The (soft) power of sport: The comprehensive and contradictory strategies of Cuba's sport-based internationalism

Abstract

The Cuban government creates and seeks opportunities to engage in collaboration, diplomacy, commerce, and trade in order to pursue its own concepts of progressive international development, which involves garnering much needed hard currency and political benefits for its national interests. Such strategies include the organisation and deployment of sport and physical activity programmes. Based on our analysis of, and interactions with, Cuba’s Ministry of Sport – the Instituto Nacional de Deportes, Educacion Fisica y Recreacion (INDER) – we suggest that INDER pursues both sport development and sport for development – at home and abroad – while simultaneously seeking economic benefits through its for-profit enterprise division named Cubadeportes. The implications of this comprehensive and sometimes contradictory approach are considered, in terms of politics, policy, internationalism and the place of sport therein.