INTRODUCTION
Prologue: Diplomacy and Sport
J. Simon Rofe and Heather L. Dichter
In attending the London Olympic Games of 2012, competitors and visitors at
each venue were greeted with four flags; from left to right, they were the
International Olympic flag—and the International Paralympic flag subsequently—the
flags of the United Nations [UN] and the London Olympic
Organising Committee [LOCOG], and the British Union Jack.1
These flags
represent polities with a number of identities, but their most straightforward
were as the foremost global sporting body that governs the quadrennial gathering
of the “youth of the world,” the pre-eminent international organisation of
states, a temporary organisational body, and the flag of a nation-state adopted in
1801. Each of these symbols is itself a form of communication; they represent
something, and then signal a capacity for a relationship with other polities, one
that requires consistent negotiation.2
These three characteristics are at the core
of diplomacy’s purpose and its practice.3
The Olympic Games are universally seen as the pinnacle of sporting
endeavour for vast swaths of the global audience, for sponsors, and, perhaps
most importantly given the spectacle that results, for the athletes.4
The
Olympics, perhaps more than any other sporting event, allow for what
Naoko Shimazu considers “diplomacy as theatre.”5
Shimazu’s approach resonates
neatly with sport where symbolic “performances” are undertaken upon
particular “stages” set out for sport with perceivable levels of audience and
athlete interaction. The sportsman or sportswomen as entertainer expressly
allows for performances to surround the sporting endeavour; in tennis, one
can think of the stark contrast in fiery John McEnroe and ice-cold Bjorn
Borg’s “performance” alongside their sporting talents; in motor-racing, James
Hunt and Nikki Lauder in the early 1970s or Aryton Senna and Alain Prost
in the 1980s were sporting rivalries where performance as much as skill were
at stake. In such performances, elements of those key diplomatic purposes
are evident.
Examples of the significance of sport to diplomatic practice are plentiful if
routinely overlooked.6
They are overlooked in lieu of headline grabbing
“sport and politics”; or the prospect of sport offering humanitarian solutions
through the Sport, Development, Peace framework; or, and something that
befalls both of these realms, because sport is seen as trivial or peripheral amid
the crises that define global affairs. Of course, in many senses it is; as a
general rule, contemporary sport does not result in life threatening hardship
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© 2016 Taylor & Francis
and death. However, there are numerous examples of sport resulting in the
physical harm, discord and, occasionally, death for competitors and
spectators.7
And to paraphrase the words of former Liverpool Football
Club manager, Bill Shankly, “sport is not a matter of life and death; it is
far more important than that.”8
In this light, it is imperative to balance the
potential for good that sport can provide with the capacity it possesses for
abuse, foul play, and conflict.9
George Orwell warned in 1945 against “blahblahing
about the clean, healthy rivalry of the football field and the great part
played by the Olympic Games in bringing the nations together”; instead, he
warned that sport brought out nationalism’s worst characteristics.10
Orwell
saw nationalism as “the lunatic modern habit of identifying oneself with large
power units and seeing everything in terms of competitive prestige.” To this
he contended, “you do make things worse by sending forth a team of eleven
men, labelled as national champions, to do battle against some rival team,
and allowing it to be felt on all sides that whichever nation is defeated will
‘lose face.’” The importance for this discussion is that in diplomacy, the
“losing” or “saving” of face—whilst employing the verbiage of sport—is
critical in achieving one’s aims. Baroness Valerie Amos, a former UN undersecretary-general
for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator,
considers sport as “enabler.”11
As such, sport does not just exist
in the abstract but alongside other issues of international relations. In the
past decade, for example, the UN has received regular reports on the role that
sport plays in development and peace; a 2010 instance noted, sport “has been
recognised as a powerful tool in contributing to the achievement” of the
Millennium Development Goals.12
It is therefore important to consider sport
and diplomacy as having both positive and negative dimensions, often
simultaneously. In other words, there is a balance in the scope of analysis
that places sport into broad research methodologies and ethics of research.
