Sports, Society, and the State in the Middle East

To cite this publication: “Sports, Society, and the State in the Middle East,” CIRS Summary Report no. 29 (Doha, Qatar: Center for International and Regional Studies, 2020).

This Summary Report provides an overview of the CIRS research initiative on “Sports, Society, and the State in the Middle East.” In various shapes and forms, sports have served as vehicles and venues for political expression and engagement, economic development, national identity creation and assertion, as well as regional and international relations. This project adds to the scholarly interest in examining the role that sports have played in the contemporary socioeconomic, cultural, and political milieus of the region. Despite the significant evolution of the sports as a critical component of Middle Eastern society, there is limited literature investigating sports within the region and how it serves as a site of social reflection, reproduction, and resistance. Sports provides a lens through which to examine power, social inequality, governance and regulation, gender relations, and various other contours of how societies are shaped. Examining sports within the context of the contemporary Middle East provide for an alternate field for deepening our understanding of in state-society relations, political economy, and international relations.