Why developing countries are just spectators in the ‘Gold War’: the case of Lebanon at the Olympic Games

At the Olympic Games, there is an increasing gap between developed countries that are investing more and more government resources into sporting success, and developing countries that cannot afford the “Gold War”, and are just spectators in the medal race. Based on studying a representative case, Lebanon, I investigate issues and interests of developing countries in the Olympics. On the political level, the main motivation for participation is global recognition. On the sporting level, developing countries seek to use Olympic participation as preparation for regional Games where success is more likely, serving as a soft power tool for regional influence.     

The seductive discourse of development: The Cape Town 2004 Olympic bid

Research on how the decision to bid for the Olympics is made, the resources and processes involved in the bidding process and how a country responds to a failed bid is important. These aspects are embedded in a range of political and economic processes from the local to the global level. The Olympic Games is the ultimate mega-event. This article uses the case study of the Cape Town 2004 Olympic Bid (CTOB) to examine the above aspects, highlighting the global dimensions of bidding for major events. The CTOB illustrates that contemporary sport associations and structures are strongly influenced by emergent global forces such as global capital and dominance by certain regions. This often results in countries being disadvantaged from one of two sides. Either they cannot afford to participate in the bidding process or they cannot lobby sufficiently to influence the international sport associations.     

Rallying or Criticizing? Media Coverage of Authorities' Reaction to Terror Attacks Targeting Sporting Events

The reaction of authorities to terror attacks or threats has the potential to attract both support and criticism. The current study aims to examine the international media's discourse surrounding authorities' reaction to sporting events that have suffered from terror attacks or terror threats. A comparison is made between events that are canceled and events that take place as planned despite the attack or threat. Our findings indicate no significant differences between the coverage of events that are canceled and those that continue as planned. The evidence actually exhibits greater levels of support rather than criticism of authorities in international media coverage.     

Football and post-war reintegration: exploring the role of sport in DDR processes in Sierra Leone

Growing enthusiasm for 'Sport for development and peace' (SDP) projects around the world has created a much greater interest among critical scholars seeking to interrogate potential gains, extant limitations and challenges of using sport to advance 'development' and 'peace' in Africa. Despite this interest, the role of sport in post-conflict peace building remains poorly understood. Since peace building, as a field of study, lends itself to practical approaches that seek to address underlying sources of violent conflict, it is surprising that it has neglected to take an interest in sport, especially its grassroots models. In Africa, football (soccer) in particular has a strong appeal because of its popularity and ability to mobilise individuals and communities. Through a case study on Sierra Leone, this paper focuses on sports in a particularly prominent post-civil war UN intervention—the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) process—to determine how ex-youth combatants, camp administrators and caregivers perceive the role and significance of sporting activities in interim care centres (ICCS) or DDR camps. It argues that sporting experiences in ddr processes are fruitful microcosms for understanding nuanced forms of violence and healing among youth combatants during their reintegration process.     

Rethinking global governance: a China model in the making?

This paper examines Chinese perspectives on global governance, an area in which China has increased substantially the depth and breadth of its participation. The paper attempts to draw a mainstream perspective to inform our understanding of some key aspects of China's foreign policy. It demonstrates that while China's statist preference appeals to some Third World countries, such a preference leads the country to clash with the West over how to tackle global issues collectively, particularly over humanitarian intervention. While the Chinese perspective is in the process of evolving and far from reaching maturity, it is questionable whether the global community led by the West would find the Westphalian practice that China embraces admirable.     

State Bureaucracy in Indonesia and its Reforms: An Overview

New Public Management (NPM) as a part of neoliberalism has increasingly become a global phenomenon and has transcended national boundaries, irrespective of whether they are English-speaking countries or non-English-speaking countries. This label of public management has not been interpreted and implemented in a single language, but has been adapted and implemented based on the contextual condition of given nations in terms of their socio-culture, history and formation, ideological inclination, and polity system. This article aimed at providing support to the above supposition, taking Indonesian public governance reforms as an example. The review of Indonesian reforms on public governance is expected to enrich the proliferation of international reforms on public governance in terms of how NPM has been travelling global and has been recontextualized in the existing values of Indonesian people.     

