Global sporting events have become a recurring part of everyday life for billions of people around the world. Whether on TV, streaming online, or more directly in person, enthusiastic fans and occasional onlookers can experience a wide range of sports at the highest levels of professionalism. While not all of these events receive extensive media coverage, the biggest and most visible global sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup or the Olympics, reach a significant portion of the world’s population. These high-profile events feature athletes representing their countries. So it’s not just individual athletes or sports teams that are competing against each other, but also the countries they represent. Global sporting events therefore capture the imagination of the global public in a very special way. They suggest that the world is inevitably made up of competing nations competing against each other, but competing under a common set of rules.
World sport events have global implications and are important beyond the realm of sport because they convey a particular image of the world. More specifically, we argue that they play a crucial role in the stability of the international order (a particular kind of world order) and the reproduction of international society (state society). Before detailing this argument, let us explain how this perspective complements other analyses of sport and (international) society.
Sports have been getting more attention within the IR community recently. For example, Franke and Koch Provided analysis of press releases from the IOC and FIFA on contemporary conflicts. Vice and Dassler Using sport and sport metaphors to discuss policy positions, Chadwick even called for a new field of study focusing on the geopolitical economy of sport (see also this interview with him). This new interest in the relationship between sport and politics adds to the literature on the following issues: Mafia style practices and Corruption Scandals in Sports, The impact of hosting world sporting events on the sovereignty of the host country, Lack of fit between the legitimacy of the regime and the host role of the state, Political instrumentalization of sporting events and sportswashingor Collateralization through sports events.
Although academic interest in sport has grown, relatively little attention has been paid to the role that global sporting events play in stabilizing the international order and reproducing international society. part of us was published in International theoryWe suggest that global sporting events with global influence are more than just entertainment, business opportunities, or spectacles for the political power of individual states. Rather, they function as a form of large-scale public diplomacy (or propaganda) on behalf of the international community. In particular, they celebrate the notion that the world is empirically composed of states and promote the idea that this is an enjoyable and attractive world. In this view, the international community is preferable to alternative world orders such as a world empire or a world society of individuals.
In this paper, we demonstrate the argument that world sport events contribute to international order through theorizing global sport events and empirical analysis of international football. In relation to the former, we draw on the British School, ritual studies, and ludology (the study of games and play) to show how world sport events can be conceptualized as institutions of international society.
More specifically, world sport events are derivative primary institutions embedded in the institutions of primary places and festivals. These institutional contexts provide the festive and playful aspects of international society. Moreover, they display and celebrate international society in miniature, relying on the focal time (festival) and space (place). Finally, they are open to the participation of non-state (or global society) actors in particular, which explains why individuals from all over the world are mobilized, as well as why private organizations such as FIFA can act as auxiliary institutions of international society in this context.
Our perspective on world sport events helps us to explain and understand a broader phenomenon beyond the general contribution of world sport events to international order. Our perspective, which puts the role of the state at the forefront, makes clear why a country like Qatar can play host despite its human rights record. Human rights in the international community are still not as central as the core institutions of sovereignty, territoriality, and nationalism.
At the same time, our approach suggests that world sporting events also represent important limits to acceptable state behavior. The three major institutions of the international community just mentioned were terribly damaged by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As a result, Russia has become an unavailable participant in world sporting events such as the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup, the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, and the 2024 Summer Olympics. If we consider world sporting events as an institutional part of the international community, then the exclusion of Russia could be interpreted as “a clear response to Russia’s war of aggression” and, as discussed above, as evidence of the international community’s concern for “peace, coexistence, and cooperation as a minimum goal.” Elsewhere.
While our primary concern is the connection between world sport events and international order, our approach helps to reconstruct the rationale for some states’ efforts to use sport as a means of self-aggrandizement and status politics. World sport events perform the world in a particular way, and, as with other rituals, there is always a promise to shape the performance of international society in ways that are favorable to one’s role in that society. At a minimum, participation in world sport events communicates membership in the international community. However, individual states can also use world sport events to convey messages of centrality. In other words, world sport events are playful stages, but performing the international community on a smaller scale can have implications for the international community itself.
This observation points to the symbiotic relationship between world sport events and international society. World sport events would not have mobilized the public as much if they did not essentially claim to represent “the whole world” (understood as all nations). The international society gains legitimacy, as discussed above. The international order becomes more natural and desirable than an alternative world order. We will argue that this symbiotic relationship allows international sport organizations to commit all sorts of scandals. They are necessary as secondary institutions of international society. But this also poses risks for international society. Corruption and other scandals in world sport can backfire on international society, especially in democracies that demand public accountability.
What the international community needs instead is a world sporting event that inspires and conveys a positive message. If world sporting events can be peaceful and bring joy to people, there is hope for the world in which they are played. This line of reasoning was evident in some of the comments about the Summer Olympics held in Paris this year. GuardianFor example, it reported that “Paris bid farewell to the Olympics with a message about the importance of preserving the spirit of the Games in a world rife with conflict and uncertainty.”
According to the Olympics, the international order can be stable because the core goals of international society can be secured. Violence can be avoided, and individual members and the international society itself can be preserved. The Olympics even suggest that the international society is not simply about coexistence, but about cooperation. Our approach shows why world sport events are particularly suitable for conveying such messages of hope for the existing world order in the form of international order. World sport events are as much serious games as they are fun.
Additional Resources on E-International Relations
