Political legitimacy and celebrity politicians: Tony Blair as Middle East envoy 2007-2015

Michelle Pace, Annika Bergman Rosamond

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › peer review

Abstract

When Tony Blair resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in June 2007, he was appointed as the official Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East. His appointment has been marred with controversy not least in regard to his suitability for the role and his performance as peace envoy, with many observers questioning his credentials for such a role. The EU, along with the US, Russia and the UN, makes up the Quartet and funded Blair’s office until 2012. With the US and the EU as the key regional players in this conflict, Blair became an embodiment of these players in this specific role. This article uses critical discourse analyses to nuance whether Tony Blair’s role as Middle East envoy and as an embodiment of the EU was indeed a legitimate one. It does so by engaging with the work of John Street and more broadly the literature on celebrity politicians and by counterbalancing this conceptual framework with a detailed and nuanced reflection on his time as Middle East envoy.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftMiddle East Critique
Vol/bind27
Udgave nummer4
Sider (fra-til)383-398
Antal sider16
ISSN1943-6149
DOI
StatusUdgivet - nov. 2018

Bibliografisk note

Important note from the Publisher regarding the attached version of the article: “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Middle East Critique on Nov 1, 2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/19436149.2018.1516336.”


Annika Bergman Rosamond is Associate Professor (Docent) in Political Science, Lund University (LU). Since 2012 she has been the Director of the Masters in Global Studies at LU, at the faculty of Social Sciences. She obtained her BSc (Government) at London School of Economics and her MA and PhD (European studies/International Relations) at University of Sussex, UK.
Michelle Pace is Professor MSO within The External Relations of the European Union with special emphasis on the relations with the Middle East at Roskilde University. She is also Honorary Professor in Politics and International Studies at the University of Birmingham in the UK. She is currently the Danish partner lead on an H2020 EU project SIRIUS (Skills and Integration of Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Applicants in European Labour Markets, 2018-2020) http://www.sirius-project.eu/

Emneord

  • Celebrity politics
  • European Union
  • Israel
  • John Street
  • Middle East conflict
  • Middle East envoy
  • Palestine
  • Russia
  • Tony Blair
  • United Nations
  • United States
  • celebrity politicians
  • conflict
  • conflict resolution
  • conflict studies
  • discourse analysis
  • peace envoy
  • performance
  • political legitimacy

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