Transnational Celebrity Activism in Global Politics: Changing the World?
320
Transnational Celebrity Activism in Global Politics: Changing the World?
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Overview
In recent years, celebrities from George Clooney to Bono to Angelina Jolie have attempted to play an increasingly important role in global politics. Celebrity activism is an ever-growing, internationally visible phenomenon—yet the impact of these high-profile humanitarians on public awareness, government support, and mobilization of resources remains under-researched. Bringing together a diverse group of contributors from media studies and public diplomacy, Transnational Celebrity Activism in Global Politics aims to fill that void with a new interdisciplinary framework for the analysis of celebrity activism in international relations.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781841505268 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Intellect Books |
| Publication date: | 05/27/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 968 KB |
About the Author
Lisa Tsaliki is a lecturer in communications and mass media at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Christos Frangonikolopoulos is assistant professor in politics and international relations at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Asteris Huliaras is professor of comparative politics at the University of Peloponnese.
Read an Excerpt
Transnational Celebrity Activism in Global Politics
Changing the World?
By Liza Tsaliki, Christos A. Frangonikolopoulos, Asteris Huliaras
Intellect Ltd
Copyright © 2011 Intellect LtdAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84150-526-8
CHAPTER 1
Bringing the Individuals Back in? Celebrities as Transnational Activists
Asteris Huliaras and Nikolaos Tzifakis
Introduction
Bob Dylan, Neil Young and John Lennon made, with their songs, pop protest fashionable in the 1960s. George Harrison and Ravi Shankar organized a concert for Bangladesh in 1971 and Bob Geldof raised tens of millions of dollars for Ethiopian famine victims with the 1984 Band Aid. Yet the current scale of celebrity involvement in international politics, with particular emphasis on the less developed world, has no historical precedent. Nowadays, many celebrities have become well-recognized global activists: for instance, Mia Farrow has campaigned against the government of China for its policy towards Darfur (Huliaras and Tzifakis 2010); Sir Roger Moore has launched the 'Schools for Africa' campaign in order to raise funds for the construction of schools in Malawi; Danny Glover has visited vulnerable children in critically affected countries by HIV/AIDS and has participated in several fundraising and advocacy events for UNICEF. Movie stars and pop singers are increasingly active in campaigns against hunger, disease and inequality; in June 2010, the 'Look to the Stars' website, counted 2,194 celebrities supporting 1,559 charity causes. In the exaggerated words of a journalist: 'With so many Hollywood actors, British rock stars, and American talk show hosts beating a path to [Africa] – building schools, visiting refugee children, raising awareness on AIDS and the fighting in Darfur – it's a wonder the entertainment industry can still function' (Baldauf 2006).
Notwithstanding that celebrity activism has evolved into an ever-growing internationally visible phenomenon, very little has been written on its causes and, even less, on its impact. Why do celebrities increasingly turn their attention to global problems? For what types of issues do celebrities usually mobilize? Which factors seem to enable them to assume key roles, or 'special missions' in transnational advocacy networks? Overall, how effective is celebrity activism in the advancement of global causes?
This chapter aims at investigating this type of transnational activism. The first part briefly reviews the international relations literature on the individual as a level (or unit) of analysis. It claims that the relevant literature on the role of individuals who are not state agents is meager in both size and depth and attempts to formulate general hypotheses on the factors that may facilitate the emergence of influential individuals as transnational activists. The second part of the chapter systematically organizes and presents in testable hypotheses additional factors that account for the specific growth of celebrity activism. Finally, the third part analyses the impact of celebrity activism in terms of public awareness, fund-raising and political lobbying.
The Role of Individuals in Global Politics: Transnational Activists, Social Entrepreneurs and Pioneers
In international relations, the lack of theoretical work on the level of analysis of the individual is stunning. This state of affairs without doubt reflects the state-centric nature of the discipline (Lipschutz 1992). Not only is the state considered as the dominant actor in international politics, it is additionally approximated by the mainstream theoretical approach as a unitary rational actor and accordingly, most contemporary work is 'actor-general' (i.e., it disregards the difference that human beings and groups make) (Hudson 2005). Yet, as Byman and Pollack (2001: 108) remarked, 'How can we explain twentieth-century history without reference to Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi or Mao Zedong?'
