The Use of Sports as a Tool of Public Diplomacy in Regions or "Stateless Nations": The Case of the Basque Country in Contemporary Spain

Abstract

This paper explores the use of sports as a tool of public diplomacy in the case of regions, "imagined communities" (Anderson, 1983), or so-called 'stateless nations' like the Basque Country in Spain. This paper analyzes the contribution of sport organizations to the international identity and reputation of these populations. Understood as an expression of soft power (Nye, 2004), sport public diplomacy meets a double objective: on the one hand, it projects positive values about any given country or region that, particularly when good sport results are produced, appears to possess values such as quality or authenticity; on the other hand, it keeps the most politically engaged segment of society active and mobilized. This article considers the positive role of sport public diplomacy in nation building for targeting external audiences as well as keeping internal audiences active and engaged. Nonetheless, there are some negative factors to consider, such as frictions and divisions that may surge between internal audiences regarding the political use of sports (for example, between Basque nationalists and non-nationalists as well as within Basque nationalists as a group). A comparison of the use of sports in the Basque Country and Catalonia, another Spanish region with a strong local identity, suggests that successful local sport organizations with players chosen regardless of their birthplace, such as Catalonia's Barcelona Football Club or the Basque cycling team Euskadi-Euskaltel, does more for the international projection of a regions' identity than do regional or national teams made up solely of local players.