The World Sport Power Index: Measuring States' Capacities to use Sport as an Instrument of Soft Power

Authors

  • Author

  • Nadim Nassif

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31430//oxaq6535

Keywords:

Soft Power, Indicators of Soft Power, Sports, Sport Politics

Abstract

​According to Jonathan Grix and Fiona Carmichael, when implementing national sport policies, one of the governments' main objectives is to invest funds into gaining international prestige. Although these national sport policies' objectives have also been identified by several other leading scholars in sport governance, research proposing a measurement of these policies' success or failure remains scarce. In fact, to evaluate if countries have reached international prestige through sports, researchers tend to generally refer to the Olympic Medal Table, while the newly created soft power indicators, the "Soft Power 30", "Soft Power Index" and "Global Soft Power Index" have not managed to use appropriate sport rankings to measure countries' capacities to use sport as an instrument of soft power. The objective of this paper is to identify the inaccuracies of these commonly used indices and propose a new ranking that would evaluate whether the national sport policies implemented by governments have succeeded in developing soft power.

References

  1. Allen Guttmann, The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games , (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002).
  2. Md Imtiaz, "FIFA World Cub v/s Olympics – Which is the Biggest Sporting Event in the World?" CBC , 9/6/2021, accessed on 9/7/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3TuBQN2
  3. Philippe Vonnard, "The World Cup and the Media. Some Considerations Following the International Congress, 'The World Cup, between Europe and the Americas', Held in Paris (June 2018)," In Media: The French Journal of Media Studies , vol. 7 (2018).
  4. Jonathan Grix Fiona Carmichael, "Why Do Governments Invest in Elite Sport? A Polemic," International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics , vol. 4, no. 1 (2012), pp. 73-90.
  5. Mick Green Barrie Houlihan, Elite Sport Development: Policy Learning and Political Priorities (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 1.
  6. Nils Asle Bergsgard et al., Sport Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Stability and Change (London: Routledge, 2009), p. 1.
  7. Jens De Rycke Veerle De Bosscher, "Mapping the Potential Societal Impacts Triggered by Elite Sport: A Conceptual Framework," International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics , vol. 11, no. 3 (2019), pp. 485-502.
  8. Michael P. Sam Steven J. Jackson, "Sport and Small States: The Myths, Limits and Contradictions of the Legend of David and Goliath," International Journal Of Sport Policy And Politics , vol. 7, no. 3 (2015), pp. 319-327; Svein S. Andersen Lars Tore Ronglan (eds.), Nordic Elite Sport: Same Ambitions, Different Tracks (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press DK, 2012), p. 13.
  9. Nadim Nassif, "World Ranking of Countries in Elite Sport," Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport , vol. 14, no. 2 (2018), pp. 55-75.
  10. Pierre Colomb, "Sport et Etat," Pouvoirs , no. 61 (1992), pp. 39-51.
  11. Eunah Hong, "Applying a Western-Based Policy Community Framework to the Analysis of South Korean Elite Sport Policy: The Role of Businesses and Armed Forces," International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics , vol. 4, no. 1 (2012), pp. 23-37.
  12. Joseph S. Nye, The Powers to Lead (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 29.
  13. علي باكير، "نحو إطار نظري في صناعة القوة الناعمة"، سياسات عربية، مج 9، العدد
  14. The Softpower 30," accessed on 9/7/2022, at: https://softpower30.com/
  15. ينظر الموقع الرسمي لجامعة نانيانغ التكنولوجية في سنغافورة، شوهد في 2022/7/9، ف:ي https://bit.ly/3DYuKKK
  16. ينظر الموقع الرسمي لشركة الاستشارات الاستراتيجية وتقييم العلامات التجارية الدولية، شوهد في 2022/6/9، في: https://bit.ly/3G1gWle
  17. الموقع الرسمي للّجنة الأولمبية الدولية، شوهد في 2022/7/8، في: https://bit.ly/3zZvfTC
