体育外交的作用及其运用——以北京奥运会为例

体育外交不仅能够改善国家间关系、拉近各国公众的距离,而且能够提供国家形象展示和建构的平台及首脑关系建立的契机。2008年北京奥运会是中国体育外交的一次盛会,向世界展示了和平发展、与世界融合的中国及热情、开放、文明的中国人的形象,也促进了中国"首脑外交"的开展。"后奥运时代"的中国体育外交应借鉴北京奥运会的得与失,制定相关政策、设置相关机构、发挥体育选手公共外交大使的作用,以进一步促进中国与世界的沟通与理解。     

规范视角下的中国国际化进程——评《奥运会与北京国际化》

2008年北京奥运会的胜利召开,极大地提升了中国的国际地位,开启了中国的"后奥运时代".自那时起,关于"后奥运时代"的各种讨论不绝于耳.然而,"后奥运时代"更多地作为一种时髦话语和时代背景,学术界却鲜有认真细致的学理研究,即真正以北京奥运会为讨论对象,以此观察中国与国际社会互动的微观进程,进而分析中国如何解决融入国际社会这一根本性命题的佳作,实在是少而又少.     

北京奥运会后的中国国际形象分析

国际形象是国家整体形象的重要组成部分, 它在国际关系中发挥重要的作用。近年 来, 中国一直在国际社会中努力建构自身和平、合作、发展、负责任的大国形象并取得了很多成效; 北京奥运会不仅是进一步展示这些国际形象的平台, 而且为世人树立了开放、文明、团结的现代化 中国的良好形象     

全球化中的奥运会和中国外交的新任务

在全球化和信息化的背景下,国际关系的内涵和外延正在发生重大变化.以北京奥运会为聚焦点的国际互动显示了当代国际关系的新特点:新兴大国的中国同西方传统大国在价值观方面进行了新一轮的碰撞、竞争和磨合.形势的发展对中国外交提出了诸如新兴大国和国际体系间的关系、国家行为体和非国家行为体的有序互动、国际政治和全球治理、中国国际战略和内外统筹的有机协调等新任务.     

“后奥运低谷效应”分析及其应对策略

本文总结分析了历届奥运会后的奥运低谷效应，以及北京奥运会与历届奥运会的比较差异。在此基础上提出了如何使北京奥运会的“乘数效应”影响尽可能持续更长的时间，避免和减少“后奥运低谷效应”对中国经济不利影响的对策建议。     

三军仪仗队与奥运会

2008年2月末的北京,春寒料峭。早晚的温差尤其大。这多多少少有些像干事李金柱的心情。凌晨四点。仪仗队副大队长李本涛的房间还亮着灯。他睡意全无。激动、焦虑……种种思绪纠结成一团。奥运会和残奥会开、闭幕式的国旗、会旗升旗重任,落在了他的肩上。奥运会,中国人一百年的梦想,将在2008年的8月8日实现。中国第一次承办奥运会,他李本涛也是第一次当旗手。     

北京奥运会与民族主义:理性的呼唤

民族主义有多重含义和多重功能,但其原初本质则是理性。当今中国的民族主义必须遵循理性,在偏离时回归理性。北京奥运会前后,中国人的民族主义经受了一次重大洗礼,彰显了中国的软实力。北京奥运会的辉煌过程与圆满成功,将中国人的民族主义情绪引导到理性、宽容、和平的方向上,增强了中国人的民族自信心,激发了中华儿女的爱国热情,同时在一定程度上深化了西方对中国的正确认知,从而增进了中国与世界相互间的了解和感情。     

奥运会对北京经济质量的影响

奥运会对举办城市的经济无疑会带来多方面影响，但最具有意义的是对举办城市经济质量的提升，这种影响多表现为对经济的间接效应，它是城市经济发展的内在驱动和奥运会的刺激因素共同作用的结果。2008年奥运会在筹备期间对北京经济质量的改变，更进一步说明了奥运会与举办城市经济和社会融合性的关系。     

