Shirley Williams is co-founder of the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom and is a member of the House of Lords, where she was leader of the party from 2001 to 2004. She is professor emeritus of elective politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She is a member of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.
She was a member of the House of Commons (1964–79), serving as secretary of state for prices and consumer protection, secretary of state for education and science, and paymaster general. In 1981, she broke away from the Labour Party to co-found the Social Democratic Party (which merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats, now the third party in British politics). She became Baroness Williams of Crosby in 1993 and was spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats on Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the House of Lords from 1998 to 2001. She was adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on issues of nuclear proliferation.
She directed the Harvard-based Project Liberty, which focused on building democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. She was a member of the Advisory Council to the UN Secretary General on the Fourth World Women’s conference, a member of the European Commision’s Comité des Sages on social and civil rights, and co-president of Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs), 2002–06.
She is a governor of the Ditchley Foundation and the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is a trustee of the Institute for Public Policy Research in London. She was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations International Advisory Committee and serves on several other boards, including the Moscow School of Political Studies.
She is the author of several books including Politics Is for People (Harvard University Press, 1981), A Job to Live: The Impact of Tomorrow’s Technology on Work and Society (Penguin, 1985), God and Caesar: Personal Reflections on Politics and Religion (Continuum, 2003) and Climbing the Bookshelves (Virago, 2009). She is the recipient of twelve honorary doctorates and is a frequent broadcaster.