Marketing Malaysia as a model modern Muslim state: The significance of the 16th Commonwealth Games

Apart from illustrating the way in which the Malaysian government appropriated the Commonwealth Games as a global media spectacle, both to gain international publicity and as an opportunity to celebrate its multicultural national identity and thus 'market' Malaysia as a model modern Muslim society, this article highlights two issues in particular. First, through strategic organisation, Malaysia succeeded in making the Commonwealth Games a much more attractive event, infusing the Games with the kind of prestige usually reserved for major, first order events. Second, Malaysia's underlying political crisis, triggered by the Asian crisis, became more salient precisely because of the media interest generated by the Games. That these events prompted a return to authoritarianism brings into question the expectation that major games create spaces for political liberalisation and reform.     

The Public Sector Reform Movement: Mapping the Global Policy Network

Public sector reform in both developed and developing countries has now become a routine matter of public policy—reform is almost continuous, if not always successful. While the role of international transfer agents such as the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in promoting reforms has often been noted, there has been no comprehensive mapping of the global network on public sector reform. This article makes a first attempt to map the close to 100 organizations that make up a loose global network around public administration and governance. It then provides a brief history of the evolution of the network, and the key events that encouraged a substantial degree of coherence among its members. It examines the practices and tools that are specific to this global public policy network, and concludes with some observations on policy transfer models. The article shows that in trying to understand the dynamics of public administration reform, we need to pay greater attention to this network, its members, and its influence over national policy priorities.     

Forward Russia! Sports mega-events as a venue for building national identity

This paper contributes to the discussion of links between sports, nationalism, and globalization by focusing on the political aspects of the preparation of Russian national teams for sports mega-events staged in Russia. By analyzing the cases of the XXVII Summer Universiade in Kazan, the XXII Winter Olympics in Sochi, and the XXI FIFA World Cup scheduled to take place in 12 Russian cities, the paper provides a comparative study of the benefits that mega-events provide for the host nation in terms of building national identities. To involve the sports component in the study of the nation-building processes, the paper applies the concept of the “spillover effect” of sporting nationalism which presumes that nationalist sentiment or ideology configured and promoted through sports affects non-sporting political processes, actors, and institutions. The paper argues that the “spillover effect” of sporting nationalism allows for the converting of excellence in sports mega-events – the centerpiece of global sports – into political excellence and displays the strengths of the nation to both the global and domestic public. Therefore, showing excellence as the host nation is the main objective that Russian political actors pursue in both their rhetoric and course of action.     

Major sports events,image projection and the problems of 'semi-periphery': A case study of the 1996 South Asia cricket World Cup

This paper explores the response of the international press to the co-hosting of the 1996 Cricket World Cup by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The event had a troubled background: the shift of power within cricket towards the subcontinent and the consequential commercialisation of the sport were causing some dissension among traditionalists. At the same time there was some instability in South Asian politics, especially between India and Pakistan and because of the civil war in Sri Lanka. While these issues overshadowed the event, some aspects of its organisation were unsuccessful, leading to some negative press coverage. It is argued here, however, that the problems faced by South Asian countries in trying to use this sports event to promote a positive image were further exacerbated by underlying stereotypes and criticisms of South Asian cultures. As such, the paper addresses several important themes relating to major sports events and 'semi-peripheral' countries.     

'It's Africa's turn!' The narratives and legitimations surrounding the Moroccan and South African bids for the 2006 and 2010 FIFA finals

African countries are increasingly engaging in bidding wars to host sport mega-events. To date, however, not much analysis has been done of African countries' involvement in the growing global mega-events enterprise. Little is also known of the broader political character and consequences of events and bid campaigns in the international system. This article investigates these aspects through a comparative analysis of the bid processes of South Africa and Morocco for the 2006 and 2010 Soccer World Cup. It explores the internal (domestic) and external (international) elements of their legitimating narratives and promotional rhetoric and how these played out in their international relations. Both countries made extensive use of an ideological and emotive posturing of 'Africa'. Against the background of the generally tenuous position the continent occupies in the wider international system, and of its overwhelmingly negative representation, the two countries' replication of neocolonial ties and use of postcolonial rhetoric both aided and hampered their bid campaigns. Overall, competitions to host mega-events occur on an unequal basis which, for African countries, is worsened by very unfavourable positioning in the international arena.     

