With friends in high places and international celebrity status, the transformation of former political leaders into global statesmen able to influence the world agenda and charity spending has raised some concerns, experts said.
While some prime ministers and presidents retire quietly, former US presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and former British prime minister Tony Blair, among others, have developed second acts as global philanthropists, setting up organizations to drive their chosen agendas.
“They break the mold of former leaders ... that focused much more on national politics and explicit ideological concerns,” Andrew Cooper, author of Diplomatic Afterlives and political science professor at Canada’s University of Waterloo.
Illustration: Mountain People
Cooper said these former political masters are “hyper-empowered individuals” with access to current and former national leaders as well as celebrities from the worlds of entertainment, business and technology.
While Angelina Jolie, George Clooney and others from the entertainment world attract attention as ambassadors for a humanitarian agency or a cause, former political leaders can bring both celebrity status and a record of getting things done.
Since leaving power, Carter, Clinton and Blair have set up foundations to tackle global problems from disease to climate change, conflict and extremism to poverty.
“But what it means is there’s a huge amount of messiness, a tilting toward informality [so] the legitimacy of present leaders is somewhat undercut,” Cooper said.
In the past, public policy was mostly shaped by national governments and, to some extent, by donors, UN agencies and other multilateral organizations.
“Now you’ve got a whole array of actors that don’t have classic legitimacy but are involved in healthcare, education, even to some extent environmental issues,” Cooper said.
The furor over whether the Clinton Foundation has been sufficiently transparent in revealing its donors as Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigns for the US presidency has thrown a spotlight on the charitable endeavors of political heavyweights.
Former leaders also often take lucrative positions in the commercial sector after leaving politics which has, in itself, raised eyebrows.
Former US president George H.W. Bush and former British prime minister John Major both worked for US-based investment firm Carlyle Group.
Blair and Bill Clinton both worked for international business consultancy Teneo — which has employed former British foreign minister and Conservative party leader William Hague in the past month — before creating their own global entrepreneurial freelance roles.
Tamasin Cave, from the transparency lobbying group Spinwatch, expressed concern about companies hiring outgoing politicians.
“How is the public interest served by ex-ministers taking the skills and insider knowledge they gained in government and flogging them to private interests?” Cave said.
“There is a reason why companies hire outgoing ministers,” she said. “It has become another way of buying influence.”
Cooper said it is sometimes unclear which hat ex-politicians like Bill Clinton or Blair are wearing whether they are working for their charitable organization or for themselves.
“They give speeches, they’ve made money on their books, but also they have these kind of fixer roles that get a bit murky and a bit blurry in terms of their roles,” Cooper said.
“They know how governments work, they know such a wide variety of people, and yet they’re released from those types of concerns, and they can operate in this freelance entrepreneurial way around the world without very many barriers,” he said.
It’s appealing, but also “somewhat worrisome,” he said.
Catherina Pharoah, co-director of the Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy at Cass Business School, City University London, said that for charitable organizations, the association with a political figure was the same as with any celebrity it works for as long as it works.
“If they fall out of favor, then the organizations associated with them have to suffer the reputational damage,” she said.
In March, Save the Children apologized to those it had upset by a decision by its US branch to give Blair a “global legacy award” last year for his work on Africa.
The decision drew criticism from inside and outside the organization because of Blair’s role in the 2003 Iraq war. Save the Children UK chief executive Justin Forsyth said the move had damaged the charity.
Having former politicians involved in humanitarian work in conflict zones can also create problems for aid agencies who strive to convince armed groups and governments that they are independent from foreign political and military agendas.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) raised concerns in 2013 when former British foreign minister David Miliband became president of International Rescue Committee, and Save the Children appointed British Prime Minister David Cameron’s wife, Samantha, as an ambassador.
MSF senior humanitarian specialist Michiel Hofman said this kind of appointment makes it even harder for aid agencies to negotiate with armed groups such as the Taliban in Afghanistan or al-Shabaab in Somalia.
“These are very public appointments. You have to be careful of how this affects your image,” Hofman said.
“Samantha Cameron is obviously not part of a government, but the public image it portrays is that the UK government is somehow sponsoring the actions of Save the Children and therefore it becomes more difficult to say there is no political agenda behind our humanitarian action,” he said.
US President Barack Obama may become the next political heavyweight to enter the fray after leaving the White House in January 2017.
“He may be tempted to have a quiet life and play golf, but there’s going to be a lot of pressure on him to play the global role, and perhaps even some pressure to have material benefits from that,” Cooper said.
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
On April 19, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) gave a public speech, his first in about 17 years. During the address at the Ketagalan Institute in Taipei, Chen’s words were vague and his tone was sour. He said that democracy should not be used as an echo chamber for a single politician, that people must be tolerant of other views, that the president should not act as a dictator and that the judiciary should not get involved in politics. He then went on to say that others with different opinions should not be criticized as “XX fellow travelers,” in reference to
RSS