科技革命与国际秩序变迁的逻辑探析

科技革命是人类社会发展的源动力,也是推动国际秩序变迁的核心要素之一。人类历史上发生的四次科技革命均是以科学理论进步为先导、技术突破为表征的整体性革命。在人类科技革命发展的进程中,科技革命与国际秩序之间交织互动,推动国际秩序经历了欧洲百年均势、东西方冷战以及"一超多强"等数次变迁。为深入探究科技革命与国际秩序变迁的内在逻辑和运作机理,本文从科学家、国家和国际体系三个维度对四次科技革命逐一展开了分析,认为科技革命是导致国际秩序变迁的重要因素之一,但国际秩序反过来也会影响科技革命的模式。例如:在第一、二次科技革命中,首先是科学革命引发了技术革命,然后推动了增强主权国家综合国力的迅速增大,进而导致欧洲百年均势秩序的生成与崩溃,这是科技革命(A)直接推动国际秩序变迁(B)的模式,即A—B模式;在第三次科技革命和人类当前正经历的第四次科技革命中,无论是冷战时期的两极均势,还是后冷战时期美国主导的自由霸权秩序,都是国际秩序(B)直接推动科技革命(A)的发展模式,即B—A模式。总的看,科学家的身份认同、国家能力和国际规则与规范在科技革命与国际秩序交织互动过程中,是导致国际秩序变迁模式产生差异的主要原因。从这一意义上讲,当前中美两国之间的科技竞争无疑会为后疫情时代国际秩序的发展趋势提供新的动力、思路和启示。     

舒爱国情怀 铸华夏美名 刘瑞明书奥运火炬手作品展在京举行

为纪念祖国60华诞和北京奥运会成功举办一周年，进一步弘扬奥林匹克精神，传承“人文奥运”理念，推动后奥运文化体育事业发展，由国家奥林匹克体育中心主办，中国当代美术家协会、北京燕城七星国际文化发展有限公司承办的著名书法家刘瑞明北京奥运火炬手姓名的近2万幅部分作品展，7月25日在北京举办。     

Sport and International Relations

As China takes center stage for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in August, enthusiasm for the Games extends far beyond the capital city. For Chinese, the Olympics is about national pride and cultural legacy. The Chinese government hopes to make this event a morale booster for the development of the whole country. And for the world, the Olympics is not just a global sporting event, but also an important platform for promoting worm harmony and communication between cultures. As editor of Contemporary International Relations, I am mindful of the connection between sport and international relations. Sport today plays a highly significant role in the world, and the impact of this global phenomenon on international relations is often underestimated.     

The Four Pillars of Russia’s Power Narrative

The Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and the annexation of Crimea were two major international events in which Russia engaged in early 2014. In spite of all the divergence in the logic underpinning each of them, four concepts strongly resonate in both cases. First, in hosting the Olympics and in appropriating Crimea, Russia was motivated by solidifying its sovereignty as the key concept in its foreign and domestic policies. Second, the scenarios for both Sochi and Crimea were grounded in the idea of strengthening Russia as a political community through mechanisms of domestic consolidation (Sochi) and opposition to unfriendly external forces (the crisis in Ukraine). Third, Sochi and Crimea unveiled two different facets of the logic of normalisation aimed at proving – albeit by different means – Russia’s great power status. Fourth, one of the major drivers of Russian policy in both cases were security concerns in Russia’s southern flanks, though domestic security was also an important part of the agenda.     

Soft Power,Sports Mega-Events and Emerging States: The Lure of the Politics of Attraction

This article highlights and analyses a hitherto largely neglected dimension to the growing agency of large developing countries in global affairs: their hosting of international sports mega-events. Why are large developing countries hosting sports mega-events and what does this contemporary phenomenon tell us about the significance of, for example, the Olympics and the World Cup in global affairs? We explore these questions through brief examination of the cases of the three most active sports mega-event hosting states in recent times: Brazil, China and South Africa. The 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and the upcoming 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil provide interesting examples with which to explore developing country agency in the international system and in particular the discursive basis of that agency. We see the hosting of sports mega-events as the practice of public diplomacy by states to both demonstrate existing soft power capability as well as pursue its further enhancement.     

Advancing Cosmopolitanism through International Competition

The impact of the Olympics seems global, but is it cosmopolitan? Cosmopolitan theory needs to be expanded to include criteria for evaluating the effects of transnational non-governmental associations. Such criteria would enable cosmopolitans not merely to argue for the toleration of associations but also to consider how associations advance cosmopolitan norms and dispositions. Assessing institutional, developmental, shared identity and public sphere effects, this article uses the example of the Olympics to explore what it would mean for an association's effects to be cosmopolitan. Establishing standardised international rules and shared global norms such as fair play are cosmopolitan aspects of the Olympic movement. These shared rules and practices lead to transnational communities among elite athletes, sports administrators and even audiences. The nationalistic aspects of the Olympic Games keep this association a partial expression of cosmopolitanism. Partial expressions of cosmopolitanism, however, have the potential indirectly to advance cosmopolitan norms among those who do not necessarily embrace cosmopolitanism. The Olympics demonstrates that to advance cosmopolitanism requires more than a declared cosmopolitan purpose.     