  18. Soccer World Cup 2018: Global Audience to Hit 3.4 Billion, FIFA Revenue to Reach $6 Billion," The Hollywood Reporter , accessed on 9/7/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3DSEE0D
  19. Veerle De Bosscher et al., "A Conceptual Framework for Analysing Sports Policy Factors Leading to International Sporting Success," European Sport Management Quarterly , vol. 6, no. 2 (2006), pp. 185-215.
  20. Svein S. Andersen Lars Tore Ronglan, "Historical Paths and Policy Change: Institutional Entrepreneurship in Nordic Elite Sport Systems," International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics , vol. 7, no. 2 (2015), pp. 197-216; Michael P. Sam Steven J. Jackson, "Sport and Small States: The Myths, Limits and Contradictions of the Legend of David and Goliath," International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics , vol. 7, no. 3 (2015), pp. 319-327.
  21. Veerle De Bosscher, Simon Shibli Andreas Ch Weber, "Is Prioritisation of Funding in Elite Sport Effective? An Analysis of the Investment Strategies in 16 Countries," European Sport Management Quarterly , vol. 19, no. 2 (2019), pp. 221-243.
  22. Ian Henry et al., "Challenging the New Orthodoxy: A Critique of SPLISS and Variable-Oriented Approaches to Comparing Sporting Nations," European Sport Management Quarterly , vol. 20, no. 4 (2020), pp. 520-536.
  23. Svein S. Andersen Lars Tore Ronglan (eds.), Nordic Elite Sport: Same Ambitions, Different Tracks (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press DK, 2012), p. 13.
  24. Nadim Nassif, "How Powerful has Qatar become in Elite Sport?" accessed on 9/7/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3DKiw8w
  25. Jonathan Grix Donna Lee, "Soft Power, Sports Mega-Events and Emerging States: The Lure of the Politics of Attraction," Global Society , vol. 27, no. 4 (2013), pp. 521-536.
  26. Jonathan Grix Barrie Houlihan, "Sports Mega-Events as Part of a Nation's Soft Power Strategy: The Cases of Germany (2006) and the UK (2012)," The British Journal of Politics and International Relations , vol. 16, no. 4 (2014), pp. 572-596
  27. GSI Nations Index," Sportcal, accessed on 9/7/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3zW7oEo
  28. الموقع الرسمي لوكالة الاتصالات العالمية، في: Burson Cohn Wolfe Company, accessed on 9/7/2022, at: https://bit.ly/2Y8l5vg
  29. Nassif, "How Powerful Has Qatar Become in Elite Sport?"
  30. Nassif, "World Ranking of Countries in Elite Sport."
  31. The Top 25 Economies in the World," Investopedia , accessed on 10/7/2022, at: https://bit.ly/2NP37fk
  32. Fan Hong, "Commercialism and Sport in China: Present Situation and Future Expectations," Journal of Sport Management , vol. 11, no. 4 (1997), pp. 343-354.
  33. Empowering People with Data," Statista, accessed on 9/7/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3UnmniQ
  34. مقابلة شخصية، لارس هوي -بيدرسن، المدير الإداري لشركة "بي سي دبليو سبورتس"، سويسرا،.2022/3/30
  35. Mick Green, "Changing Policy Priorities for Sport in England: The Emergence of Elite Sport Development as a Key Policy Concern," Leisure Studies , vol. 23, no. 4 (2004), pp. 365-385.
  36. James G. McGann, 2019 Global Go to Think Tank Index Report (18/6/2020), TTCSP Global Go to Think Tank Index Reports 17, p. 229, accessed on 10/7/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3DYxCau
1Total citations
0From ACRPS journals
1External sources

Citing articles from external sources (1)

  1. Nadim Nassif, Grégoire Millet (2025) For a new world ranking of countries in elite sport—correlation between competition level and bibliometrics in Olympic sports. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 7 https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2025.1489652

Sources: Crossref Cited-by, and the references (notes and reference lists) of the Center's own articles

Downloads

PDF (Hosted in Arabic)
HTML (Arabic)

Published

2022-07-01

Article dates

Received: January 19, 2022 Revised: March 20, 2022 Accepted: June 1, 2022

Usage statistics

76 views 69 downloads

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 057 (2022): Issue 057

Section

Studies

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Nadim Nassif (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.