Demystifying sportswashing: An assemblage theory perspective on authoritarian states’ investment in global sport

Brannagan, Paul Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4003-8420, Grix, Jonathan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7315-1641 and Norrito, Alessio ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7638-0773 (2025) Demystifying sportswashing: An assemblage theory perspective on authoritarian states’ investment in global sport. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. 13691481251352321. ISSN 1369-1481

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Abstract

The article makes an original and significant contribution to international relations in three notable ways. First, we show that international relations scholars should exercise caution in their use of ‘sportswashing’, a term that has swiftly grown in popularity to detail the process through which non-democratic states invest in sport to distract global audiences away from their illegitimate or immoral practices. In heavily critiquing the term, we expose four of sportswashing’s inherent weaknesses and fallacies. Second, we draw on assemblage theory to demonstrate that this process does not revolve around image politics alone (as sportswashing suggests) but is rather the result of a much broader set of mutual motivations and interests that exist between multiple stakeholders. Third, we advance what we term ‘sportsdirtying’, to demonstrate how, in fact, investment in sport inherently leads to a heightening of public awareness and critique of an authoritarian state’s socio-political issues.