The aim is to examine the limitations of the cosmopolitan view on sport and the role of international organizations in fostering sports as means of social reconciliation in conflict areas and promotion of human rights. The central argument indicates that the fact of bringing greater contact between different cultures does not mean that sport has the potential to make large-scale transformations in the interaction with the Other. Furthermore, the stimulus to social cooperation in sports has less to do with the elimination of longstanding hierarchies between differences than with the satisfaction of political and economic interests of various actors in the international system. It is possible to see the persistence of logocentric and dichotomous ways of thinking that characterize language and thought in the relationship between international relations and sport. International organizations - many are dominated by self-interested states - do little to incorporate the majority of people with less opportunities, and their initiatives to encourage sport for peace and development receive little funding, are poorly designed and do not act to promote an effective and large-scale transformation of disparaging views about the difference.
Sport; International relations; Cosmopolitanism; Foreign policy; International institutions