More Than a Game: Sports and Politics

(Hardback)

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Despite the increasing importance and politicization of sport, Western scholars have only recently begun to consider it as a subject worthy of serious study and research. Martin Vinokur contends that sport has become an increasingly pervasive and visibly central element in Western culture and that its function as a political tool is likely to grow still more in the 1990s, as governments realize the full value of sports to the political socialization process. He shows how the German Democratic Republic and Romania in particular have used sports to help achieve their political goals. This national emphasis on sports is then contrasted to the Western governments' approach. Finally, Vinokur focuses on the 1980 and 1984 Olympic boycotts and the 1988 summer games in Seoul.

Reviews

More Than Just A Game by Martin Barry Vinokur is a thoughtfully conceived analysis of sports and politics.-Yankees Magazine
Vinokur views how the games people play have contributed to the establishment of the identity and character of the nation-building process. His text establishes a theoretical and methodological framework concerning a structural-functionalist approach regarding the key concepts of political integration, socialization, and organizational process, using sport in Romania and the German Democratic Republic as examples. The author offers illustrations of how sport is used as a political instrument, how it is employed to encourage national integration, and how sport plays an integral role as a propaganda tool and is similar in this regard to Sport and International Relations, ed. by Benjamin Lowe et al. Analyses of East-West competitive ideologies and their resulting impact on the Olympic boycotts of the 1980s is also presented. As few political scientists have become involved in the study of sport, this book offers a well-documented and referenced guide concerning the sociopolitical ramification of sport and society and is recommended to both undergraduate and graduate students.-Choice
"More Than Just A Game by Martin Barry Vinokur is a thoughtfully conceived analysis of sports and politics."-Yankees Magazine
"Vinokur views how the games people play have contributed to the establishment of the identity and character of the nation-building process. His text establishes a theoretical and methodological framework concerning a structural-functionalist approach regarding the key concepts of political integration, socialization, and organizational process, using sport in Romania and the German Democratic Republic as examples. The author offers illustrations of how sport is used as a political instrument, how it is employed to encourage national integration, and how sport plays an integral role as a propaganda tool and is similar in this regard to Sport and International Relations, ed. by Benjamin Lowe et al. Analyses of East-West competitive ideologies and their resulting impact on the Olympic boycotts of the 1980s is also presented. As few political scientists have become involved in the study of sport, this book offers a well-documented and referenced guide concerning the sociopolitical ramification of sport and society and is recommended to both undergraduate and graduate students."-Choice

Author Bio

MARTIN BARRY VINOKUR received his Ph.D. in Political Science from American University.