Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Dr. Robin Harris is Senior Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

His principal areas of interest and expertise are in U.S.-UK relations (historic and current), the European Union and associated security issues, the affairs of South-East Europe, and the philosophical underpinning of conservatism and capitalism.

He has a wide knowledge of both domestic policy and international relations gained over years in senior positions in British public affairs. Between 1978 and 1990 Harris worked continuously for either the British Conservative Party or the Conservative Government – notably as special adviser at the Treasury (1981-1983), special adviser at the Home Office (1983-1985), director of the Conservative Research Department (1985-1989) and as a member of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street Policy Unit (1989-1990). In these capacities he became a regular speech writer for the then Prime Minister. Later he acted as her main policy adviser and draftsman, editing a book of her speeches and assisting in the writing of both volumes of her memoirs and of her final book on foreign policy, Statecraft : Strategies for a Changing World (HarperCollins, 2002).

Harris is the author of books, policy pamphlets and numerous articles in leading British and U.S. newspapers and journals – including The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Daily Mail, The Spectator, Prospect, Standpoint, The Wall Street Journal, Human Events, National Review, The National Interest, The American Spectator, Policy Review and The Washington Times .

Harris's books include studies of late medieval France, of the city state of Dubrovnik, and of the French diplomat-statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand. He has completed a biography of Lady Thatcher, which will appear at a future date, and is currently writing a history of the Conservative Party .

For British think tanks, Harris has authored pamphlets on criminal justice, on foreign policy and on the nature of conservatism, and for the Heritage Foundation a study of the UK-U.S. "special relationship". His recent journalism has focused on British political affairs, on the European Union's aims and ambitions, on security in the Balkans, and on the Christians of Iraq.

Harris obtained a First Class Honours degree in Modern History and then a D. Phil. (on French History), both at Exeter College, Oxford; he also won the Oxford University Gibbs Prize in History.

He is a Commander of the UK's Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE), received for political and public service, and has been awarded the Croatian Republic's Order of the Morning Star, for services to culture.