Rethinking Diplomatic and Development Outcomes through Sport: Toward a Participatory Paradigm of Multi-Stakeholder Diplomacy

Sport diplomacy provides a challenging example of how diplomatic practice is changing in light of a proliferation of actors, agendas, and modes of communication. This context has inspired greater interest in techniques for managing the participation of others in the pursuit of desired outcomes, such as debates surrounding multi-stakeholder diplomacy, public diplomacy, and soft power. However, these debates often derive from an instrumentalist perspective of exerting influence and securing outcomes. Sport, on the other hand, involves sites and practices capable of supporting communities in the identification of their own goals, and of supporting the development of strategies and skills that can achieve those goals. Its participatory qualities challenge instrumentalist approaches to diplomatic objective setting, and potentially reveal some of the ways in which diplomacy can be more diffuse and inclusive. This article uses the example of sport diplomacy to question the basis for instrumentalist diplomatic objective setting and to explore the theoretical basis for participatory models of multi-stakeholder diplomacy.