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Playing Across the ‘Halfway Line’ on the Fields of International Relations: The Journey from Globalising Sport to Sport Diplomacy

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Heather L.Dichter and Andrew L.John, eds., Diplomatic Games: Sport, Statecraft, and International Relations since 1945 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2014). 496 pp. (hb), £36,95, ISBN: 978-0813145648.
BarbaraKeys, Globalizing Sport: National Rivalry and International Community in the 1930s (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2006). 288 pp (hb), £60.95, ISBN: 9780674023260.
JeniferParks, The Olympic Games, the Soviet Sports Bureaucracy, and the Cold War: Red Sport, Red Tape (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017). 205 (hb), $95, ISBN: 978-1498541183.

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Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2020

Philippe Vonnard  and
Kevin Tallec Marston
Philippe Vonnard*
Affiliation:
University of Lausanne, Faculty of political sciences, Institute of sport sciences, Bâtiment Synathlon, 1015Lausanne
Kevin Tallec Marston
Affiliation:
CIES, Hôtel DuPeyrou, 2000 Neuchatel, Switzerland and International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, United Kingdom
*
*[email protected]
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Extract

On the still divided Joseon peninsula, a united Korean women's ice hockey team competed at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. Only a few months later, the French, Croatian and Russian heads of state quite literally invited themselves on to the winners’ podium at the 2018 FIFA men's World Cup in Moscow. Such conspicuous examples are emblematic of the role of modern sport in the realm of international relations.

Type
Review Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 29 , Special Issue 2: Religion and Socialism in the Long 1960s: From Antithesis to Dialogue in Eastern and Western Europe , May 2020 , pp. 220 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors, 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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23 Avery Brundage was IOC president from 1952 to 1972.

24 Gygax, Jérôme, Olympisme et Guerre froide culturelle. Le prix de la victoire américaine (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2012)Google Scholar. See particularly chapter 4.

25 Rider, Cold War Games, chapter 7.

26 Thomas, Globetrotting, 95.

27 The Harlem Globetrotters were a team composed of African-American players founded before basketball integrated in 1950 who then travelled around the world during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. It was considered as one of the best teams of the world.

28 Thomas, Globetrotting, 82.

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34 The PhD currently being researched by Yannick Deschamps at the University of Strasbourg (under the supervision of Prof. André Gounot) should contribute to further knowledge in this area.

35 The impact of race and sport in the global debate about apartheid has been discussed by a number of authors. See, for example, Black, David Ross and Nauright, John, Rugby and the South African Nation: Sport, Cultures, Politics, and Power in the Old and New South Africas (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998)Google Scholar especially Chapter 5; Booth, Douglas, The Race Game: Sport and Politics in South Africa (London: Frank Cass, 1998), especially Chapters 4 and 5Google Scholar; Alegi, Peter and Bolsmann, Chris, eds., South Africa and the Global Game: Football, Apartheid and Beyond (London: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar.

36 Thomas, Globetrotting, 43.

37 Ibid., 79.

38 Thomas notes the examples of various foreign tours of African American political speakers, two (white) coaches as ambassadors, but mostly makes reference to largely anonymous teams simply referring to them as ‘integrated’ though without any real examples. The diplomatic sources he cites appear to stress the fundamental political battle between democratic and communist ideologies rather than reinforcing segregation as defendable.

39 Rofe, Sport and Diplomacy, 4.

40 Joseph Nye developed this concept in two publications: ‘Soft Power’, Foreign Policy, 80 (1990), 153–71Google Scholar and in his book Bound To Lead: The Changing Nature Of American Power published in the same year with Basic Books (NY).

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49 Notably the project ‘The Global History of Sport in the Cold War’, coordinated by Robert Edelman, Christian Ostermann and Christopher Young. See notably the recent: Edelman, Robert and Young, Christopher, eds., The World Was Watching: Sport in the Cold War (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2019)Google Scholar. We can also note the work by the members of the Réseau d’études des relations internationales sportives (RERIS) (www.reris.net).

50 According to Matthieu Gillabert, public diplomacy is very close to cultural diplomacy and the first one would be more used by anglo-saxon scholars and the second would be more used by French scholars. Gillabert, Matthieu, ‘Diplomatie culturelle et diplomatie public: des histoires parallèles’, Relations internationales, 169, 1 (2017), 11–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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53 Mertin, Evelyn, Sowjetisch-deutsche Sportbeziehungen im ‘Kalten Krieg’ (Sankt-Augustin: Academia-Verlag, 2009)Google Scholar and Dufraisse, Les héros du sport.

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55 Quentin Tonnere and Grégory Quin, ‘A Forgotten “Ping-Pong Diplomacy”? About the Chinese Ping-Pong Players’ Tour of Switzerland (1972)’, in Vonnard, Quin and Sbetti, Beyond Boycott, 195–211.

56 See Barney, Robert K., Wenn, Stephen R. and Martyn, Scott G., Selling the Five Rings: The International Olympic Committee and the Rise of Olympic Commercialism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2002)Google Scholar; LaFeber, Walter, Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999)Google Scholar; Smit, Barbara, Sneaker Wars: The Enemy Brothers who Founded Adidas and Puma and the Family Feud that Forever Changed the Business of Sports (New York: HarperCollins, 2008)Google Scholar

57 Tonnerre, Quentin, ‘“Une question de prestige dans le domaine international de l'industrie horlogère”. Diplomatie suisse et chronométrage sportif (1964–1970)’, Relations internationales, 177, 1 (2019), 129–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 This point is notably emphasised in the conclusion of a recent paper written by Simon Rofe and Alan Tomlinson, ‘The Untold Story of FIFA's Diplomacy and the 1966 World Cup: North Korea, Africa and Sir Stanley Rous’, The International History Review, https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2019.1593218 [published online].

59 Marston, Kevin Tallec, ‘European Integration Through Sport – Football, Fraternity and Politics at the UEFA Youth Tournament 1957–1972’, in Ferréol, Gilles, ed., Egalité, Mixité, Intégration par le Sport / Equity, diversity, integration through sport (Brussels: EME Editions, 2016), 253Google Scholar. On a similar topic, see Philippe Vonnard and Kevin Tallec Marston, ‘Building Bridges Between Separated Europeans: The Role of UEFA's Competitions in East–West Exchanges (1955–1964)’, in Vonnard, Quin and Sbetti, Beyond Boycotts, 85–108.

60 On leaders see the recent works by: Bayle, Emmanuel and Clastres, Patrick, eds., Global Sport Leaders: A Biographical Analysis of International Sport Management (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Staps: Revue internationale des sciences du sport et de l'éducation physique, 125, 3 (2019). On women leaders see also Cervin, Georgia and Nicolas, Claire, eds., Histories of Women's Work in Global Sport: A Man's World? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)Google Scholar.

61 Davies, Sarah, ‘From Iron Curtain to Velvet Curtain? Peter Brook's Hamlet and the Origins of British–Soviet Cultural Relations during the Cold War’, Contemporary European History, 27, 4 (2018), 601–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.