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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Katharine A. M. WrightORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
Angelina Jolie’s high profile visit to NATO in 2018 signals a move to brand the alliance’s strategic narrative within the language of celebrity through engagement with popular culture. The partnership represents a significant change in the alliance’s approach to global security. It also builds on a shift in NATO’s self-narrative through the advocacy of gender justice related to the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Rather than fading into the background, NATO appears to be pursuing the limelight for the purpose of ‘awareness raising’ as a tool to implement the WPS agenda. Drawing upon feminist scholarship on the WPS agenda, NATO, and research on celebrity humanitarianism and politics we provide a critical study of this change in NATO’s strategic narrative, through the analysis of visual and textual material related to Jolie’s visit to NATO. Our focus is on the significance of this partnership and its contribution to legitimising the alliance’s self-defined ‘military leadership’ in the area of conflict-related sexual violence. While Jolie’s visit to NATO opened the alliance to public scrutiny it also symbolised a form of militarism, surrounded by orchestrated visual representations. As such it only marginally disrupted the militarist logic present in NATO’s wider WPS engagement.
Author(s): Wright KAM, Bergman-Rosamond A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Review of International Studies
Year: 2021
Volume: 47
Issue: 4
Pages: 443-466
Print publication date: 01/10/2021
Online publication date: 10/05/2021
Acceptance date: 24/03/2021
Date deposited: 23/03/2021
ISSN (print): 0260-2105
ISSN (electronic): 1469-9044
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210521000188
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210521000188
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