What is the definition of democracy?

Ancient Greek democracy.

Cleisthenes introduced demokratia (rule by the people) in 507 BCE. It was not what we think of as democracy today, because only a small percentage of the population was allowed to take part: male citizens older than 18. Women were not allowed, nor were slaves, who made up the majority of the population. It is estimated that out of a population of about 250,000, only an average of about 40,000 (16%) were permitted to take part in Athenian democracy. Of these 40,000, usually fewer than 6,000 men actually attended the ekklesia (assembly) because the rest were too busy serving in the military or making a living. Still, those who did attend were free to speak and vote, and decisions were made by majority vote. The ekklesia was run by nine presidents, who were chosen by lot.

Day-to-day decisions were made by the boule (Counsel of Five Hundred), who were also chosen by lot, as were the members of the dikasteria, the court system. These jurors had to be at least 30 years old.

Among the many gifts that ancient Greek democracy has given the modern world are freedom of speech, term limits, a system of checks and balances, and, when deciding certain issues, a secret ballot.

Pericles, in his famous funeral oration of 431 BCE, stressed that:

When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty.

Of course, this only applied to the small percentage of the population who were allowed to take part. And majority rule could be flawed, because many voters were ill-informed or easily influenced by powerful individuals. For example, it was a majority vote that condemned Socrates to death in 399 BCE, although this was during a brief interlude when the jurors were appointed rather than chosen by lot.

Modern democracy

Many of the basic principles of ancient Greek democracy have been retained by modern democracies, while some have been improved upon and others, such as having leaders chosen by lot, have been almost forgotten.

Most legitimate democracies today recognize the necessity of the separation of powers, with an executive branch, a legislative branch and a judicial branch.

The definition of basic human rights has been expanded to include freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of movement, freedom of the press, the right to a free public trial, gender equality, and protection of the rights of ethnic and sexual minorities. Modern democratic values also emphasize good governance—the elimination of corruption.

The ancient Greek use of direct democracy, with all attendees of the ekklesia having an equal vote, has been replaced by representative democracy. Andwith representative democracy has come increased citizen alienation from the democratic process. In some democracies, such as that of the United States (my

country), it is possible to finish in second place in a presidential election and still become president. Indeed, that is exactly what has happened in two of the last five US presidential elections.

In addition, modern democratic governments often restrict basic freedoms by invoking concerns about national security.

When does democracy occur in sport?

Democracy in sport institutions

The use of majority rule in the elections held by sports institutions is almost unheard of, except at extremely local levels. For example, football players and their supporters do not vote to decide who will lead FIFA, swimmers do not vote to decide who will lead FINA; and skiers do not vote to decide who will lead FIS. Athletes and fans do not take part in decisions regarding rule changes or contracts, either.

This lack of democracy was clearly displayed on 3 April 2017, when the administration of the National Hockey League (NHL) announced that NHL players would not be taking part in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, despite the majority of NHL players appearing to be in favour of participation. This happened because the decision was made not by the players—or the fans—but by the team owners.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is even less democratic than most sport institutions, because new members are voted in by the existing members. Although the composition of the IOC may not reflect the ideals of modern democracy, when IOC members do vote to decide which city will host upcoming Summer and Winter Games, they do so by secret ballot and a winner is not announced until a majority are in agreement.

However, when IOC President Thomas Bach presented his Olympic Agenda 2020, and each of its 40 recommendations were voted on separately by the full membership of the IOC on 8 December 2014, every one of the 40 recommendations was approved by a unanimous vote. There was not a single vote against any of the recommendations, nor a single abstention. This sort of unanimity is common in dictatorships but unusual in democracies.

When FIFA voted to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, it did so thanks to the votes of just fourteen people—members of FIFA’s 22-person executive committee. Accusations of corruption were so widespread that the leadership of FIFA was forced to authorize the investigative branch of its Ethics Committee to look into the suspicions of bribery surrounding the vote. Yet when the investigation was complete and the Garcia Report, as it was known, turned in, the FIFA leadership refused to release the report to the public, leading its head investigator, Michael Garcia, to resign.

Respect for democratic values in the Olympic Movement

The 206 nations that are members of the Olympic Movement are a mixture of democracies, partial democracies and dictatorships. In fact, some of them are not even nations; they are colonies, although other terms are used to describe their legal status. These include American Samoa, Aruba, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Hong Kong, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Puerto Rico, the British Virgin Islands and the US Virgin Islands. Like the United Nations, the Olympic Movement attempts to include all the peoples of the world. However, to do so, it must turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses and anti-democratic policies of the rulers of some of these nations.

The IOC has taken a stand at times, for example when it expressed its opposition to the Apartheid system of racial discrimination by banning South Africa from the Olympic Games between 1964 and 1988. The IOC also banned Yugoslavia from taking part in the 1992 Summer Games, but allowed individual athletes from Yugoslavia to take part as “Independent Olympic Participants”.

