A Theory of Sport and Politics

Abstract

The study of international relations purports to explain how nation-states and individuals interact around the globe. Yet one major area of such interaction – international sport – remains exceedingly understudied. This in spite of the fact that countries have gone to war over sport, fought for sovereign recognition through sport, and that citizens around the world have it as a daily part of their lives. Indeed it is astounding that a phenomenon that matters so much has been so little studied by a field that purports to explain relations between states and humans around the world. These deficiencies became more apparent in 2008 when we witnessed the world's biggest country hosting the world's biggest sporting event. The Beijing Olympics, though entertaining and exciting, showed how little we have thought about the link between sport and international politics. This article introduces a framework for understanding the link between sport and politics. Its point of entry is to argue that many of the questions about how China portrayed itself during the Olympics and whether the Games marked China's rise as a responsible power cannot be answered without first understanding how sport in general is related to a country's political development, and its sense of nationhood. My arguments do not represent new breakthroughs in political science, rather I attempt merely to offer a systematic way of thinking about how sports and the Olympics matter in world politics through three inter-related causal pathways relating to a country's sense of self, its diplomacy, and its capacity for change.

Notes

[1] George Orwell, ‘The Sporting Spirit’. Tribune, December 14, 1945

[2] For example. see Economy and Segal, ‘China's Olympic Nightmare’.

[3] Taylor, ‘Sport and International Relations’, 28.

[4] Arnaud. Sport and International Politics: The Impact of Fascism and Communism on Sport; Andrews and Wagg, East Plays West: Sport and the Cold War; Crawford, The Use of Sports to Promote the American Way of Life During the Cold War: Cultural Propaganda, 1945–1963; Maraniss, Rome 1960: The Olympics that Changed the World; Riordan, Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the USSR.

[5] Budd and Levermore, ‘Sport and International Relations: Continued Neglect?’, 9.

[6] While not discounting the very insightful work on sport of Levermore and Budd, their work does contain this rather daunting phrase; see Budd and Levermore, ‘Sports and International Relations: Continued Neglect?’, 8. Other works in this vein include, Close, et al., The Beijing Olympiad, chapter 1; Close and Askew, ‘Globalisation and Football in East Asia’; Short, ‘Going for the Gold: Globalizing the Olympics, Localizing the Games’. Globalization and World Cities Research Bulletin, 10 (2003).

[7] Stevenson and Alaug, ‘Football in Newly United Yemen’, 466.

[8] James Brooke, ‘Korean Teams Cross Sticks, Not Swords at Asian Games’, New York Times, February 4, 2003.

[9] This dilemma surfaces largely with the fielding of athletes for team sports. Individual athletes are eligible to compete at sporting events for the Games based on criteria set by the IOC and international sporting federations. See Brian Bridges, ‘Olympic Clock Ticks for Unified Korean Team’, Asia Times, March 20, 2008 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/JC20Dg01.htm accessed March 20, 2008.

[10] Personal Interview, ROK Unification Ministry official, Washington D.C., July 9, 2007.

[11] ‘Korean Fans to Travel Safely – if Slowly – to Olympics’, Macau Daily Times, February 6, 2008 http://www.macaudailytimes.com accessed 6 February 2008.

[12] Houlihan, Sports and International Politics, 191; Brownell, Beijing's Games: What the Olympics Mean to China, 129.

[13] Houlihan, Sports and International Politics, 197–99.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Burt Herman, ‘Promising “Toilet Revolution”. New Worldwide Toilet Organization Launches in South Korea’Associated Press, November 22, 2007.

[16] There was clearly a business rationale for the toilet campaign as well. The Koreans understood that becoming Asia's leader in this industry would put them in good stead as Beijing prepared to host the 2008 Olympics and would probably go through the mother of all toilet revolutions.

[17] It should be noted that in the 1998 IOC corruption scandal, it was revealed that the president of the Australian Olympic Committee offered 50,000 Australian dollars to the Kenyan and Uganda members of the IOC on the eve of the final vote, although it is unclear whether this alleged bribe made the difference in the final IOC vote. See Brownell, Beijing's Games, 142.

[18] Cited in Kissinger, White House Years, 710.

[19] Close et al., The Beijing Olympiad, 155.

