I was working on an idea and i thought the bbs would be the best place to work it out, The topic/question I am dealing with is, Do sports have an influence on state interactions? In history, are there any occurances where sports mitigated or acted as a watershed to improve or greatly influence diplomatic relations or conflicts? Specifically I am working within Asia, and that includes Russia, and US relations but inter-regional relations would also be worth looking into. a strong argument can be made that international sports exchanges are an indicator of normalization, this comes mostly from liberal theory assumptions that exchanges and understanding lead to better relations and a lower possibility of large scale conflict, so I am basing my hypothesis from this belief. any thoughts, opinions, historical evidence would be appreciated.
it's tough to find some examples in Asia, or really anywhere else besides Europe for that matter, because most sporting events that have been meant to bring people together have just flamed up old rivalries. The most common sport played between countries has been soccer and there have been near-riots at many of these matches because of fans fighting. There has been a few instances though of positive outcomes, like when the int'l coalition played a soccer match against an Afghan team in Kabul in the stadium where the Taliban had formerly carried out executions. At the time it was viewed as an important event in bringing everyone together and it worked to a certain extent. Now, if your argument is normalizaton of relations only, then you are probably right. (Think of Afghanistan now being allowed to compete in int'l sporting competitions like the World Atheltics Championship or South Africa before and after apartheid) But, if the argument is that nations have been actually brought together by sports, it might be tougher to find examples.
A related topic is what role does sport have in the internal politics of a country and how do they shape a country's view of others? In our own USA, the Olympics have been touchstones, from the 1936 Berlin Games to the Moscow boycott and the LA lovefest. Not to mention the Miracle on Ice.
Ever heard of Pingpong deplomacy? And that one Olympics probabily bring Isareal closer to the people in the corner of the world than ever.
thanks for the help a funny thing about ping pong diplomacy was that it was never intended BE ping pong diplomacy. the head coach of the us pp team made friends with the chinese coach and had the idea of going to china for some international exchange. he went to congress and the state department for approval but it fell on deaf ears. the coach just said, screw it, im going to do it anyway and he did. the media collapsed on it for its interest value and much credit was given to "ping pong" diplomacy, even though it was really kissenger and Nixon who did all the work EXCEPT approve of the competition. but basically, im definitely looking at the olympics and many other international exchanges and i think im noticing a trend that governments are a lot friendlier during these times. still going to have to do more research, though. although i think its a longshot to say that sports directly influence peaceful diplomacy, i think i can begin to argue that international sporting events and exchanges cause countries to act much nicer and avoid hot issues.
Look at the NHL. They have tons of negotions with foreign born players (especially the former Soviet Union) and countries. I don't know how much (if any) the US governemnt is involved but the Russiand get involved (to get more money). There have been several examples of where NHL teams try to bring a Russian to the US and the Russian was immediately put into the Army. In other cases teams get a plyer out and suddenly the Russina Mafia is collecting from the player to protect their family still in Russia. There are league rules set up between the NHL and foreign hockey federations. For example the Columbus Blus Jackets drafted Nicky Zherdev 4th overall in this years draft. His commitment to the Russian team is over but to this point he can not come over. THe CBJ have given the Russian Hockey Federation $100,000 (the maximum allowed) and signed him to a contract. Again I know i's not tottaly on topic but their are professional sports that deal with governments (but mentioned I don't think the US governemnt is involved).
In Canadian Russian relations I think it would be safe to say that the Canada Russia series of 1972 caused a significant change in the way we viewed Russians. Tretiak, their goalie, was awesome, and changed the way the position was played in Canada and North America. That series was steeped in politics, but in a way it gave many people their first glimpse of Russians as human beings, not just mysterious automatons from behind the Iron Curtain. In the following years and subsequent Canada-Russia series the politics faded and the hockey came to the fore, and that paved the way for Russians to come and be accepted in the NHL after Russia opened up. So in a round about way I think hockey had influenced political relations between Russia and NA. I guess the miracle on ice must have done some of that more directly for the US too.
