Abstract
The current paper presents a summary of the article “The Cold War on Ice: Constructivism and Politics of Olympic Figure Skating Judging” by Sala, Scott and Spriggs II. The article addresses the issues of the international political rivalries that took place at the time of the Cold War as well as the inherent rivalries after the Cold War was over. The rivalry between different nations seemed unusual depending on the data obtained by the researchers. Particularly, the authors of the article present a quantitative analysis of constructivist approach allied to international relations. It is worth noting that the researchers present the quantitative analysis by examining the biases of the judges in the Olympic figure skating competitions that took place from 1948 to 2002.
The article “The Cold War on Ice: Constructivism and Politics of Olympic Figure Skating Judging” examines the biasness of judges in the Olympic figure skating. Constructivism in this article has been used a school of thought allied to social sciences. The authors in this article make use of the methods championed by constructivism to investigate and analyze the extent at which biasness in regards to figuring skating judging adhered to the NATO/Warsaw Pact lines at a time of Cold War. The article analyzes whether judges gave higher scores to skaters from their nations compared to other nations or not. Or rather, do judges favor skaters from their own military or political block? Are the judges biased in such a way that they offer low scores to the skaters who emanate from nations perceived as enemies or rival to their nations (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007)? The aforementioned issues among other facets allied to judge biasness and to stereotype are what the article portends to analyze in regards to the judging of figure skating.
Interestingly, the Olympic Games have been used to promote politics among different countries. For instance, competition for medals at the time of Cold War always resulted in a proxy war between the West and East. Indeed, according to Sala, Scott, and Spriggs (2007), the athletes would enter into battles to depict their national prowess as well as ideological superiority to their audiences both from abroad and home. The period led to the tit-for –tat boycott experienced in the summer Olympics of 1980-1984. Memorable contests like the battle for hockey gold that took place at Lake Placid in 1980 were among the events that made the world uncertain. Politicians from America postulated the significance of acquiring athletic victory with the East German devoting about 66 percent of their GNP to all programs allied to sports (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007). Nations took sports serious because Olympics acted as a continuation of politics.
Most significantly, the skaters were from different nations. However, a small number of nations account for the bulk of the serious contenders for the medals won. The skaters also emanate from different nations and the skater who contended for the medals came from a smaller number of nations.
Results
Based on research done, a couple of the results obtained indicated that there was biasness within the Olympic and that some nations were favored more compared to other nations. Based on the statistics obtained from the research (without many details of the statistical figures), a high positive number depicts positive bias while negative bias was indicated by a high negative number (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007). Zero, on the other hand, implied that there was no bias for the general judging panel.
The data in (1948-1992), during Cold War and in (1994-2002), which was after the Cold War included:
The judges from the United States versus the skaters from the United States +.42 and + .43 (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007)
The judges from the USSR versus the skaters from USSR +.86 and + .57 (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007)
The judges from the United States versus the skaters from USSR -.17 and -.27 for the skaters of Russian and +.11 for SSR skaters (former) (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007).
The judges from the USSR versus the skaters from the United States -.22 and - .35 (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007)
The judges from the NATO versus the skaters from USSR -.19 and - .19 (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007)
The judges from Warsaw versus the skaters from the United States -.21 and -.16 (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007)
The impression gotten at first glance is that the positive bias appears stronger than the negative bias. Most importantly, the authors note that majority of the coaches, skaters, and judges representing the former Soviet bloc nations were Russians (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs 2007). The latter issue muddies the water more and makes the whole issue appear serious. It is interesting how judges unintentionally or intentionally skewed results by use of larger gaps or at other events by issuing higher marks to their favorite skaters and lower marks or score to the skaters who appeared to be their rivals or enemies.
Discussion
Therefore, it is clear evidence that the judges were biased in providing scored based on the level of rivalry they had with the skaters. After analyzing the judges through the study, the authors established a shred of evidence for constructivist approach allied to collective identity (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007). The judges gave score based on the friendship and their perception towards the skaters and their nationality.
In regards to international competition associated with the Olympic Games, the results depict positive biases of the skaters whose judges were their supporters or from the same nation (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007). Indeed, the authors agree that their outcome of the patriotic bias was not surprising because the judges being representatives of a nation self-interest and ideational or national identity interest and that is why they depicted patriotic bias in the results obtained.
Another interesting aspect during the era of Cold War is that helping behaviors of the judges were restricted to their nation and that there was no alliance or friendship for judges and skaters emanating from different nations (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007). Due the fact that the blocs were dependent on common interest, the findings obtained negative bias for the blocs that were rivals. It exhibits the distinction between the rivals and friends as discussed in majority of constructivist theories.
Additionally, the analysis of the bias bloc during the Cold War illustrated that the judges from NATO and Warsaw Pact nations perceived skater who came from the other opposing blocs as enemies (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007). As a result, they punished the alliance skaters who opposed them. The judges from the US, on the other hand, appeared to have tried because they depict much biasness against the Warsaw Pact skater or the Soviet. More so, the judges from the Soviet side exhibited increased biasness compared to the judges from the American side. For an instant, the judges constantly punished the skaters from Nato. However, impressively they failed to punish the skaters who came from the rivals of their superpower during the Cold War. Based on the finding, the judges from NATO depicted consistent negative biasness towards Soviet skaters and Warsaw Pact while the judges from the Warsaw
Therefore, the authors focused majorly on the bias allied to judges during the Cold War. During this period, there was a probability that the identities constituted by the west-east conflicts were internalized. The authors have also analyzed the bias exhibited in the period after the Cold War (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007). It enabled them to probe the changes that took place in regards to identity. Nevertheless, the authors agree that constructivist is not explicit on the rate at which the identities alter with structural variations when international systems are considered. Therefore, the authors were not able to derive predictions concerning the same.
The research, however, depicted that the bloc biases amongst the judges in all the former defense alliance boundaries experienced at the time of Cold War declined after the Cold War. Confirming and extending the analysis of the finding by identifying biasness of judges, in the future Olympics would have been impressive but the authors overly agree that such analysis would not be possible. The scandal experienced in the pair judging in the Olympics of 2002 led to the revision of the system of figure skating scoring. Indeed, from the games of 2006, which took place in Torino, judges did not recognize figure skating scores internationally (Sala, Scott, and Spriggs, 2007).
Conclusion
The article established an arena allied to international relations. In this observable arena, the impacts of identities integrated by actions of the states can be analyzed and address independent of the interests of the States' national security. Through the article, therefore, the researchers overcomes the issue of observational equivalence, which besets the analysis associated with constructivist approaches as well as conducted a quantitative analysis. The authors have thus, managed to offer evidence manifest evidence for a constructivist approach which would be persuasive to individuals who are not constructivists.
Reference
Sala, B. R., Scott, J. T., & Spriggs, J. F. (2007). The Cold War on ice: Constructivism and the politics of Olympic figure skating judging.Perspectives on Politics, 5(01), 17-29.
