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.     

Advance or consolidation? The French national front and the 1995 elections

This article seeks to analyse the performance of the leader of the French National Front, Jean‐Marie Le Pen, and that of his Party, at the Presidential and Municipal elections of 1995. The elections took place after a period of apparent stagnation in the Front's political fortunes. Le Pen's relative success in the Presidential election was followed by the Front's capture of three significant towns at the municipal elections. However, its victories were in large part facilitated by the failure of the mainstream parties to rally against it. The elections ushered in a period of organisational and ideological change within the Party, which has, none the less, firmly established itself in the French political system.     

The PDS and the SPD's Dilemma of Governance in the Eastern German Länder

Coalition formation in the Federal Republic of Germany has, following unification in 1990, become a more complex process. This is particularly true in the eastern states, where the existence of a problematic partner (the post-communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS)) further complicates coalition options. As a result of its eastern heritage and its successful representation of eastern German interests, the PDS is likely to be an important actor in the medium/long-term future. This article argues that if the Social Democratic Party (SPD) is going to form governing majorities in the eastern states, it must, therefore, come to some sort of practical accommodation with the PDS.