05/11/2026
By Lena Siemers

The College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (FAHSS), Global Studies Program, invites you to attend a proposal defense by Ronald Kravette on “The Symbolic Power of Sport: Sports Sanctions and the Delegitimization of States Case Studies: Apartheid South Africa and Post-2022 Russia.”

Name: Ronald Kravette
Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Time: 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Location: Zoom meeting

Dissertation Committee:

  • Chair: Angélica Durán-Martínez, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science, Director of Global Studies Ph.D. program, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • innie Minhyung Joo, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Jeff Gerson, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Abstract:

This dissertation examines sports sanctions as instruments of symbolic power in international politics. It asks how sports sanctions affect perceptions of state legitimacy in two major cases: Russia during its war of aggression in Ukraine since 2022, and South Africa during the apartheid era from 1961 through 1992. It also asks how athletes, sport officials, media actors, and spectators interpret these sanctions, and whether their views depend on the perceived legitimacy of the sanctioning authorities themselves. The dissertation argues that sports sanctions do not independently delegitimize a target state. Rather, they may intensify and publicly display delegitimization already produced by severe human-rights abuses or violations of international law. Participation in global sport functions as a visible arena of recognition, while exclusion from sport may operate as a symbolic withdrawal of legitimacy. This process, however, is not automatic. It depends on how institutions, media sources, and stakeholders interpret both the target state and the organizations imposing sanctions. To investigate these questions, the study uses a qualitatively driven design. It combines coding of institutional discourse, sport federation statements, global media commentary, and current stakeholder interviews since the Russian invasion began. The analysis builds on approximately twenty-five previously conducted interviews and examines predetermined delegitimizing language across cases, time periods, regions, and stakeholder groups. By comparing apartheid South Africa and contemporary Russia, this dissertation contributes to scholarship on sanctions, legitimacy, symbolic power, and global sport governance. It develops the concept of Sporting Community Legitimacy (SCL) to explain how participation in global sport may confer recognition, and how exclusion may mark a state as outside the community of acceptable international actors.