Sports and politics, while not the most obvious of companions, nonetheless do have a storied relationship from the first games in ancient Olympia to the most recent modern Olympic games in Beijing. Sports have become more global, now that athletes traverse oceans and continents to compete. The politics of sports also are more complicated—and more interesting. South Korea is a quintessential case of how sports can be a major channel of globalization through which political signals can be communicated both intentionally and unintentionally. The political changes that occurred in South Korea between the awarding of the Olympic Games to Seoul in 1981 and their implementation in 1988 is a case study of how—under the world's watchful eye—host nations may feel compelled to embrace the liberal values of the Olympic ideal or risk embarrassment on the world stage.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Join us as Victor Cha discusses his new book, Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia, and reveals the fascinating dynamics of sports diplomacy on the Korean peninsula and across East Asia.

with

Victor Cha
Author, Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia
D.S. Song- Korea Foundation Chair in Asian Studies and Government, Georgetown University

About the Speaker
Victor Cha is D. S. Song-Korea Foundation Chair of Asian Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He also served as Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council from 2004 to 2007 and as Deputy Head of the U.S. delegation to the Six-Party Talks from 2006 to 2007.

He is the award-winning author of Alignment Despite Antagonism: The US-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (Stanford University Press, 1999) (winner of the 2000 Ohira book prize), and co-author of Nuclear North Korea (Columbia University Press, 2001).

Cha has published articles on international relations and East Asia in numerous journals and is a frequent contributor and guest analyst for various media, such as CNN, National Public Radio, and The New York Times

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