Global inequality: Bringing politics back in

Data on contemporary global inequality are dramatic, widely known and a new conventional backdrop. In research and policy economists lead the way and the emphasis is on global poverty rather than inequality. Within nations poverty is a challenge, while inequality is not; on a world scale, arguably it is the other way round. The international policy focus on poverty alleviation coexists with neoliberal policies that widen inequality domestically and internationally. A strategic question is where the data depart from the conventional wisdom. Thus a general assumption is that inequality within countries is largest in poor countries; the widest inequality, however, is found within the USA and UK. The conventional assumption is that neoliberal policies and free trade lift all tides; those countries and periods, however, where this policy has been most consistently implemented show the steepest increase in inequality. Global inequality helps sustain domestic privilege. The belief that the risks that global inequality poses can be contained in the global margins is contradicted by the cross-border effects of environmental degradation, migration, transnational crime and terrorism. In explaining global inequality, economic accounts ignore inequal relations of power. The combined policies of developmental discipline, global integration, and marginalisation and containment may be viewed as part of a single process of hierarchical integration, which has turbulence built in.     

Facing the Giant: Southern perspectives on the European Union

The European Union portrays itself as a different global actor. This self-representation has triggered a debate around the EU as a global ‘normative power’, while providing momentum for innovative research into how other societies view and assess the global performance of the EU. For the first time this article presents the findings of a study conducted respectively in Brazil, India and South Africa. As leading nations of the ‘global South’, these three countries offer important insights into how the EU is perceived not only in emerging markets, but also in the so-called developing world at large. The findings reveal that the EU is an unknown entity to most citizens in these countries and is rarely covered by local media. Moreover, it is often criticised for inconsistencies and double standards by political elites and civil society, especially in the area of international trade, while being praised as a successful example of regional integration.     

Exile and globalization in the poetry of Tanure Ojaide: a case study of When it no longer matters where you live

Abstract

The twin concepts of exile and globalization are of great significance to contemporary African literature, as some African writers live and write in exile, while others deploy themes and styles that they believe make their works relevant to the global community. Since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the cold war at the end of the twentieth century, there has been a triumphalism of liberal democracy, free-market economy and other norms of the capitalist world order. Consequently there appears to be an increasing tendency among scholars to homogenize or globalize the practices and values canvassed by the advanced countries of the West.

In Ojaide's When It No Longer Matters Where You Live, the poet acknowledges the inevitability of some African elites living in exile in Western cosmopolitan centers, but rejects the uncritical notion inherent in globalization that western culture and values were synonymous with universal norms or superior to those of the Africans.     

Winning wars,building (illiberal) peace? The rise (and possible fall) of a victor’s peace in Rwanda and Sri Lanka

The literature on peacebuilding dedicates very little space, empirically and theoretically, to countries that are emerging from a war waged to a decisive outcome. This review essay looks at Sri Lanka and Rwanda, two countries where a victorious leadership has led the process of post-conflict reconstruction, largely by employing illiberal means. It looks at the effect of decisive war on statebuilding and at the role of local agency and illiberal practices in a post-victory context. It concludes by assessing the global significance and long-term sustainability of post-victory illiberal statebuilding.     

Culture,community-oriented learning and the post-2015 development agenda: a view from Laos

This article critically interrogates current policy-sector approaches to culturally sensitive development and the manner in which culture has been conceptualised within the post-2015 development agenda-setting process. By providing a brief interpretive summary of academic debates surrounding culture and development, an analysis of how ‘culturally sensitive’ practices have been pursued within the policy sector, and an examination of the insufficient consideration given to culturally sensitive development within post-2015 agenda setting, I argue that much uncertainty remains around how to translate complex academic understandings of culture and development into policy responses. Following this, I provide one case study drawn from the small, low-income country of Laos to suggest possibilities as to how culturally sensitive development may be better conceptualised and implemented within a post-2015 global development era.     