The IOC has pushed for gender equality, not only by adding more events for women, but also by pressuring reactionary Muslim dictatorships to include female athletes in their Olympic teams.

In general, however, the IOC has tolerated government behaviour that would have made Pericles wince. The most famous example was allowing Adolf Hitler to host the 1936 Olympics, despite the Nazis’ repugnant and far from secret racial policies.

In 1968, when US athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos made a silent, non-violent protest at the medal ceremony for the 200 metres event, the leaders of the IOC pressured the United States to send the two athletes home, which they did.

More recently, the IOC allowed China to ignore international human rights norms when it hosted the 2008 Beijing Summer Games. China is a large and powerful nation with rich cultural and historical traditions. However, the Chinese Communist Party controls all media and does not allow freedom of speech or freedom of assembly. When the IOC demanded that the Chinese government provide free-speech zones during the Games, the Chinese government seemed to comply. However, while 77 applications were made to demonstrate, none were approved, and some Chinese citizens who applied were arrested and sent to “re-education through labour” camps. Far from punishing the Chinese government for violating its promises, the IOC voted just seven years later to allow China to host the Olympics again, this time the 2022 Winter Games.

How does the mass media cover democracy and good governance in sport?

All of us here today know very well that at the heart of the Olympic Movement lies a set of values which promote a better world. When the athletes of 206 countries (and colonies) gather at the opening ceremony of the Summer Games and then back at the Athletes’ Village, it is the only time and place where people of all races, religions and economic levels come together (at the United Nations, each nation is represented by well-educated elites). Pierre de Coubertin’s famous quote still holds: “The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the battle. The essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well”.

Yet we rarely hear these positive aspects of the Olympic Games expressed in the mass media. The primary reason for this is that negative stories attract more attention than positive stories, and that more attention means higher ratings and higher ratings mean more revenue for television channels and other media companies.

Please allow me to illustrate this problem from my own experience. I have attended seventeen Olympics, both Summer and Winter, and have worked as a print journalist, a radio commentator and a television commentator. I have also been interviewed by the media of more than a dozen countries.

In the run-up to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games, I was repeatedly asked if the Games would be a catastrophe and, specifically, if people should avoid going because of the dual threats of terrorism and the Zika virus. When I told them that a terrorist attack in Brazil was unlikely and that the Games were taking place during the wrong season for the spread of Zika, many of the interviewers were clearly disappointed. They seemed relieved when, instead, I showed concern about corruption and poor organization. When I pointed out that the stories of the 11,000 athletes who would be competing were what we should be looking forward to, most interviewers wanted to return to the question of what could go wrong.

But even the desire to report bad news can be overshadowed by media executives’ desire to increase revenue. Prior to and during the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, most of the media did not want to offend the Chinese government, the future source of a large market. I visited Beijing one year before the opening ceremony. Among the people I interviewed was Wang Hui, the executive deputy director for the Beijing Organizing Committee’s Media and Communications Department and a long-time member of the Chinese Communist Party. When I asked her about various human rights issues, such as internet censorship and executions for non-violent crimes, she seemed startled, as if, despite the dozens and even hundreds of interviews she had given around the world, she was not used to being asked such questions. When I asked her how she could justify the use of forced abortions, she replied that it was part of China’s policy to improve the environment. Wang is now the spokesperson for the Beijing 2022 Winter Games.

A year later, I was working as a commentator for US radio, credentialed through the American television network NBC. Once upon a time, NBC was an independent media company, but since 1986 it had been owned by General Electric which, as a heavy investor in China, was a sponsor of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and had contracts to provide power generation, energy distribution, lighting, water treatment and security for the Games. NBC on-air announcers told me that they had been instructed not to say anything negative about China, which included avoiding the subject of human rights abuses. If they learned anything negative, they were told to report it to the executive office rather than to the public.

I am a member of the International Olympic Committee’s Culture and Olympic Heritage Commission. In 2015, our annual meeting happened to take place four days after the World Anti-Doping Agency released its first report about Russia’s government-sponsored doping programme. IOC President Thomas Bach spoke to our commission about his shock and anger. But he also conveyed to us his frustration, because whenever he or anyone else in the Olympic Movement tries to tell a positive story about what the Olympics achieves, the mass media simply is not interested. Unfortunately, I knew from personal experience exactly what he was talking about.

President Bach urged us all to not give up and to continue to tell the media that the Olympics is about more than scandals and corruption. Without ignoring such issues, I have tried to do just that. Now that you have spent a few days here in Olympia, I hope that you will do the same.

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WALLECHINSKY David,"The Mass Media and Democracy in Sport", in:K. Georgiadis(ed.), Ethics,Education and Governance in the Olympic Movement, 57thInternational Session for Young Participants (Ancient Olympia,17/6-1/7/2017),International Olympic Academy, Athens, 2018, pp.136-141.

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