Role of Sport in International Relations: National Rebirth and Renewal

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12127
• Author: Victor Cha
• Date: 01 January 2016
• Published date: 01 January 2016

Role of Sport in International Relations:

National Rebirth and Renewal

Victor CHA†

Georgetown University

The modern history of sports is inextricably intertwined with national pride, international pres-

tige, and world politics. In many ways, sport has created spillover effects that go beyond sporting

results. First, it has played an important role in nation-building and as a benchmark of national

identity. Second, it has served as a vessel through which nations and people assert political inde-

pendence and to express a distinctive identity.Third, it acts as a conduit of power, allowing nations

such as Australia to augment its global status and position on the world stage. Last, sport consti-

tutes a means of contextualizing the renewal or rebirth of a nation, like the success of the 1964

Tokyo Games for post-war Japan.

Key words: nation-building, national identity, Olympics, rebirth, soft power

JEL codes: F5

1. Introduction

Clad in their grey khakis and blue blazers, they celebrated euphorically,b ouncing around

like a group of prep schoolers at a pep rally. This was the scene in Buenos Aires, Argen-

tina, where the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, and his entourage celebrated news

that Tokyo had been named host of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. The honor over

the past two centuries has been bestowed on only a few cities, and Tokyo won over Istan-

bul and Madrid, 56 years after hosting the Summer Games in 1964. The Olympics are

undeniably one of the mega sporting events of modern history, and Japan is the only

Asian country that will have hosted the signature Summer Games twice.

But the Olympics are more than just a sporting event, as much as sports purists

would like the conversation to end there.1When Vladimir Putin won the bid for the 2014

Sochi Games, he proclaimed that “Russia is back.”When Beijing hosted the 2008 Olym-

pics, they portrayed the Games as marking three decades of Chinese modernization

dating back to Deng Xiaoping. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2014) celebrated Tokyo’s

winning the bid later by calling it a “major catalyst through which Japan will be born

anew.” These and many other examples show that mega sporting events like the Olym-

pics become benchmarks for a nation.

This paper seeks to understand the relationship between sports and international

relations with particular reference to the case of Japan. I will advance four core argu-

ments about the significance of sport as a causal variable in world politics. These relate

Gratitude to Andy Lim for research support.

†Correspondence: VictorCha, Department of Government and School of Foreign Service, George-

town University, 681 ICC Building, Washington, DC 20057, USA. Email: chav@georgetown.edu

bs_bs_banner

doi: 10.1111/aepr.12127 Asian Economic Policy Review (2016) 11, 139–155

© 2016 Japan Center for Economic Research 139

specifically to sport and national identity.2We all know that sport creates national pride,

but I will try to understand, beyond this initial association, the interconnections between

sport and identity. I find that sport has been used as a tool for nation-building. It has

served as a vessel through which to assert independence. Sport can be a generator of soft

power. Inall of these functions, sport becomes a means of contextualizing the renewal or

rebirth of the nation.

Two caveats are in order. First, I note that sport is by no means the only causal vari-

able in determining national identity outcomes. Indeed, a multitude of other variables,

including demographics, history, strategic culture, religion, domestic politics, national

leadership, and language, impact national identity. But while political scientists have

written in depth on all of these topics, relatively little attention has been given to the

causal role of sport despite the fact that nations and their citizens identify so intensely

with international sports competition. Second, the relationship between sports and

politics is of course not confined to national identity. Sport can affect international

diplomacy as it did when “ping-pong” diplomacy played a role in Sino-American rap-

prochement. It can be an instrument of coercive sanctioning, such as when the Interna-

tional Olympic Committee (IOC) levies bans on countries from participating in the

Games (e.g. South Africa, or wartime Germany), or when countries protest diplomati-

cally by boycotting games (e.g. the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games or the Soviet

boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Games). Sport can be a proxy for international conflict,

as George Orwell famously described sport as “war minus the shooting” (also see

Szymanski paper in this volume).3Addressing each of these causal linkages between

sports and politics is beyond the scope of this article, which will seek to unpack the link-

ages between sport and a country’s all-important sense of self. This linkage appears to be

the core requisite relationship to understanding all other elements of sport and politics.

The degree to which sports is wrapped up with prestige and national reputation will

naturally have a bearing on its utility as a diplomatic tool, as an instrument for sanction-

ing, or as an agent of political change.

To the extent possible, I will draw broadly from Asia’s experience with mega sporting

events like the Olympics and World Cup, but in particular from Japan’s history in illus-

trating some of these arguments. Japan is an important case because it is the only Asian

country that has hosted the Olympics four times, thus providing a rich set of data for the

case studies. Still, not all dynamics can be explained with Japan, and certain other

examples will be called upon. Finally, the implications of these arguments for the 2020

Tokyo Olympics will also be considered.

1.1 The nation’s narrat ive of sport

There is a basic puzzle surrounding the Olympics. Generally speaking, these games are

expensive, logistics nightmares, and potential terrorist targets. Until 1984, most of the

cities that won the bid for the games ended up absorbing the exorbitant costs for years

later, with empty under-used Olympic facilities standing as monuments to economic

mismanagement. The Montreal Games in 1976, for example, was a financial disaster,

putting the city in debt for 30 years (CBC News, 2006). Beijing’s 2008 Games were the

Role of Sport in International Relations Victor Cha

© 2016 Japan Center for Economic Research140