www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/from-alister -
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Published on: 8/1/2007
Last Visited: 1/17/2009
Andrew F Cooper thinks so.
He is Professor of Political Science at Canada's University of Waterloo and a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
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The common factor in all that is what Professor Cooper calls "entrapment", by which he means that the celebrities placed their fame at the service of a charity or institution, which then shaped the nature of their activism.
Few struck off on their own as independents.
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"Celebrities are either entrapped, or they cross a line and are seen as just a flake," Professor Cooper told me over coffee between sessions in The Hague.
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But what is now different, according to Professor Cooper, is the rise of a new breed of autonomous celebrity who is not attached to the coat-tails of some established body.
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"In the United States, celebrity diplomacy is attacked from the right as part of a liberal-socialist Hollywood agenda," Professor Cooper observed.
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"Through it," said Professor Cooper, "Bono shifted the core of his attention to lobbying the state at the heart of the global system, the United States.
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The way they do this, according to Professor Cooper , the inventor of the concept of celebrity diplomacy , is by Bono and Geldof playing a hard-guy/soft-guy routine.
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But Geldof, the organiser of massive international spectacles, is too much of a maverick to be successful as a diplomat, Professor Cooper believes.
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"Geldof's personal agenda was paramount," Professor Cooper suggests.
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And all of that told me that Professor Cooper is some way off the mark here.
In my view, he misunderstands the depth of Geldof's intellectual sophistication, and the sheer range of experience he has on global poverty issues, after spending at least two days a week, year in, year out, on behind-the-scenes campaigning for the past 25 years.
The world's most senior politicians, who meet him privately, have enormous respect for that.
Professor Cooper also misreads Geldof's decisions over Live8; his choice of date and his selection of acts was aimed at maximising the audiences for the broadcasts and was therefore governed primarily by how many records the artists had sold (and African acts are not big international sellers); and the day of the march was the date that broadcasters advised most people would watch.
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Even Professor Cooper acknowledges that.
"Having branded himself as a provocative anti-diplomat since the 1980s, buying into a more orthodox script contained dangers," he said.
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"She's not just a pretty face," said Professor Cooper.