The discussion of the impact of individuals on the process of international politics seems to be exhausted with the study of agents of state authority. Relevant literature is indeed almost exclusively confined within the realm of foreign policy analysis; several analyses focus on how personality traits and personal characteristics of leaders impact on their political attitude. However, the impact of individuals who are not agents of state authority has received scant, if any, attention in the discipline. To the extent that global civil society and its activities have increasingly emerged in the post-Cold War era as a distinct research field of international studies, the absence of interest in the role of individual members of transnational actors should not be entirely attributed to the mainstream state-centric view of international politics. Indeed, as Helmut K. Anheier (2007: 3) remarked, the problem with the global civil society literature lies in the fact that the debate 'has become very conceptual and overly focused on the issue of definitions relative to empirical research findings'. Moreover, most empirical work focusing on the role of specific categories of global civil society actors (e.g., philanthropic foundations or women movements) is system-oriented in the sense that it attempts to highlight the overall impact of these types of actors. In addition, many of these studies are predominantly concerned with the influence of transnational activists upon governments, neglecting to analyse the impact those people have working within and across societies (Wapner 1995). Furthermore, these idiosyncratic approaches to issue-specific global civil society actors have not contributed as such to the formulation of theoretical propositions. Above all, as Doug McAdam suggested, the theoretical literature on social movements, which has been developed in the fields of political science and sociology is 'myopically domestic' (cited in Khagram et al. 2002: 6). In addition, this literature utilizes different concepts from the international relations scholarship to refer to similar phenomena and, thus, a theoretical dialogue among scholars from these disciplines requires both 'translation' and 'grappling with each other's empirical frames of reference' (Khagram et al. 2002: 5).
The meager literature, in both volume and depth, on the role of individuals who are not state agents in international politics can be analytically divided into two categories. The first concerns attempts to examine the enabling (contextual or external) conditions for individuals to adopt a more active international role. The second category includes studies of the personal traits of individuals.
In relation to the first category, Philip G. Cerny (2000) widened the agent-structure debate to allow for a more consistent account of the role of 'social agents'. Although Cerny made no explicit reference to individuals, he also did not exclude them from his conceptualization of 'social agents' in which he assembled transnational-cause groups and social movements. Cerny argued that while the structure may constrain or enable the activities of such actors, the latter may, under certain conditions, in turn contribute to the preservation or the transformation of the structure. Cerny's assertion that the current conditions of globalization are permissive for such a structural change is worth noting. Indeed, technological advances and the growth of interdependence among nations have given a new impetus to a concern for distant and different others (Sack 1977: 257). The development of transnational television networks and the capacity for 'real-time' coverage of international crises have unleashed an 'electronic internationalism' (Ignatieff 1997: 10). Barriers of citizenship, religion, race and geography, which had once divided moral space are breaking down, creating an emergent 'global conscience' (Ignatieff 1997: 11). The rapid expansion of the Web provides not only an important means for information but also a critical networking and organizing tool (Deibert 2000). The regular organization of an increasing number of international conferences (such as the UN Human Rights Commission's annual meeting in Geneva) provides the opportunity to networkers from different counties 'to converge, share information, and strategize future campaigns' (Burgerman 1998: 909). Global activist networks are constantly growing out of altruistic solidarity and sympathy as much as out of reciprocity and some sense of sharing a common identity (Reitan 2007: 20–21). Altogether, the globalization of all types of flows and the complex internationalization of the links, networks and relations among different (e.g. state and non-state) actors have allowed several organizations and people with a sense of a mission to find ways to co-operate and coordinate their actions (Tarrow 2005: 7–9).
From a different perspective, Kiyoteru Tsutsui and Christine Min Wotipka (2004) examined patterns of citizen participation in global human rights movements through membership in human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Their survey demonstrated that there is a correlation between citizens' decision to participate in such NGOs, on the one hand, and the extent of domestic and global opportunities as well as the level of education and development of their country, on the other.
Hypothesis 1: External (contextual) conditions such as globalization and the level of human development of the country of origin may facilitate the emergence of influential individuals who are not state agents.
In relation to the second category of the relevant literature, Lord Beveridge introduced in 1946 the term 'pioneer' in order to describe those people who had crafted the UK voluntary sector in the nineteenth century. Beveridge identified three factors that seemed to enable the emergence and success of pioneers. These were (1) middle class origin, (2) strong motivation, and (3) access to material resources (Grenier 2004: 122–5).
Pamela E. Oliver and Gerald Marwell (1992) studied the work of highly motivated activists who have tried to mobilize collective action by larger groups of people. The two authors defined as activists those 'people who care enough about some issue that they are prepared to incur significant costs and act to achieve their goals'. As far as the motivations of activists are concerned, Oliver and Marwell claimed that these are 'complex and often involve self-identity and expressiveness as well as instrumental goal-attainment'.
