Abstract
Abstract This article explores scholarship regarding diplomatic processes and actors engaged in recent international sport events hosted by the United Kingdom and Japan. The article points to the range of actors involved, focusing on organizing committees, and assesses the effectiveness of sports diplomacy at a range of levels that go beyond a focus on the state. It uses international sport events documentation, global media archives, and public and private comments related to the United Kingdom and Japan. The article addresses three key issues: 1) Olympic-dominant discourse: the dominance and shift in process between hosting an Olympic Games and onto other events; 2) Western-dominant discourse: the differences between Japan and the UK in demonstrating distinct “East” and “West” sports diplomacy approaches; 3) State-dominant discourse: the role of knowledge exchange and elite networks that transcend the state and involve a range of different actors, such as the organizing committee.
Highlights
Sport, and in particular, hosting international sport events forms a key dimension to diplomatic relations between nation-states, non-state actors, and individuals
This approach was embraced by the United Kingdom (UK) Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which stated in the run up to the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics that
The huge amounts of capital that have been required to host premium international sport events in recent decades speak to the investment that is made, not just in monetary terms and with human and social capital
Summary
In particular, hosting international sport events forms a key dimension to diplomatic relations between nation-states, non-state actors, and individuals. The developments represent a wider body of actors considered such as organizing committees, international sporting federations, sponsors, media channels, and associated business communities This growth is represented by the variety of concepts and disciplines attempting to understand processes and relationships involved in international sport events, such as soft power, public diplomacy, stakeholder management, and nation branding. This article acknowledges both the complex and temporally transient groupings which form to host such events, alongside the multitude of different approaches and concepts that seek to consider explain such phenomena. The exemplars of Japan and the UK explored here pose questions of sport and diplomacy and offer avenues for further research to others to explore how this could be translated through other lenses such as cultural forms and other international events e.g., world leader summits, activist group marches, and interest group congresses and conferences
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