The Transformation of Security Planning for the Olympics: The 1976 Montreal Games

Montreal's Summer Olympics in 1976 was a turning point in Olympic history: it was the Games' first highly visible security operation. It was also a transformative moment in the history of security planning in Canada: preparations for the games contributed to shifting the Security Services' focus from communism towards domestic and international terrorism. The following article documents, for the first time, the scope of this operation. It is based on five years of requests and appeals under the federal Access to Information Act, which led to the release of over fifty thousand pages of Royal Canadian Mounted Police documents. I argue that security for the Montreal Olympics was based largely on imagined threats. In addition, I argue that security costs for the Montreal Olympics were high but modest as compared to the overall budget. Nonetheless, Montreal set a precedent for high security costs that have since become the standard for hosting the Olympics. Finally, I argue that the Montreal Olympics had long-term implications for policing in Canada. The scale of the operation produced new resources and inter-agency links that were only made possible as a result of hosting the games.     

Winning the Bid: Analyzing the International Olympic Committee's Host City Selections

Previous scholarship has relied on case study analysis and anecdotal evidence to explain the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Olympic host city selection process. This has resulted in several provocative claims regarding why the IOC selects particular cities to host the Olympics. Large-n analysis can dispel some of these assertions by identifying the systematic tendencies in the IOC's host city choices. After reviewing the selection process and the different influences on the IOC's choice of a host city, rank-ordered conditional logit estimation is applied to data proxies of bid candidate characteristics from 1959 through 2005. The IOC shows a statistical tendency to base its decision on the economic vitality of a bid city's home country and on the need to maintain continental diversity.     

From the 'Olympic Formula' to the Beijing Games: Towards Greater Integration across the Taiwan Strait?

The award of the 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing has animated the people of China, but has raised hopes as well as fears among people in Taiwan. The Olympic movement has enabled both countries to participate in international sports under the so-called 'Olympic formula'. It has also stimulated cooperation between them in such areas as science and trade. Can the Beijing Games bring the two sides closer together through the co-hosting of some events? Three issues may stand in the way: operational feasibility, juridical consent and political agreement. The most intractable problem is the 'one China' principle, a condition set by Beijing for further cooperation. The co-hosting project is not impossible, provided both sides have the political will to make it work. At the moment, however, this political will seems to be wanting.     

Lessons from the Asian financial crisis for the eurozone: a comparative analysis of the perilous politics of austerity in Asia and Europe

This paper comparatively examines diverse responses from three major actors in the global political economy (the state, civil society, international financial institutions) to the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the current eurozone crisis. First, it analyses conditional lending policies of international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the International Monetary Fund toward countries in fiscal distress. It then critically examines how the lending policies engendered social tensions and conflicts as austerity measures such as cuts to social welfare programmes hit hard on the populace. Examining how the state and civil society in Asia reacted to and, as a result of contentious state–civil society interactions, altered the policies of IFIs, the paper draws lessons from the Asian financial crisis for the European Union and puts forwards alternative policy suggestions.     

Is China Threat a Hoax？

The Beijing Olympics has focused unprecedented worm attention on China this year. Many people hail the Games as an occasion that showcases China＇s growing contribution to world development and harmony. But intent on politicizing this global event, a few modern Cassandras still cling to the flawed China Threat theory. In this paper, the author traces the origins of this fallacious theory. He sees it as a product of Western empiricism viewed through an historical and philosophical prism. He argues that the assertion of threat arises from a generalization of historical facts. The assertion links China＇s growing clout with declining Western dominance in international affairs. Starting with the myth that peace is possible only among democracies, the theory predicts the inevitability of conflict between the West and China, a country with an alleged expansionist tradition and under an authoritarian system.     

In the Wake of the East Asian Economic Crisis: Toward an Interdependent but Non-convergent Global System

Donald C. Hellmann here studies the political, societal and cultural forces that created the backdrop for the East Asian financial crisis. He presents three myths about the disaster, emphasizing that this event took place in the context of governmental and economic structures embedded in society and thus not easily modified. These myths include the idea that this region will not become the largest economic region in the next 25 years, that East Asian economies cannot continue to grow without Western-led structural change and that the existing economic and security multilateral institutions require only minor reform to face this new international order. He then goes on to argue that no international institution or world power has filled the new statesmanship vacuum of the post-Cold-War interregnum. A new global system will be necessary to face the challenges of this new balance of power.