Dr Alison Holmes

A native of Oklahoma, Holmes moved to London in 1987 after completing her undergraduate and graduate work in Chicago. In London, she worked for the Liberal Democrats under Paddy Ashdown including three years on the Northern Ireland portfolio (where she had lived while still a student), the 1992 campaign, and finally as the party’s National General Election Manager for the 1997 campaign.

After ten years in national politics, Holmes joined the BBC where, as Deputy Head of Corporate Communication Strategy, she helped launch BBC News 24 and BBC Online. Three years later, Holmes was headhunted by Burson-Marsteller to advise clients such as Accenture on corporate social responsibility. In 2001, Holmes was recruited to be the Managing Director of the London office of the largest UK/US business membership organization, BritishAmerican Business, Inc. Leading the organization through the aftermath of 9/11 she stayed for three years, expanding their UK, EU and US lobbying agenda, strategic communications portfolio and membership event programming.

In 2005 she completed her PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics. In 2006 she became a speechwriter to Ambassador Robert H Tuttle in London as well as a research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University. After 21 years in London, Holmes accepted the Pierre Keller Fellowship in Transatlantic Studies at Yale University in 2008 an honor that was extended to a second year. In 2010, she returned to the UK briefly to be a consultant in the Liberal Democrat General Election Campaign and helped take the party into government. This resulted in an opportunity to return to British politics - but Holmes chose California instead.

Recent/Selected Scholarship

2013 “Transatlantic Diplomacy and ‘Global’ States” in Anglo-American Relations: Contemporary Perspectives, Steve Marsh, Alan Dobson (eds), London: Routledge.

2012 The Embassy in Grosvenor Square: U.S. Ambassadors to the UK, 1938-2008 co-edited with Dr J. Simon Rofe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

2010 “Ronald Reagan: Conviction Politics and Transatlantic Relations”, Transatlantic Studies Association Journal, Vol. 8 No. 3, September.

2009 The Third Way: Globalisation’s Legacy, Leicester: Troubador Publishing Ltd.

2007 “Devolution, Coalitions, and the Liberal Democrats: Necessary Evil or Progressive Politics?”, Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 60 No. 4, October.

British politics, transatlantic diplomacy and international relations theory. In my spare time I enjoy digging in the garden, walking the beaches of Humboldt and listening to live jazz.