Celebrity Diplomacy between Engagement and Entrapment

"What role can celebrities play in world politics and how seriously should they be taken in world affairs? Do celebrities' media power and related transparency serve decision-making in global affairs?"

These questions served to stimulate the conversation at an international conference called "Celebrity Diplomacy, Unconventional Ways of International Politics", held in late October 2008 in The Hague, The Netherlands. Organisers from the Clingendael Institute gathered an audience of academics, policymakers, civil society representatives, and journalists to examine the trend of celebrities taking up their role as advocates of public goods and thereby entering into the world of diplomacy and global governance.

As a summary of the debate, author Renate Bloem begins by describing keynote speaker Professor Andrew Cooper's discussion of celebrities' commitment to humanitarian causes and their action on the world stage. He concentrated on the ability of personalities such as Bono and Geldorf or business leaders such as Bill Gates or Ted Turner to gain access to world leaders, thus shaping the agenda on a wide range of global issues. Cooper argues that this "could develop into a considerable challenge to the legitimacy and efficiency of traditional modes of state-centred diplomacy, or at least redefine both the priorities and mechanisms of diplomacy." Bloem (who was a presenter at the conference), explored the idea that these celebrities could be better characterised as an "add-on, complimentary influence, amplifier - when necessary - of the voice of civil society....[T]heir joint forces to create more "hype", more attention, more focused and accelerated action through their checks or other philanthropy on the huge problems of our time, particular on hunger, poverty and AIDS, could only be seen as helpful and welcomed."

Thus, some of the benefits of celebrity diplomacy involve political access, media attention, and public mobilisation - but each of these possibilities entails risks as well. Namely, their voices may crowd out others and/or detract from the substance of the issue because they "get it wrong". One of the issues reportedly discussed in breakout groups was the role of new media in the context of these debates. Drawing on the example of Al Gore and his film "An Inconvenient Truth," discussants observed that blogging was used as a forum for discussing whether Gore's voice is authoritative rather than actually taking the step to explore what can and should be done about climate change.

Observing that a trend toward trans-nationalisation and supra-nationalisation has triggered demands for more public involvement in the institutions of global governance, conference participants concluded that celebrity diplomacy certainly merits further research.