The diplomatic roles of Korean state-run sport for development programs

Abstract

The Korean government established the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in April 1991 as an agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to design and execute most of its official development assistance (ODA) grants. Since then, KOICA has administered two forms of Korean sport grants: sport aid projects (e.g. the construction of sport facilities and provision of sport equipment) and sport technical cooperation programs (sport volunteering and Taekwondo coaching programs). Drawing on Murray’s (2018) categorization of sport diplomacy, as well as Foucauldian discourse analysis, we examine how KOICA sport initiatives have, over three decades, operated to support the government's foreign policy and diplomatic goals. The findings reveal that KOICA sport initially prioritized elite sport development in an approach akin to traditional sport diplomacy. Now, however, it appears to have adopted global sport for development (SFD) strategies with a focus on social development, in line with a new sport-oriented, public diplomacy approach. Through the combination of these two strategies, the role played by KOICA sport as a diplomatic tool of the Korean state has become more sophisticated.