Olympic Strategy, Nationalism and Legitimacy: The Role of Ideology in the Development of Chinese Elite Sports Policy in the First Reform Decade, 1978–1988

Abstract

This paper examines the relationships between Olympic strategy, nationalism and legitimacy of the Party-state in China during a decade of reform. The analysis focuses on governmental policy prioritising elite sports and Olympic ambitions in the process of rebuilding the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) following the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Drawing on Weber’s revised classification of legitimacy, this investigation contextualises sport and nationalism in the context of elite sport policy throughout the shift of political legitimacy in post-Mao China. Data were collected from a range of documents and seven semi-structured interviews. This study concludes that Chinese sporting excellence in the 1980s was closely associated with nationalism and the party’s political appeal. Thus, the pragmatic Party leaders of the time contended that performance-based legitimacy was more important and effective than Mao’s revolutionary ideology for transforming society in post-Mao China. Accordingly, China issued an Olympic strategy and strengthened its elite sport first policy, in the belief that sporting success in the 1980s would secure the satisfaction of the masses and also justify Deng’s pragmatism.