[20] In 1979 when the US and China formally normalized relations, sport diplomacy was again employed though in a less sensationalistic way. In remembrance of ping-pong diplomacy, the US initiated ‘basketball diplomacy’ with exhibition games between the 1979 NBA champion Washington Bullets and the Chinese national team. The idea was that eight years earlier, ping-pong was China's game, so this would be reciprocated by exhibitions of an American game. For this reason, there would be no embarrassment to either side if their teams lost. See Houlihan, Sport and International Politics, 10.

[21] Kissinger believes the Chinese choreographed these ‘impromptu’ ping-pong meetings as a signal that then-secret messages being sent from Nixon's White House were being received. He believes the Chinese also wanted to invite the US team to China before Dobrynin came to Washington DC to announce an impending US-Soviet summit. Kissinger, White House Years, 708–710. Wall Street Journal, April 14, 1971.

[22] Wang and Heodoraki, ‘Mass Sport Policy Development in the Olympic City’, 126.

[23] Andranaovich et al., ‘Olympic Cities’, 122.

[24] Ibid., 124.

[25] Wang and Heodoraki, ‘Mass Sport Policy Development in the Olympic City’, 126.

[26] Andranaovich et al., ‘Olympic Cities’, 114.

[27] See Horne ‘The 2002 Global Game of Football: The 2002 World Cup and Regional Development in Japan’; Crompton, ‘Public Subsidies to Professional Team Sports in the USA’; Jennings and Sambrook, The Great Olympic Swindle; Nogawa and Mamiya, ‘Building Mega Events: Critical Reflections on the 2002 Infrastructure, in Horne and Manzenreiter’, 177–94.

[28] For example, in the runup to the 2002 World Cup, Japanese city and prefectural governments floated bonds to cover seventy percent of the new stadium construction costs, but soon after the event, the cities got stuck with huge bills. The stadiums were not a good source of revenue after the event, and in spite of the city planners' search for named corporate sponsors for the facilities in order to maintain financial viability. Prefectural governments like Niigata got stuck with over eighty percent of the scheduled repayment of loans and interest in their budgets, while the cities were stuck with the maintenance costs of the stadiums.

[29] Close et al., The Beijing Olympiad, 12.

[30] Andranaovich et al., ‘Olympic Cities’, 119.

[31] Horne, ‘The 2002 Global Game of Football', 1241.

[32] Cumings, ‘China Goes for the Gold’. The Nation, August 13, 2001, 7.

[33] Close et al., The Beijing Olympiad, 42.

[34] Guttmann, The Games Must Go On: Avery Brundage and the Olympic Movement, 27. Also see Black and Bezanson, ‘The Olympic Games, Human Rights and Democratization’, 1245–46.

[35] See Kruger, ‘The Unfinished Symphony: A History of the Olympic Games from Coubertin to Samaranch’.

[36] International Olympic Committee (IOC), Olympic Charter in Force, July 7, 2007, p. 11 http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_122.pdf accessed April 1, 2008.

[37] The ROK decision to bid for the summer games occurred first during the last months of dictator Park Chung-hee's government in 1979. Park Jong-kyu, then head of the Korea National Olympic Committee discussed the idea with President Park. The rationale was typical of the developing Asian country under authoritarian leadership; Park wanted to host the Games to show off the ROK's economic prowess and gain international stature and legitimacy. Park was assassinated in October 1979 by his own bodyguard ending nearly two decades of dictatorial and brutal rule.

[38] Chun was not popular. He faced international criticism for the May 1980 brutal suppression of demonstrating South Korean citizens in the southern city of Kwangju. He subsequently sentenced democracy activist and later Nobel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae Jung to death. The military general desperately sought to gain legitimacy and solidify his hold on the country through the Olympics.

[39] Larson and Park, Global Television and the Politics of the Seoul Olympics, 200.

[40] Han, ‘Seoul in 1988: A Revolution in the Making’, 34; also see Amsden, Asia's Next Giant, 237.

[41] Nancy Cooper, ‘High Stakes Games: Are the Olympics at Risk?’Newsweek June 29, 1987, 32.

[42] Larson and Park, Global Television and the Politics of the Seoul Olympics, 161.

[43] Interview, former US government official with personal knowledge of Roh's role, Washington, D.C., July 12, 2007.

[44] Larson and Park, Global Television and the Politics of the Soeul Olympics, 161.

