TY - JOUR A1 - Scharpf, Adam A1 - Gläßel, Christian A1 - Edwards, Pearce T1 - International sports events and repression in autocracies: Evidence from the 1978 FIFA World Cup JF - American Political Science Review N2 - How do international sports events shape repression in authoritarian host countries? International tournaments promise unique gains in political prestige through global media attention. However, autocrats must fear that foreign journalists will unmask their wrongdoings. We argue that autocracies solve this dilemma by strategically adjusting repression according to the spatial-temporal presence of international media. Using original, highly disaggregated data on the 1978 World Cup, we demonstrate that the Argentine host government largely refrained from repression during the tournament but preemptively cleared the streets beforehand. These adjustments specifically occurred around hotels reserved for foreign journalists. Additional tests demonstrate that (1) before the tournament, repression turned increasingly covert, (2) during the tournament, targeting patterns mirrored the working shifts of foreign journalists, (3) after the tournament, regime violence again spiked in locations where international media had been present. Together, the article highlights the human costs of megaevents, contradicting the common whitewashing rhetoric of functionaries. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055422000958 VL - 117 IS - 3 SP - 909 EP - 926 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gläßel, Christian A1 - Scharpf, Adam A1 - Edwards, Pearce T1 - Does sportswashing work? First insights from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar JF - The Journal of Politics N2 - Can autocrats use major sports tournaments to shift public opinion abroad? This short article conducts the first social scientific test of whether authoritarian host regimes win the desired image boost through sports mega-events. We analyze original data from a two-wave public opinion survey in Germany fielded before and right after the start of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. We find that among German respondents, the tournament start i) did not improve Qatar’s image, but ii) increased sympathies for the Arab world, and iii) fueled criticism of the media, the quality of democracy, and the inclusion of minorities within Germany. Our findings reveal that international sports events may benefit an autocrat’s entire region, while heightening polarization in foreign democracies. Together, this offers first insights into the various effects of sportswashing and autocratic image campaigns. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1086/730728 SN - 0022-3816 PB - University of Chicago Press ER -