States and what her administration intended to do about it.

This resulted in building strong ties with the American people. Albright made it her mission to restore public consensus around crucial goals when it came to security policy at a time when the disappearance of a common enemy – communism – made any attempt at this difficult. Washington Post journalist Michael Dobbs characterized this initiative as innovative and something that no one had undertaken since Henry Kissinger had served as secretary of state.

For Albright, foreign policy was meant “to influence the policies and actions of other nations in a way that serves your interests and values,” as she went on to say in her memoirs. Obviously, her legacy is richer than that. It is one that contains a complete program of future objectives.

*Editor’s note: Kristie Kenney served as the 32nd counselor of the State Department from 2016 to 2017, Wendy Sherman is currently the deputy secretary of state since 2021, and Bonnie Cohen served as under secretary of state for management from 1997 to 2001.

**Editor’s note: Although accurately translated, the exact wording of this remark could not be readily verified.