Rice served as a foreign policy aide to Michael Dukakis in the 1988 election, to John Kerry in his 2004 campaign and to former president Barack Obama. She served in the Clinton administration in various capacities, first on the National Security Council from 1993 to 1997 and then as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1997 to 2001. Since 2002 she has served as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution focusing on foreign policy.
In 2008, Rice was nominated by Obama to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and became national security adviser in 2013.