Political regime and the impact of sporting success on national pride: a quasi-natural experiment in Germany

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aims to identify the impact of sporting success on national pride. Scholars have examined the association between elite sports and national sentiment. However, the association between the impact of successful elite sports on national pride and the influence of past political regimes remains uncertain. This study examines how the national pride of Germans changed with the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil by analysing the social survey data of the German General Social Survey 2014. This research analyses the fluctuation of general national pride and sport-related national pride through sports events. Germany is selected as an ideal context for research. Because the German national team won the 2014 FIFA World Cup, comparative analysis of East and West Germans allows to consider the influence of past sport-related national identity policy on current residents during an event that involved victory in a sport. The results show that both East and West Germans experienced increased feelings of sport-related national pride during the World Cup. Furthermore, East Germans’ sport-related national pride increased slightly more than West German after they witnessed the success of national athletes in the World Cup. However, general national pride decreased slightly from before the World Cup to after the event. Thus, the impact of sporting success on national pride depends on past sport policy, but the influence of past political regime is small. And the impact of sporting success is restricted to the sport-related domain of national pride.