The editors have deliberately brought together these articles, as they
contribute to a burgeoning and ever more balanced literature on “Sport
and Diplomacy” from a variety of different disciplinary backgrounds. The
variety of perspectives and methodologies reflects the capacity for a single
object of study—sport—to provide the opportunity for sites of academic
exchange.13
It is noteworthy because sport has received notably greater
attention in fields other than that of diplomatic studies, such as sociology,
history, physical education/kinesiology, development studies, and politics—a
number of the contributors have heritages in one or more of these fields.
The contributions to this special issue address three key areas. The opening
articles by Rofe, Pamment, and Grix and Brannagan address the place of
sport and diplomacy as a field of study. They consider founding questions
such as the parameters of sport and diplomacy—even if they are still to be
established, the relationship with the topics “public diplomacy,” “soft power,”
and participatory diplomacy models. The analyses they provide illustrate the
208 J. S. ROFE AND H. L. DICHTER
scope for discourse here, and for the articles that follow. The subsequent two
articles each address specific questions of practice in sport and diplomacy.
Beacom and Brittain explore the role of Paralympic sport and its governing
body, the International Paralympic Committee, as representing a particular
group—disabled peoples—at national and international levels and in relation
to national and international policies and attitudes. Postlethwaite and Grix
then address the framework in which the International Olympic Committee
operates as a diplomatic actor eschewing a statist approach in favour of
socio-legal theory. The final three articles address specific instances of sport
and diplomacy in their appropriate contexts. Drawn from a range of historical
epochs, they illustrate if nothing else that sport and diplomacy have
never been absent in diplomatic practice in modern times. More significantly,
Liston and Maguire, Dichter, and Brentin and Tregoures illustrate
with aplomb sport’s abilities to contribute to broader historical reappraisal of
three key moments of the twentieth century the “interwar period,” the “postwar
years,” and the “post-cold war era.” Each of these periods and their study
illustrate aspects of transnational approaches that go beyond state-centred
histories and consider transactions between peoples and organisations.
Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the
power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language
they understand. Sport can create hope, where once there was only despair. It is
more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the
face of all types of discrimination.14
These words of Nelson Mandela spoken in 2000 are de rigueur in offering up
the explanatory powers of sport to a broader socio-political audience. This
introduction has followed suit and, in doing so, makes three points illustrating
the relationship between sport and diplomacy. First, Mandela, and with
no lack of self-awareness, was speaking as president of South Africa
and therefore as representative of a nation-state: the ultimate
ambassador. Second, he was comfortable performing as a global statesman
adopting a particularly diplomatic approach as Madiba—a respectful title
from Mandela’s Xhosa clan—to the cause of sport as a tool for international
development: not least in Africa. Finally, aware of the “theatre” of his own
iconic image from the 1995 Rugby World Cup, he was campaigning and
negotiating for an African World Cup that would eventually arrive in South
Africa in 2010: he was well aware that his audience was global. Beyond the
audience in the room including the Brazilian footballer, Pele, and the musician,
Jon Bon Jovi, he surely recognised he was communicating to a global
public that could help sway the actions of fellow leaders. In each of these
capacities, Mandela’s words resonated then and since. These articles contribute
to understanding more fully the implications for diplomacy of
Mandela’s words.
DIPLOMACY & STATECRAFT 209
Acknowledgements
As editors we would like to take this opportunity to thank the contributors to, and reviewers
of, these articles, and to Professor Brian McKercher for his guidance and patience. Dr Rofe
would particularly like to thank Dr Dichter for her sterling work in co-editing.
Notes
1. The author experiencing close hand the workings of the London Organising
Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games’ (LOCOG) “International
Relations” department during the XXXth Olympic Games which ran from 25 July
until the Paralympic Games closed on 9 September 2012.
2. Diplomacy is rich in symbolism, often associated with pageantry, ceremony, and rituals
that form diplomatic protocol. For further detail see Alisher Faizullaev, “Diplomacy
and Symbolism,” Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 8/2 (2013), 91–114.
3. Alison Holmes with J. Simon Rofe, Global Diplomacy: Theories, Types and Models
(Boulder, CO, 2016), 22.
