Sports in International Politics

Between Power and Peacebuilding

  • Textbook
Sports in International Politics cover

Sports in International Politics

Between Power and Peacebuilding

  • Textbook
Quantity
In stock
$118.35 RRP $131.50 Website price saving $13.15 (10%)

This product is usually dispatched within 1 week

This title is available for exam copy requests

Description

Sports have historically been part of a broader quest of regimes for prestige on the world stage, but also to project hegemony and power in an anarchic international system. While such historical trends of politicization of sports continue—witness the nationalism on display at each Olympic Games—today sports are equally seen as a strategic key for advancing human rights, building peace, strengthening social cohesion, and fostering development. International sports reside between a “realist” world of power and profit while simultaneously becoming an instrument of liberal internationalism that sees the advancement of individual values of rights, gender equality, and empowerment of often marginalized groups such as indigenous peoples, traumatized war victims, and those with disabilities.
Sports in International Politics explores the complex linkages among power politics in the international arena, the profit-seeking, often elitist and at-times corrupt world of professional international sports, and the promise for harnessing sports to promote human rights, inclusive development, and sustainable peace in a violent world. Timothy D. Sisk shows that sport’s direct relationship to peace is found in sport- and play-related contributions to humanitarian action, expanding the right to access sport and the rights of athletes of all ages and abilities, and in the well-designed employment of sports in youth-based development and peacebuilding programs and projects. Sport’s contribution to peace is found from the bottom up through sport’s contribution to positive youth development, empathy, and fairness, and through engendering trust and social cohesion at community and national levels.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations, Tables, Concept Boxes, Case Studies, and Documentary Insights
Preface
Abbreviations
Part I Sport, Power, and Peace in a Turbulent World
1. Sport between Power and Peacebuilding
Turbulent World, Uncertain Times
Orienteering through the Global Sport Universe
Sport Liberalism in a Realists’ World: A Ukraine Story
Symbolic Power: The Achilles’ Heel of International Sport
About this Book: Finding Sport’s Contribution to Peace
Part II Situating Sport in a Globalized World
2. The Wide World of Sport Globally
What is Sport? A Social Construction
The Evolving and Changing Nature of Sport
Why Sport Matters: Well-being
Implications: The Imperative of Inclusivity in Sport
3. Mindsets of Devotion: The Social ‘Power’ of Sport
The Sociology of Sport: A Primer
Sport in Globalized Societies
Sport and Social Dynamics
Implications: Harnessing Sport’s Power
Part III Politics in Sport: Comparative and International Perspectives
4. Power: Sport in the National Interest
Symbolic Politics and the Politicization of Sport
Performing Social Identity: Nationalism in Sport
Sport Diplomacy: ‘Soft Power’ in a Hard World
Implications: Sport, a Political Instrument
5. The Olympic Games: Swimming in the Currents of History
Olympism: Peace, Mostly Symbolic
Through Wars Hot and Cold: The Olympicsin the 20th Century
Back to the Future: The Olympic Games into the 21st Century
Implications: The Olympic Games, Still Swimming
Part IV The Basis of Peace: Human Rights and Sustainable Development
6. Sport for Human Rights: A Long Association
Advancing Human Rights in and Beyond Sport
Breaking Barriers: Advancing Human Rights through Sport
Naming, Shaming, and Boycotts
Implications: Sport, An Arena for Rights-Claiming
7. Sport for Sustainable Development
Sport and the SDGs
Sport and Environmental Sustainability
From Catalyst to Causalities: Debating SDP
Implications: Furthering Evidence
Part V Sustaining Peace: Humanitarianism, Peacebuilding, and Social Cohesion
8. Sport for Humanitarian Action, Peacebuilding, and Social Cohesion
Sport in Humanitarian Action
Psychosocial Interventions: Reaching Vulnerable Youth
Peacebuilding: Overcoming Enmity, Sustaining Peace
Implications: Reflective Practice
Part VI Conclusion
9. Imagining More Effective Sport for Peace
Reprioritizing Sport for Peacebuilding and Social Cohesion
Reforming Global Sport Governance
Revisiting a Cliché
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Product details

Published Apr 09 2024
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 256
ISBN 9781538187104
Imprint Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Illustrations 5 BW Illustrations, 7 BW Photos, 4 Tables, 3 Charts, 63 Textboxes
Dimensions 238 x 158 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Related Titles

Environment: Staging