CHAPTER 13

SPORTS POLICY, POLITICS AND GLOBALISATION:

How Do Governments and Global Processes Influence Sports?

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SPORTS IN SOCIETY:SOCIOLOGICAL ISSUES AND

CONTROVERSIES

Definitions (I)

• Politics refers to power and how it is gained and used in social life.

• Globalisation consists of the long-term processes of social change that involve relationships between nation-states and the use of power around the world.

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Definitions (II)

• Power is the ability to influence others and achieve goals even in the face of opposition from others.

• Authority is a form of power that comes with a recognised and legitimate status or office in an organisation or an established set of relationships.

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Reasons for Connections Between Government and Sports

• Safeguard the public order• Maintain health and fitness • Promote the prestige and power of a group,

community or nation• Promote a sense of identity, belonging and unity

among citizens• Reproduce dominant values and ideologies• Increase support for political leaders and government• Promote economic and social development in a

community or society

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Safeguarding Public Order

Governments make rules about:• what sports are legal or illegal• how sports should be organised to protect

rights and wellbeing• who has the right to play sports• where sports may be played• who can use public facilities and when they

can use them.

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Maintaining Health and Fitness

• Past government support based on beliefs that playing sports improves fitness; fitness improves health; and good health reduces medical costs.

• Recent government support may take into account research showing that:– illness is related to environmental factors more than

worker fitness– competitive sports have few benefits when it comes to

productivity– people’s concerns about sports performance may increase

demands for health care.

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Promoting Prestige and Power

Government support often is based on beliefs that success in sports provides recognition and status for the sponsoring governmental unit/agency.

• The belief that national teams can bring international recognition.

• The belief that local teams can bring needed publicity to communities.

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Promoting Identity, Belonging and Unity

• Governments most often use sports to promote identity and unity when constituents are diverse or when change is rapid and widespread in society.

• Sports often constitute invented traditions to reaffirm ties to ‘imagined communities’.

• Sport-based unity usually is temporary and superficial.

• Sports do not change the realities of divisive everyday differences and inequalities.

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Reproducing Values Consistent with Dominant Ideology

• Sports may be used to promote the idea that success is based on discipline, loyalty, determination and fortitude.

• Sports in nations with market economies also are associated with competition and individualism.

• Using sports to promote values does not work when governments lack legitimacy.

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Increasing Support For Political Leaders

• Some former competitors use their celebrity status from sports to gain popular support. – Jesse Ventura (former Minnesota Governor)– Bill Bradley (Senator and Democratic Presidential hopeful

in 2000 primaries) Political leaders use sports to boost their legitimacy

in the eyes of citizens.– Most citizens ‘see through’ this strategy when leaders lack

legitimacy. – Leaders like to be pictured with top competitors.

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Promoting Economic and Social Development

• Cities may use public resources to bid on and host major sports events.– The stated goal is to bring new revenues into the city as

a whole.

• Special interests often are primary recipients of economic benefits from major events, although public sponsorship is justified in terms of the ‘common economic good’.

• Government involvement may also be based on the presumed social effects (bringing people together and creating social bonds) of sports.

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Critical Issues and Questions

• Government involvement in sports often fosters the interests of some people more than others.

• When government support occurs, priority often goes to elite sports.– Those who represent elite sports are more likely to be

organised and to have resources that can be dedicated to political lobbying.

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Ideals Underlying International Sports

There has been longstanding hope that international sports could:

• open communication lines between people and leaders from many nations

• highlight shared interests among people in different cultures and nations

• demonstrate that international friendships are possible.

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Ideals Underlying International Sports (cont.)

There has been longstanding hope that international sports could:

• foster cultural understanding and eliminate national stereotypes

• create a model for international relationships• establish working relationships that might close gaps

between wealthy and poor nations.

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Realities of International Sports

• Sports have no influence when it comes to serious diplomacy.– Sports do not affect matters of vital national interest.– Leaders do not use sports in discussions of vital national

interest.

• Sports may be useful at the level of public diplomacy.– Sports provide opportunities to meet and talk.

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Realities of International Sports (cont.)

• Nation states often use international sports to foster self-interests over international peace and understanding.

• Ethnocentrism and nationalism often have been promoted in international sports.

• Self-interests have influenced bid processes, media coverage and boycotts.

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Nation-States, Sports, and Cultural Ideology

• The conditions and events in international sports clearly favour the interests of powerful nations.– Sports can then become tools of cultural imperialism.

• The participation of poorer nations in global events usually depends on assistance from wealthy nations.– Sports can then become vehicles for gaining control over

important forms of popular culture around the world.

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Olympism and the Olympic Games

Are they special?

To answer this question we must look at the ideals and the reality of the Olympic Games, and then consider if the Games can be changed to more closely meet the ideals.

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From the Olympic Charter

‘Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.’

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The Olympic Games: How to Control Nationalism and Commercialism (I)

Suggestions include the following:(these are offered for debate)

• Replace national uniforms for competitors.• Revise the opening ceremonies to highlight events,

not nations.• Eliminate national anthems and flags during awards

ceremonies.

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The Olympic Games: How to Control Nationalism and Commercialism (II)

(suggestions continued)

• Eliminate or revise team sports.• Eliminate medal counts for nations.• Add to the games ‘demonstration sports’ that are

native to different cultural regions around the world.• Use multiple sites for each Olympics.

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The Olympic Games: How to Control Nationalism and Commercialism (III)

(suggestions continued)• Emphasise global responsibility in media coverage and

commercials.• Provide TV time to human rights groups that work with

competitors and sports organisations to promote social justice.

GOAL: Take Olympism seriously and make the Olympics more than a global marketing opportunity for corporations and a global stage for wealthy nations to promote their ideologies.

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New Political Realities in an Era of Transnational Corporations

• Nation-states and transnational corporations are joined in global power relations.

• Nationalism exists in international sports, but consumerism may replace patriotism when it comes to identifying with competitors and teams.

• Corporations tend to use sports to ‘fuse’ their interests with national and local symbols with which people identify.

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New Political Realities in an Era of Transnational Corporations (cont.)

• The Olympics and other international sports events are showcases for transnational corporations, their products and the ideology of consumerism.

• Corporations pay billions to sponsor global sports so they might develop ‘global outposts’ in people’s heads.

• Corporate images tied to sports do not determine what people will think, but they influence what people will think about.

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Sports and Global Political Issues

• Sports competitors as global migrant workers– Raises issues of personal adjustment, labour rights,

national impact of talent migration and national identity.

• The production of sports equipment and apparel– Raises issues of international labour exploitation and the

need for international labour rights efforts such as the Nike transnational advocacy network.

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13-26PPTs to accompany Sports in Society 2e by Coakley, Hallinan and MacDonald © 2011 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd

Children in India have produced soccer balls with the label, ‘Child Free Labour’

Making Sense of New Political Realities

• As the meaning, organisation and purpose of sports have changed around the world, there is a need to ask many new questions about sports as social phenomena.

• The most helpful research on the realities of global trends has presented data from both global and local levels.– This helps us understand local expressions of and responses

to global processes.

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Politics in Sports

Political processes in sports revolve around these issues:

1. What qualifies as a sport?2. What are the rules of sport?3. Who makes and enforces rules?4. Who organises and controls events?

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Politics in Sports (cont.)

5. Where will events take place?6. Who is eligible to participate?7. How are rewards distributed?

Conclusion: Politics and political processes are integral parts of organised sports; our goal is to make them fair and just.

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