Pugilism, Power, and the Cultural Politics of Celebrity: Charting Vitali Klitschko’s Rise from Heavyweight Champion to Mayor of Kiev

Abstract

Research into sport and international relations represents a growing area of academic study. However, in this period, a gap has emerged in the literature relating to former athletes entering the sphere of politics, highlighting a connection between understandings of power, consumer-based economics, and the cultural phenomenon of celebrity. This article sets out to narrate these ideas by analyzing the political rise of Vitali Klitschko, the former WBC heavyweight champion of the world, to the post of Mayor of Kiev. In so doing, the paper explains ‘Klitschko’s rise to political office by unpacking the relationship between celebrity and technologies of power in liquid modernity by connecting this process of social control to neoliberal economics. Through this lens, Klitschko’s role in Ukrainian politics is understood to represent a broader geopolitical power struggle between the synoptic power structures of the West and an authoritarian approach to governance backed by the Kremlin.