6–10 Jun 2022
Tübingen
Europe/Berlin timezone

International Relations and sport: A correlational study of the World Power Index and the Pan-American Games medal table (1975-2019)

Speaker

Carlos Pulleiro Méndez

Description

Objective and method: This paper analyses the correlation between the World Power Index (WPI) and the state performance at the Pan American Games from the edition of Mexico City 1975 to Lima 2019. The starting point is that International Relations theory can offer a proper explanation of the variability of the state behaviour in sport considering that sport is one of the means to realise the foreign policy of states. In the agent-structure debate, considering that the state performance at sports competitions is shaped by the national power (systemic imperative), we manage the hypothesis that the evolution of the WPI can help us to understand the variability of the medal count at this major sporting event. The WPI covers 28 of the 42 countries that have participated at the Pan American Games since 1975 (97.55% of the total medals), distinguishing seven categories of countries among three geopolitical areas: centre, semiperiphery and periphery.

Findings and discussion: Even when the results show that there is a positive and strong correlation, this does not mean that the Latin American power structure transform all states into automatons in terms of the medal outcomes. Cases of outperforming (Cuba and Jamaica) or underperforming (Costa Rica) will rely on the state agency, namely, the variability of sports policies and the national extractive capacity.

In conclusion, in the agent-structure debate applied to sport, the international power structure shapes and constrains the results that countris can achieve in sporting events. However, there are exceptional cases where the state agency can break the structural conditioning.

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