Cultural heritage and development: UNESCO’s new paradigm in a changing geopolitical context

In the 1980s, the process of convergence between culture and development began to emerge in the context of post-colonialism and changing geopolitical realities. Later on, along with increasing multilateralism, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) eventually became the main actor in promoting culture as a fourth pillar of sustainable development. The paradigm shift in the heritage-development agenda is examined in the context of growing aspirations of non-Western states to play an active role in the global heritage regime, and the interests and strategies of UNESCO’s secretariat and the member states. At first, heritage and development were perceived as separate or opposed fields. Recently, a sustainable development framework emerged as a new global development model. UNESCO has engaged in the shaping of the United Nations (UN) 2030 agenda, and advocated a pragmatic approach to heritage. This paper examines the evolution of ideas and concepts linking ‘development’ and ‘heritage’ forged at the forum of UNESCO as part of its Culture and Development framework. The role of the Global South in the paradigm change is highlighted.     

Decolonising online development studies? Emancipatory aspirations and critical reflections – a case study

Academics in high-income countries are increasingly launching development studies programmes through online distance learning to engage practitioner-students in low-income countries. Are such initiatives providing opportunities to critically tackle social injustice, or merely ‘mirroring’ relations of global inequality and re-entrenching imperial practices? Building on recent scholarship addressing efforts to ‘decolonise development studies’ and the complex power dynamics they encounter, we reflect on this question by analysing experiences of faculty and students in a United Kingdom-based online development studies programme, focusing particularly on perspectives of development practitioner-students working from Africa. We discuss barriers to social inclusivity – including the politics of language – that shaped participation dynamics in the programme as well as debates regarding critical development course content, rethinking possibilities for bridging counter-hegemonic development scholarship with practice-oriented approaches in a range of social contexts. Our analysis unpacks key tensions in addressing intertwined institutional and pedagogic dilemmas for an agenda towards decolonising online development studies, positioning decolonisation as a necessarily unsettling and contested process that calls for greater self-reflexivity.     

Confronting the Middle Income Trap: Insights from Small Latecomers

Middle income countries have always faced the challenge of how to move from commodity production to more knowledge-intensive activities. The current globalization process is turning this middle income dilemma into a possible middle income trap. To understand better how countries can achieve broad-based upgrading to confront the middle income trap, we develop an analytical framework that links the macroeconomic context with microeconomic behavior and mesoeconomic conditions contingent upon path dependency and global circumstances. This capabilities-based approach draws from structuralist and evolutionary economic thought and global value chain analysis. We use the approach to analyze the particular set of factors that have enabled or constrained upgrading efforts under a liberal trade and investment regime in five small latecomers: Chile, the Dominican Republic, Jordan, Ireland, and Singapore. The country analyses demonstrate that strategic, pro-active, and coherent government policies for capability advancement are a key determinant of upgrading in open economies, both at the country level and in the development of ??pockets of excellence.??     

Global Capitalism and the Transformation of State Socialism

The article outlines the footprint of international economic interests under state socialism, and considers in more detail the economic integration of the postcommunist countries into the world system in the post-1989 period of the building of capitalism. The focus of the article is on the extent of economic globalization of countries and their economic corporations. It is contended that the globalization of capitalist companies and the direct role of global economic forces had little importance under state socialism. Since 1989, policy in the former state socialist countries has been geared to “joining” the world system, optimistically its core. Important differences have developed between the postsocialist states with respect to economic penetration and exposure to the world market. The outcomes have not fulfilled the expectations of early advocates of transformation and entry to the world economy. Although the new member states of the European Union have entered the world economy as formal members of the “core,” they are not economically equal to the dominant “old” members of the EU. In all the postcommunist countries, there is an absence of large scale global companies, of comparable levels of innovation, research and development. Russia is a resources rich country, a “hybrid” social formation containing elements of state economic control, national capitalism, and global capitalism. I conclude that the semi periphery is not a transient category in the world economy; it has potential for persistence and renewal.