‘Less Democracy Is Sometimes Better’: Sportswashing and Hosting World Championships by Non-Democratic Countries, 1993–2022

Abstract

In recent years, the concept of sportswashing, understood as the actions of individuals, transnational corporations or governments using sports to improve reputations tarnished by misconduct, has become increasingly popular. Organizing sports events is one of the main methods utilized by countries attempting to deflect allegations of human rights violations. In the author’s opinion, this view, prevalent in scientific and journalistic discourse, should be verified using quantitative methods based on available historical data. Therefore, this article contains the results of a study on the organization of world championships in Olympic sports from 1993 to 2022 by countries with incomplete democracy, defined by Freedom House as ‘Partly Free’ or ‘Not Free’ countries. The Winter and Summer Olympic Games were excluded from the analysis because they had previously been discussed many times in the context of sportswashing. A total of 1,064 world championships in summer and winter Olympic disciplines were analyzed, confirming how many organizational rights were granted by international sports federations to non-democratic countries. The results also included a detailed division into individual disciplines and countries and showed that while in the 1990s and early 2000s, countries with a ‘Not Free’ status hosted world championships sporadically, the number of such cases has significantly increased in the last decade. The conclusion presents reasons for this situation arising directly from sportswashing, as well as other factors, such as the decline of interest in hosting sports events by societies in democratic countries.