Sport and Militarism

The institutional relationship between sport and the military appears to be intensifying. In the US for example, which faced global criticism for its foreign policy during the "war on terror," militaristic images are commonplace at sporting events. The growing global phenomenon of conflating sport with war calls for closer analysis. This critical, interdisciplinary and international book seeks to identify intersections of sport and militarism as a means to interrogate, interrupt and intervene on behalf of democratic, peaceful politics. Viewing sport as a crucial site in which militarism is made visible and legitimate, the book explores the connections between sport, the military and the state, and their consequent impact on wider culture. Featuring case studies on sports such as association football, baseball and athletics from countries including the US, UK, Germany, Canada, South Africa, Brazil and Japan, each chapter sheds new light on the shifting significance of sport in our society. This book is fascinating reading for all those interested in sport and politics, the sociology of sport, communication studies, the ethics and philosophy of sport, or military sociology.

"Required reading for those that study sport as a sociocultural fact, it is also indispensable to those that believe, naively, that sport and politics do not mix, and that the function of the present security forces, or military agents, in this scenery aims ‘only’ to ensure the continuity of this spectacle." - Prof Dr Katia Rubio, School of Physical Education and Sport, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Michael L. Butterworth is Director and Associate Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University, USA. His research investigates the relationships between rhetoric, democracy and sport. In particular, he is interested in the extent to which commercialized sport may enrich or diminish democratic culture. He is the author of Baseball and Rhetorics of Purity: The National Pastime and American Identity during the War on Terror (2010) and co-author of the textbook Communication and Sport: Surveying the Field (2014). He has published in journals such as Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Communication and Sport, Communication, Culture & Critique, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, the Journal of Communication, and the Quarterly Journal of Speech