[45] Mark Fineman, ‘Future of Olympics Called ‘Great Factor’ in Regime's New Policy’, Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1987, 10; and Sam Jameson, ‘US Reportedly had Little Influence in South Korean Policy Turnabout’, Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1987, 12; and Black and Bezanson, ‘The Olympic Games, Human Rights and Democratization’, 1245–46).

[46] Also see Noland, Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the Two Koreas, 24–25; Clyde Haberman, ‘South Korea is Walking a Fine Olympics Line’. New York Times, September 21, 1987; 1988, 24. Richard W. Wilson, ‘Wellsprings of Discontent: Sources of Dissent in South Korean Student Values', 1066; Hill, Olympic Politics: Athens to Atlanta 1896–1996, Chapter 8; Pound, Five Rings Over Korea: The Secret Negotiations Behind the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.

[47] ‘Beijing Olympics: Nobel Winners Accuse China Amid Boycott Calls’ by Tom Leonard, Richard Spencer, and Matthew Moore, Daily Telegraph, February 14, 2008.

[48] ‘The Saffron Olympics’, Washington Post, September 29, 2007, A18.

[49] Text of resolutions available at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas.

[50] The West has maintained sanctions on Sudan since the 1990s for the government's use of Arab militias to prosecute genocide in Darfur leaving 250,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced. Yet China remains Sudan's top customer for oil, purchasing two-thirds of all Sudanese oil exports, and invests in the country's infrastructure as its base for broader petroleum interests in Africa. See Alden, ‘China in Africa’.

[51] Gill et al., ‘Assessing China's Growing Influence in Africa, 3–21. Prior to this, during the China-Africa summit in November 2006, Hu pressed Sudan President Omar al-Bashir for acceptance of a proposed hybrid UN-African Union peacekeeping force in the country. In February 2007, Hu traveled to Sudan again pressing al-Bashir to comply with the hybrid PKO plan offered by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. See Edward Cody, ‘In China, A Display of Resolve on Darfur’ by, Washington Post, September 16, 2007.

[52] Helene Cooper, ‘Darfur Conflict Collides with Olympics and China Yields’, New York Times, April 13, 2007.

[53] Lydia Polgreen, ‘China, in New Role, Press Sudan on Darfur’International Herald Tribune, February 23, 2008; and Antoaneta Bezlova, ‘Sudan: Showcase for New Assertiveness’, Inter Press Service, September 21, 2007.

[54] As Burma's largest trading partner (since 2005), leading investor and diplomatic protector, Beijing enjoyed access to Burmese timber, gems, and other raw materials, and did billions of dollars worth of arms sales to the country.

[55] http://www.chinese-embassy.org.uk/emg/fyrth/t380945.htm accessed November 15, 2007.

[56] ‘China Puts Pressure on Burma Not to Use Force’, BBC, September 26, 2007.

[57] Information above based on interviews, US government officials, Washington D.C., October 17, 2007.

[58] ‘Protests Still Unwelcome in Beijing’. BBC News August 14, 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7559217.stm accessed May 18, 2009.

[59] For example, in July 2007, Yang Chunlin was arrested and tortured for gathering a 10,000 signature petition opposing the Olympics and demanding redress for citizens who had lost their land to make way for construction of Olympic facilities. On December 27, 2007, Hu Jia an advocate for AIDS victims and an active blogger on Chinese human rights violations was detained by Chinese authorities and was formally arrested for ‘inciting subversion’. Gao Zhisheng, a Chinese human rights lawyer, was arrested and tortured after writing an open letter to the US Senate in October 2007 detailing Chinese human rights abuses. See ‘China Arrests Activist who Hit Out at Olympics’, Agence France Press, September 4, 2007; ‘Pre-Olympic Games’, Washington Post, February 1, 2008; and ‘Christian Group Says China Kicking Out Foreign Missionaries Ahead of Olympics’, Canadian Press, July 19, 2007.

[60] Mure Dickie, ‘Press Arrests Fuel Fears Over Beijing Olympics’, Financial Times, August 7, 2007.

[61] For example, after the spectacles in London, Paris, and San Francisco, ‘spontaneous demonstrations’ erupted in Beijing and other cities by Chinese boycotting the French chain Carrefours for France's alleged support of Tibetan separatists and protesting against derogatory comments made by CNN broadcasters. See ‘Anti-French Rallies Across China’. BBC News, April 19, 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7356107.stm?lsm accessed May 18, 2009.