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CELEBRITY DIPLOMACY
By Andrew F. Cooper


Reviewed by Neal M. Rosendorf
APR 9, 2008

Can Bono, Brangelina and Becks Save the World? As I read Andrew F. Cooper’s Celebrity Diplomacy, a first-rate meditation on the role of media stars as international relations players, my mind went back to 2000 and a visit by Bono, lead singer of the mega-group U2, to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.  I heard a commotion outside my office on the third floor of the Littauer Center and peered out into the hallway just in time to see a diminutive figure with longish hair disappear around the corner.  Several young women staffers were standing about in a gaga state.  “Did you see?” one breathlessly declared.  “That was BONO!”  I had recently heard that Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who headed the Kennedy School’s Center for International Development, had struck up an acquaintanceship with the Irish vocalist;  the two shared an interest in the issue of Third World poverty and debt forgiveness as an antidote.  Bono was in fact on his way over to the CID office for a meeting with Sachs.  (For Bono’s June 2001 Harvard Class Day speech, click here .)  At the time, the budding relationship between the buttoned-down academic and the flamboyant rock star seemed to many observers, myself included, little more than an bemusing, ephemeral oddity. Those of us who at the time minimized Bono’s social-political commitment as a well-meaning pop musician’s passing fancy were of course proven wrong.  The cover of Celebrity Diplomacy features a photograph taken years later of Bono walking confidently beside President George Bush, a testament to the longevity and seriousness of the singer-activist’s humanitarian efforts, as well as the extraordinary access to the corridors of political power that he has developed.  Unsurprisingly, Bono looms large in Cooper’s analysis of celebrities who seek to play a constructive role in international affairs, whether through an affiliation with intergovernmental institutions like UN-affiliated agencies, NGOs like Greenpeace and Amnesty International, or through freelance efforts of varying sophistication. Cooper’s taxonomy of celebrity diplomacy is straightforward.  “To retain the label of ‘celebrity diplomats’,” he writes, “individuals must not only possess ample communication skills, a sense of mission, and some global reach.  They must enter into the official diplomatic world and operate through the matrix of complex relationships with state officials.” (p. 7)  The historic template for celebrity diplomacy was provided by actors Danny Kaye and especially Audrey Hepburn in their work for UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund in the mid-to-late twentieth century.  Today we have the nonpareil Bono, “the talisman of celebrity diplomacy” (p. 36), who has turned out to be preternaturally gifted in the art of navigating and manipulating traditional power precincts, whether the White House, Whitehall, or the World Economic Forum.  Aside from Bono, Cooper offers sharp overviews of the activities and effectiveness of other celebrity diplomats, including former Boomtown Rats lead singer Sir Bob Geldof—mastermind of Live Aid and the “outsider” yang to Bono’s “insider” ying;  the surprisingly effective and engaged British footballer David Beckham;  the Late Princess Diana;  and of course actress Angelina Jolie (also…...  -->

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