Sydney Tarrow attempted to identify the common features and characteristics of transnational activists. These encompass
individuals and groups who mobilize domestic and international resources and opportunities to advance claims on behalf of external actors, against external opponents, or in favor of goals they hold in common with transnational allies. (2005: 29)
Tarrow supported that these people usually have three common features: (1) they emerge from domestic political or social activities (they do not usually begin at the international level); (2) they are better educated and connected and more frequent travellers than most of their compatriots and (3) they soon return to their domestic activities. Their main difference from national activists is their ability to move between domestic and international levels and take advantage of opportunities for the advancement of their causes (2005: 43). Owing to their constant connection with the domestic level, Tarrow argued that transnational activists are what Mitchell Cohen (1992) has termed as 'rooted cosmopolitans'. Moreover, Tarrow (2005: 29) made a preliminary attempt to classify transnational activists in relation either to their role (e.g. norms entrepreneurs, on behalf of NGOs or of social categories), or their disposition towards international institutions (i.e. insiders versus outsiders).
Another corpus of our knowledge concerning the impact of individual change-makers revolves around the concept of 'social entrepreneur'. According to the Ashoka organization,
Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society's most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change. Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to take new leaps.
Several attempts to define the characteristics of the typical social entrepreneur tend to portray a social hero with entrepreneurial talent (Seelos and Mair 2005: 244); for instance, apart from being entrepreneurial, innovative and transformative, the most successful social entrepreneurs have additionally the traits of leaders, storytellers, people managers, visionary opportunists and alliance builders (Leadbeater 1997). Paola Grenier researched the motives of social entrepreneurs who received support by organizations such as Ashoka and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreurship. She found out that among their principal motivations are factors such as originating from a family in which values and ethics are central, a certain type of professional background and training (mainly teachers, doctors, nurses and lawyers) and personal suffering and/or deprivation or contact with people in such living conditions (2006: 130–131).
Another study suggested that we may distinguish between three different types of social entrepreneurs depending on how they define opportunities, view their missions, acquire resources, and address social problems (Zahra et al. 2009: 520). The first type is the social bricoleur who generally has noble motives and acts at the local level with modest resources. The second type is the social constructivist who has complex and multifaceted ambitions to introduce social change and reform through planning and development of formalized or systemized scalable solutions. Lastly, the third type is the social engineer who is usually driven by 'missionary zeal and unbounded belief in the rightness' of their causes and attempts to address systemic problems through the introduction of revolutionary change that might even upset the equilibrium within their social environment.
David Chandler offered a different view of two seemingly divergent sets of actors, i.e. radical anti-globalization activists and radical Muslim activists. The author suggested that these categories of activists have the following three common traits (1) non-instrumentality of actions, (2) low emphasis on arguments and ideas, and (3) highlighting of differences and divergence of identities (2007: 116). These types of radical activists, he argued, represent expressions of a 'post-territorial' form of political community. Protest takes the form of individuated acts of symbolism that allegedly aim at raising awareness. Nonetheless, Chandler suggested that the actions of these activists are designed to elaborate upon their individual identity and 'make us aware of their "awareness" rather than engage us in an instrumental project of changing or engaging with the outside world' (2007: 117–118).
Finally, Paola Grenier (2004) revisited the work of Lord Beveridge and employed the term 'pioneer' in order to study the profile of 27 leading global civil society figures. Her research led to three main findings. The first was an endorsement of Cohen's concept of 'rooted cosmopolitans' denoting the pioneers' ability to connect local and global opportunity structures. Grenier attributed this ability to the international exposure and experience that many pioneers witnessed during childhood and upbringing. The second proposition is that the pioneers become involved as a result of their perception of the existence of 'systemic paradoxes' and 'disharmonies or anomalies between different institutions and practices'. It is their feeling of injustice that makes them take action. Finally, the third proposition is a confirmation of Beveridge's argument that there are certain enabling conditions facilitating the emergence of a pioneer. More precisely, Grenier used the term 'transformational capacities' to describe a pioneer's leadership capacities, education level, access to financial resources and personal motivation (2004: 144–50).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Transnational Celebrity Activism in Global Politics by Liza Tsaliki, Christos A. Frangonikolopoulos, Asteris Huliaras. Copyright © 2011 Intellect Ltd. Excerpted by permission of Intellect Ltd.
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