Commentary

Abstract

In this fine collection of essays we find multiple suggestions on how to study and assess the role of sports in international politics and U.S. foreign relations. I would like to mention five of them here, before tackling what seems to me a fundamental methodological problem that surfaces in these four articles. To begin, all the essays reveal the relevance of sport as a medium of cultural diplomacy; as a tool that states deploy in their interactions, placing it at the service of a given goal. Such a goal can be political and diplomatic engagement (the Sino-American track and field event of 1975 or Pierre Trudeau’s use of hockey to foster closer Soviet-Canadian relations), punishment and retribution (the Olympic boycott), or simply helping to improve the image of a given actor in the public opinion of another. From this perspective, sports have been used sometimes as complements of diplomatic action and sometimes as surrogates for it. Furthermore, sport has constituted an important channel of global exchange and interaction and all the essays deal, in different ways, with this aspect.