ABSTRACT
In considering the connections between sport and nationalism in authoritarian states, many scholars have shown how nondemocratic regimes frequently use their athletes’ success and sporting spectacles as a way to promote domestic pride and garner international legitimacy (e.g., Dennis and Grix 2012; Houlihan 1997; Koch 2013; Lee and Bairner 2009; Merkel 2010; Riordan 1991; Riordan and Arnaud 1998). Others have demonstrated how authoritarian regimes can use mass sport and spectator sports as a vehicle for promoting nationalist sentiments – this being a staple of authoritarian systems in the twentieth century, including fascist Italy and Germany, and later, the Soviet Union and East Germany (Falasca-Zamponi 1997; McDonald 2006; Riordan 1991; Teja 1998). While a number of these studies touch on the issue of sport being used as a form of propaganda in authoritarian states, in this chapter I propose an alternative approach to the relationship between sport and authoritarianism. Guided by the discursive analysis methods of critical geopolitics (Dittmer 2010), I scrutinize the use of sporting “personas” as a way to legitimate the authority of autocratic heads of state. A discursive approach means focusing on text-or media-based materials, though my aim is not to replace more embodied or performative analyses of sports. Rather, a specifically semiotic tack is complementary to these studies insofar as it suggests that sport is implicated in – and constitutive of – a much larger set of identity discourses that extend far beyond the baseball stadium, football pitch, or swimming pool (as suggested by nearly every other chapter in this volume). Or, as Michael Billig (1995: 120) has argued, “sport is never merely sport,” but “has a social and political significance, extending through the media beyond the player and the spectator.” In this chapter, I consider one such extension of sporting discourse: the portrayal of autocrats engaged in sporting activities. These men – for I know of no female cases (and women dictators are historically rare) – exemplify the most personalistic variants of authoritarian rule. In such systems, the government’s legitimacy is staked to the merits of the leader himself – typically his wisdom, acumen, vitality, and strength (actual and metaphorical) – as well as his ability to manifest nationalist ideals and values. Sport, as a historically favored social and political metaphor, represents an ideal way for a leader and his public relations (PR) apparatus to illustrate to citizens that he possesses all these desirable attributes and, in turn, legitimate his authority. While the motivating fiction of personalistic regimes is that the leader is all-powerful, I argue that analyzing an autocrat’s persona alone is insufficient. This is because broader narratives, such as nationalism and paternalism, are also essential to sustaining political legitimacy under personalistic authoritarian regimes.