4. Even modern professional sports such as basketball, tennis, and golf, which have their
own highly coveted “prizes,” have come to associate themselves with the Olympic Games
from 2016 in ways that raise questions as to business and financial aspects of sport. Not
the immediate concern of this anthology of articles on “Sport and Diplomacy,” they form
an important element to a number of the articles presented here.
5. Naoko Shimazu, “Diplomacy as Theatre: Staging the Bandung Conference of 1955,”
Modern Asian Studies, 48/1 (2014), 225–52.
6. Geoff Berridge’s seminal text has only one passing reference to “field sports” as a role
for diplomats of yesteryear. See Geoff Berridge, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, fifth
edition (Basingstoke, 2015), 134. Scholars are not alone in overlooking sport. In
considering Britain’s soft power influence in a House of Lords Select Committee
report, Persuasion and Power in the Modern World (London, 2014), the chapter entitled
“The UK’s Soft Power Assets: Their Role and Function,” 123–26 considered sport last
amongst British soft power assets. This discussion accounted for less than 10 of 203
paragraphs in this chapter. Cf. Soft Power and the UK’s Influence Committee. Oral and
Written Evidence, 2 volumes (London, 2015): http://www.parliament.uk/soft-power-
and-uks-influence.
7. The case of sportsmen and women’s death during competition is rare. Although not
excluding other sports, boxers and drivers in motorsports provide some of the most
high-profile victims. Simon Kuper, Football Against the Enemy (London, 1994),
released as Soccer against the Enemy in the United States, illustrates the manner in
which the global game can be the source of conflict. There is also the oft-referenced
“football” or “soccer” “war” of 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras that arose
during 1970 World Cup qualifying matches in the respective capitals during 1969.
More recently, the tifosi of Egyptian football clubs have been directly involved in the
violent turmoil associated with the Arab Spring. See James M. Dorsey’s blog, The
Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.ca/.
8. Shankly allegedly said, “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am
very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important
than that.” See “Bill Shankly in quotes” (3 December 2009): http://liverpoolfc.com/
news/ latest-news/bill-shankly-in-quotes.
210 J. S. ROFE AND H. L. DICHTER
9. Sport has a number of definitions that distinguish it from “play” and “games” resting
on it being competitive, organised, and physical: cf. Orin Starn, The Passion of Tiger
Woods: An Anthropologist Reports on Golf, Race, and Celebrity Scandal (Durham, NC,
2012). Also see Orin Starn, Massive Open On-line Course [Duke University], “Sport
and Society”: https://www.coursera.org/learn/sports-society. Yet the deeper truth of
sport, as esteemed sports author Simon Barnes writes, “lies in the way that we
remember the events, what they mean to us, how they affected us, how they changed
us.” For Barnes, “Sport, as I have said more than once, is a living, unfolding mythology:
vast collisions of archetypes in archetypal situations of conflict and camaraderie. This
mythology is not found in the [outcome] but in the way we remember what happened,
the way we talk about it, write about it, even sing about it.” Simon Barnes, “10 Years
After,” Cricket Monthly (July 2015): http://www.thecricketmonthly .com/story/885119/
ten-years-after. Barnes remarks are akin to the longstanding resilience of the “Great
Sport Myth,” the intangible aspect of sport. See Jay Coakley, “Assessing the sociology of
sport: On cultural sensibilities and the great sport myth,” International Review for the
Sociology of Sport, 50/4-5 (2015), 402–06.
10. George Orwell. “The Sporting Spirit,” Tribune (December 1945).
11. Author Interview with Baroness Valerie Amos, London, 16 October 2015.
12. Report by the Secretary-General to 65th Session of United Nations General Assembly,
“Sport for Development and Peace: Strengthening the Partnerships” (9 August 2010)
A/65/16: http://research.un.org/en/docs/ga/quick/regular/65.
13. Albert Camus famously stated “everything I know about morality and the obligations
of men, I owe it to football,” indicates sports has at the very least an educational
capacity.
14. “Speech by Nelson Mandela at the Inaugural Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award,
Monaco 2000” (25 May 2000): http://www.sweetspeeches.com/s/2474-nelson-mandela-
speech-by-nelson-mandela-at-the-inaugural-laureus-lifetime-achievement-award-
monaco-2000.
DIPLOMACY & STATECRAFT 211
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