Sportswashing is a process of trying to improve a state’s reputation via sport. A state which systematically infringe on its citizens human rights has, more than likely, a bad reputation internationally, something that it tries to alter by drawing attention to sports related events.The desirable result which sportswashing is meant to accomplish is the minimisation of, or the distraction away from the human rights violation. Ultimately, the responsibility is on the sportswashing state, but according to earlier research sportswashing has two unintended consequences, namely 1) it corrupts sport and its innate values, 2) it makes people involved in sports in different ways complicit in human rights violations. Therefore, everyone has a moral responsibility to counteract sportswashing. The purpose of this master thesis is to establish how the responsibility for sportswashing should be distributed. The media and earlier research claims that athletes have a responsibility to counteract sportswashing. This paper formulates two questions regarding moral responsibility and sportswashing: 1) To what extent do athletes have a moral responsibility to counteract sportswashing? 2) to what extent do sports organizations have a moral responsibility to counteract sportswashing? To answer these questions 27 media articles were analysed by an analysis of argumentation, this to establish claims to why or why not athletes or sports organizations have a moral responsibility to counteract sportswashing. The following step of the analysis was the critical analysis of the claim’s logic plausibility, its tenability, and lastly its normative plausibility. The results indicate that sports organizations have the moral responsibility, although the athletes are not morally responsible for sportswashing, they are responsible for their participation in moral wrong that sportswashing produces. Therefore, if or when, sports organizations are unwilling to or unable to counteract sportswashing, athletes have a moral responsibility to put pressure on these organizations and oppose the social norms and values that condone sportswashing. The amount of responsibility that an athlete will receive will be based on the power to act, which is established by analysing an athlete’s power capital, i.e. economic power, cultural standing, political power, and lastly, discursive influence.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-502782 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Björkegren, Johan |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
Page generated in 0.0027 seconds