Tuesday, 19 March, 2024

Major Parties

The authors study the role of sport in conflict and communication between North Korea and South Korea and conclude that sport has been used as a vehicle for expressing the ideological confrontation and conflict between North and South Korea. At the same time, inter-Korean sports exchanges that are free from ideological or political purposes can help to enhance the relationship between the two Koreas. Thus, even though it is difficult to free sport from politics, as it is largely funded by the state and structured according to long-term plans driven at either the governmental or non-governmental level, inter-Korean sports exchanges are important as they seek to promote peaceful coexistence and eventually contribute to the reunification of the divided Korean peninsula. Holton (1998) has asserted that globalization is the key idea of one single world or human society, in which all regional, national, and local elements are tied together in one interdependent whole’.

 

Some regard globalisation as a negative phenomenon that represents the dominance of Western economic and cultural interests over the rest of the world (Bairner, 2001), arguing that it tends to create a homogeneous global society, thus causing economic, cultural, ideological and political conflict. Others believe that globalisation speeds up the diffusion of ideas, goods, information, capital and people, and offers ‘the opportunity for greater democratization, increased education and health care, and new possibilities within the global economy that provide entry to members of races, regions, and classes’.

 

The economic and political impacts of globalisation on Asian countries are discussed by Niall Duggan and Kamila Szczepanska in their chapter on ‘Political Responses to the Economic Crisis: China, Japan and South Korea’. Duggan and Szczepanska examine the reactions of China, Japan and South Korea to the on-going financial crisis in the European Union (EU) in the context of globalisation.

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