Sports and International Relations

Sports and International RelationsIn the past, multinational relations (IR) gener eachy focused on the high political issues such as armed forces and economic issues. However, the nature of global governance has changed dramatically of late. Interaction amidst states is not limited to the high political atomic number 18a entirely overly low political atomic number 18a such as tender pagan areas. It is hard to determine which one is more prevalent in this season, but one thing very obvious is the role of low politics is getting broader. In the post unwarmed War era, there are many cases that low politics have healed in inter-states conflicts which had create into high politics.Among these, because of its popularity across the globe, boasts plays a significant role in externalist relations. Modern sports, which was limited to the local, regional or national level in the past, without delay spread to international level and have access to social and political area . Considering that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has 202 members states, even more than the host issue the number of UN member states which totals 192, it is obvious that international sport is now an subject field of international politics and diplomacy.Worldwide sports events to a fault have great touch to international relations and politics. With the development of media, related technology and services, populate all over the world can sit in front of television, and enamour major international sports events at the same time. Thus international sports secret plans are a proficient opportunity to display a states ethnic features or a states believed national high quality to their copys. In history, many national leaders abused sports games because of such purpose, and sports events were much used as a appliance of political and ideological propaganda in international relations. However, at the same time, sports overly possesses the aspect of promoting mol lification and raising mutual understanding in international relations. Many countries took advantage of this aspect of sports to build a positive epitome of them.In terms of sports diplomacy, the unite States has employed sports as a diplomatic channel throughout the history. However, the mode sports has been used was different from time to time due to different international political circumstances which influenced the get together States conflicting policy. (This paper attempts to analyze how international conflicts were reflected in the Unites States foreign policy and what the dodging of the fall in States sports diplomacy was. During the Cold War era, the Soviet due north and the United States were the cardinal pillars of the international system. The ideological rivalry between Soviet Union and the United States could represent the international relations in this period. thitherfore, the United States practiced sports diplomacy to deterio valuate the influence of t he Soviet Union to showing the superiority of the United States ideology. However, after the collapse of Soviet Union, the United States became the only superpower, resulting in the rapid growth of the influence of the United States in the world.The political aspects of sportsSports themselves do not have political value, but when it is practiced as a medium between different countries, it has political contents.First, sports can be a tool for diplomacy between states, being the first step of affaire between states in a hostile relationship. Exchanging sports between states can express that both states recognize each otherwise(a) as a nation-state. The United States president Richard Nixons use of table tennis to initiate diplomatic relations with China in Cold War era, known as strike pong diplomacy, cited as a prototypical example. The other way around, boycotts of sports game or denial of visa to athletes are interpretn as ways to injure off the relations between states.S econd, sports may serve as an advertizing for spreading ideology. States often use sporting games to show their superiority of ideology. Especially, during the Cold War era, this tendency is often observed in the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this period, many of the United Sates legislators worried just about the Soviet athletes continuous success in international sports games. They saw it in the context of national prestige in the face of communist challenges. They adjudge that multitude in the United States would rede the sporting defeat by the Soviet Union not as a matter of sports or the athlete, but the matter of national pride. Soviets victory in sports games could be see as a victory for the Soviet culture, system and decay of bourgeois way to a certain extent.Third, sport raises mutual understanding and promotes peace in international relations. Sport exchanges have been served as a way to identify other states and their people, and f urthermore, to overcome prejudice against each other. As a result, sports exchange between states often have used as a tool of public diplomacy, considering that the aim of public diplomacy is also to see to foster mutual understanding.Fourth, it is a safe way of expressing displeasure with other country and its policies because it is a peripheral issue to the international political system. To show discontentmentment or raise objections about a political issue, employ sports is a circumambulate way of expression. The most common means of expressing discontent through sports events is to boycott the sports game. It is regarded as a strategic and low address alternative to any other political action which states can take. It possibly gives huge influence or pushes on other states without using traditional sense of state power.Fifth, sports often spark the conflicts that might become the war later on. It often initiates or aggravates political conflict in international relations. Since an athlete or a team represents his or their nation, hatred of the counterpart could become an antipathy of the nation.This ill feeling could draw actual war, handle the one between Honduras and El Salvador, most famously known as the Football War, during the World Cup tournament game in 1969. There had been preexisting conflicts between Honduras and Salvadorans, including immigration from El Salvador to Honduras, but the tensions between the two states exploded by the football competition. This match actually triggered the war between Honduras and El Salvador.Sports as an efficient tool for diplomacyThe United States recently implemented sports diplomacy as a part of its public diplomacy. The United States dispatched famous sports figures as sports diplomacy envoys to increase understanding of the American people and its culture. It is because sports has been highlighted recent times as a newly rising tactical manoeuvre to implement international relations for some reasons .First, the influence of sports is growing bigger. Sports is now global because of the revolution in the transportation and telecommunication/media industries. Every beam corporation has sports channels and even in the headline coverage they fork up the sports news. Originally, this is initiated due to peoples interest of sports but it reversely started to draw the attention of people who had not been interested in sports. Also, this revolution has created a global sport labor market and global migration, and thus peoples interests in sports extend to international sports. People are cheering for athletes who are their fellow countryman who are playing a game outside of their own country. People often watch sports games not because they are interested in those sports but to see specific national athletes. The sport team owners know this well, and thus they vocation foreign athletes to increase its attention and popularity internationally.The international political environment ha s also changed. Different from the past when most serious concern for states was national survival through multitude strength, now there is a covert consensus of non-use of military force in international relations, and thus likelihood of was is decreasing. The level of mutuality among states is heightened and became more complex.According to Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, the world has moved into an era of complex interdependence, characterized by multiple channels between societies, including both state and non-state channels, such that military security does not consistently dominate the agenda. Yet, this does not mean that the rate of inter-state conflict is declining. Rather, because of enlarging scope of engagement among nations, there is more possibility of rising conflicts. The factors of national threat or concern have become more diverse and complex. Therefore, in this changing world, the definition of power in international relations is not same as the Hobbesian explan ation. Military force cannot be the best way to solve the conflict or influence other states. These old tools of diplomacy are no longer appropriate in the contemporary world and something more moderate, indirect but efficient and important way of diplomacy needs to be practiced.In this context, sports is a good medium, by playing mediating and pivotal role in inter-state relations. Attaching sports to the scope of international relations would be a helpful to boost the size of diplomacy.