International Relations, Development and the Football Industry

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Aim and Objective
Justification
Research Questions
Overview of Relevant Literature
Research Design
Practical and Ethical Issues
Timeline
Reference

Introduction

Football has become the integrator of many countries like the European countries (Economist, 2003) or Japan and South Korea (Economist, 2002). As has been stated in the Economist (2003) regarding the level of integration of the Europeans through football, “Over the past decade European football teams have turned into a living, breathing embodiment of European integration” (Economist, 2003, p.55). Football has also been used as a diplomacy tool like countries like Brazil (Economist, 2004). Football has been found to be the disseminator of national identity in many states (Bradley, 2003; Chehabi, 2006; Lechner, 2007). Further the strong commercialization of football is evident through the mega-sport events like the world Cup and affluent sports clubs (Horne, 2004). So there seem to be an apparent belief that football industry has a political colour which establishes a relation between global powers and it also helps in regional development. But there is widespread neglect in the academia of football’s potential in international relations and development (Beck, 2003). This paper is a proposal to study these aspects of football as an industry.

Aim and Objective

The aim of this proposed to paper is to see if foot enhances international relations and if it creates a sense of national identity. Further the developmental aspects of football will also be discussed. The paper is proposed to be divided into two parts: first will deal with football and its usage in political diplomacy will be discussed along with football as a means of creating national identity in the overall international aspect and second will be to assess football as an industry and a driver of development to the region. This aspect will deal with the increased commercialized success of football and its spill over effect on the community.

Justification

There is a conventional belief that football creates national identity and international relationship. The dissemination of national identity and a tool to establish and maintain international relationships has been demonstrated through various events. The Economist has presented various articles (2002, 2003, and 2004) which demonstrated that football has been used a vital tool for international diplomacy. Dan Bloomfield (Bloomfield, 2007) in his article Football for peace writes about how football has the power to bring together the Palestinians and Israelites. Surely the use of football as an international relation tool is widely believed in and the power of the sporting events to help diplomatic relations further is a well accepted norm. Further these events are also believed to bring in considerable development to the region. Football is seen as the bearer of national identity (Abell et al, 2007) and helps in improved and more complex understanding of international relation (Beck, 2003).

Research Questions

The three key areas that the proposed dissertation aims to study are related to football and international relation and national identity and football’s developmental aspects. Broadly the proposed paper will discuss the role of football in enhancing international political relations and economic development. From the preliminary discussion on football and its effect on international relation and development the research questions that I propose to study are:

Does football create a sense of national identity?
Does football facilitate the process of international political diplomacy and thus international relations? If yes, in what ways.
How football helps in the developmental aspects of a region?
How successful football has become as a global industry?

Overview of Relevant Literature

Football being an immensely popular sport has been researched widely by various researchers. There are various studies on football. Researchers have tried to establish a relation between football and its dissemination and creation of national identity through widespread commercialization and media dissemination (Bradley, 2003; Abell et al, 2007; Lechner, 2007). Some studies have concentrated on identifying football as the propagator of diplomacy in the international relations arena (Beck, 2003; Harif & Galily, 2003; Chehabi, 2006). And a few others have studied the effect of football as a vehicle to economic development (Horne, 2004; Cornelissen & Solberg, 2007). But there is a gap in the literature as some authors believe that football creates national identity (Bradley, 2003; Lechner, 2007) while others believe it does not (Abell et al, 2007). Further there is also a discrepancy in understanding the role of football in international relations as Beck (2003) believes that football was not successful so far in improving England-German relationship but it definitely has a strong presence in international relations while Chehabi (2006) and Harif & Galily (2003) showed that football had a strong effect in international relations. Further the economic developmental aspect of football is protested against by Horne (2004) who believes that in Japan the increased infrastructural cost incurred during the FIFA World Cup finals in 2002 have created increased debate as to the use of these stadiums. So the economic development that the sport brings is questioned against widespread belief. Another research on South African intention to market brand South Africa has shown that increased governmental infrastructural spending will definitely be a boost for the sporting event but will hamper the social and economic life of the cities (Alegi, 2007).

Research Design

Most of the studies on football and international relations and development have adopted a qualitative methodology of research. Most of them employed on case study analysis (Beck, 2003; Chehabi, 2006; Lechner, 2007) and grounded theory (Abell et al, 2007). Some have used quantitative methodology and collected statistical data by a questionnaire survey (Bradley, 2003).

For the proposed research I aim to use a qualitative research methodology. I intend to derive the data from secondary sources wherein I will try to determine the international relations issues that has emerged in last few year’s popular football sporting events. Further, I will try to ascertain which issues were dissolved. The analysis will be done through a content analysis of newspaper, magazine articles as well as television broadcasts. All issues related to international relations, political diplomacy, identity creation will be argued trough the content analysis method. The analysis will include codification of the information of the football affecting the international relations and using of football as vehicles for international relations and development.

Practical and Ethical Issues

The ethical issue is related to data collection. As the research is primarily based on secondary research, the data collection will be an issue where collection of scholarly data may become a constraint. So data validation may be a problem. Further the qualitative research also requires acquiring data from different sources and getting data on economic and social benefits of football will again cause problems.

Timeline

The time for the research is shown in the following gnat chart. The timeline is set on a week-by-week basis for a period of 2 months. The chart (table 1) will show that most of the time is consumed in literature study and research data analysis.

Data analysis

Reference

Abell, J. et al., 2007. Who ate all the pride? Patriotic sentiment and English national football support., Nations and Nationalism 13 (1), p. 97–116.

Alegi, P., 2007. The Political Economy of Mega-Stadiums and the Underdevelopment of Grassroots Football in South Africa., Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies Vol. 34 No. 3 , p. 315-331.

Beck, P., 2003. The Relevance of the ‘Irrelevant’: Football as a Missing Dimension in the Study of British Relations with Germany., Journal of International Affairs Vol. 79 No. 2, p. 389-411.

Bloomfield, D., 2007. Football for Peace. Middle East, Issue 384, p.59.

Bradley, J.M., 2003. Images of Scottishness and Otherness in International Football., Social Identities Vo. 9 No. 1, p. 7-23.

Chehabi, H.E., 2006. The Politics of Football in Iran., Soccer and Society Vol. 7 No. 2–3 , p. 233–261.

Cornelissen, S. & Solberg, E., 2007. Sport Mobility and Circuits of Power: The Dynamics of Football Migration in Africa and the 2010 World Cup., Politikon 34(3), p. 295–314.

Economist, 2004. Football diplomacy. The Economist Vol. 372 No. 8389, p.31.

Economist, 2003. How football unites Europe. The Economist Vol. 367 No. 8326, p.55.

Economist, 2002. Political football. The Economist Vol. 362 No. 8265, p.39.

Harif, H. & Galily, Y., 2003. Sports and Politics in Palestine 1918-48: Football as a Mirror Reflecting the Relations between Jews and Britons., Soccer & Society Vol. 4 No. 1, p. 41-56.

Horne, J., 2004. The global game of football: the 2002 World Cup and regional development in Japan., Third World Quarterly Vol. 25 No. 7 , p. 1233–1244.

Lechner, F.J., 2007. Imagined communities in the global game: soccer and the development of Dutch national identity., Global Networks Vol. 7 No. 2 , p. 193–229.

Click Here To Order Now!