“Oh Sport, you are the World”: On the Interaction of Power and Sport in the Russian Regions. Power and Elites

Abstract

This work is devoted to the problem of the interaction of sports and power in the Russian region. The main research attention in the work is focused on the analysis of the political and administrative segments of the regional elite of the Republic of Dagestan, its sports rhetoric in the post-Soviet period, considered the phenomenon of “sporting politics”. The subject of the research is the symbiosis of formal and informal practices in the process of functioning of the political regional elite. Between politics and sport in the region there is, on the one hand, an active merger of politics and sport (the phenomenon of politics sportizatsiya), on the other hand, politics, according to the figurative expression of J. Baudrillard, goes beyond the limits of the actual political field and penetrates all public spheres (culture , economics, spiritual power, education). Regional sport turns out to be an arena for expression and fullfilling of the interests of various social agents and, first of all, of power groups influencing the processes taking place inside the sports institution. 

Content (in russ)