Olympism and International Relations from Pierre de Coubertin to the Present Day
Olympism and International Relations from Pierre de Coubertin to the Present DayFriday, June 14, 2024 | 14:35-15:05 | Salle 262 & Online
All presentation times are UTC + 2 (Europe/Paris)The Olympic Games – the biggest event on the planet – are in reality hanging by a single thread: the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) ability to convince cities and the states to which they belong to organise them. Although history shows that this thread is tenuous, it has never broken, even when competing organisations (YMCA, Catholic, feminist, socialist, communist, third world) have sprung up. Established in 1894 on the basis of a gentlemen's agreement, without statutes until 1981, and still based on the principle of co-option, the IOC has survived two world wars, the Cold War, and economic globalisation.
In actuality, the Olympic world is not exactly the political world. The IOC is at the head of a parallel world that has its own logic and its own rules. Its overall architecture is based primarily on the International Sports Federations and the National Olympic Committees. However, it has also come to forge reciprocal links with major media organisations, multinational companies, numerous non-governmental organisations, and even the United Nations.
How can such hegemony be explained? And, is it here to stay? How should we interpret the IOC's demands for autonomy and neutrality? Will it survive the current war on sport waged by Russia against the democracies?
Patrick Clastres
Dr Patrick Clastres is a political and cultural historian involved in sports history and geopolitics.
Since 2015, he’s served as Professor of Sports History in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (ISSUL) at Lausanne University, Switzerland, where he coordinates the independent Global Sport & Olympic Studies Center (CEOGS).
The Global Sport & Olympic Center’s academic activities are primarily concerned with play culture, sport, and olympics at different scales, varying from local to global. The longue durée historical approach – the core aspect of this academic project – is conceived as a dialogue with not only sport history, but all social sciences. The Center’s monthly workshop is open to every student and scholar from UNIL, Swiss universities, and from all over the world.
Dr Clastres’ research focuses on the history and geopolitics of international sport, more specifically on the ruling elites of international sports federations and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as well as the genesis and diffusion of sports cultures in the world. More generally, he is interested in the concepts of neutrality and apoliticism, the epistemology of history, and the relationship between literary genre and biographical essay.
Dr Clastres has published or co-edited 10 books and more than 50 peer-reviewed articles.
About the Presenter(s)
Patrick Clastres is from Lausanne University, Switzerland
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