International hostility and aggressiveness on the soccer pitch Evidence from European Championships and World Cups for the period 2000-2012

Caruso, Raul and Di Domizio, Marco (2013): International hostility and aggressiveness on the soccer pitch Evidence from European Championships and World Cups for the period 2000-2012.

Abstract

Some Researchers consider soccer matches as the stylization of a war in other battlefields. Such approach was largely used to interpret the violent phenomena related to the soccer environment, while less attention has been paid to the «potential» role of political and economic interactions between countries in determining the aggressive attitude of players on the pitch. In our paper we empirically investigate if and how political hostility among countries reverberates on a soccer pitch by influencing players’ aggressiveness. The analysis focuses on official matches played by national teams in the final phases of the European and World Cup tournaments since 2000. We estimate a Negative Binomial regression including both political and sport variables, and we find that (a) commercial hostility; (b) the level of diplomatic relationships, (c) power asymmetry and (d) education gap between countries are positively and significantly associated with aggressiveness of the players on the pitch, approximated by the number of yellow and red cards. That is, briefly stated, international hostility reverberates into the pitch. Moreover, sport covariates present the expected signs, namely results show that the closeness of the teams, their ranking and the stage of the game (knockout stages with respect to the group phases) are also crucial in determining the cautions.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: international hostility, diplomacy, aggressiveness on the pitch, soccer, football.
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy > F51 - International Conflicts ; Negotiations ; Sanctions; F - International Economics > F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy > F52 - National Security ; Economic Nationalism; F - International Economics > F6 - Economic Impacts of Globalization > F69 - Other; L - Industrial Organization > L8 - Industry Studies: Services > L83 - Sports ; Gambling ; Restaurants ; Recreation ; Tourism

References

Bandura A (1973) Aggression: A social learning analysis. Englewood Cliffs (NJ): Prentice-Hall.

Barlett S and Straume S (2007) Sports-for-development monitoring and valuation consultancy – Final Report. Washington: Inter-American Development Bank.

Boulding KE (1973) The Economy of Love and Fear. Belmont (CA): Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Boulding KE (1978) Ecodynamics: a New Theory of Societal Evolution. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.

Caruso R (2008), Il Calcio tra Mercato, Relazioni e Coercizione. Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport 4(1): 71-88.

Caruso R. (2009), The Basic Economics of Match-Fixing in Sport Tournaments, Economic Analysis and Policy, 39(3): 355-377.

Caruso R., (2010), On the nature of Peace Economics, Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, 16(2): art.1

Caruso R (2011) Crime and Sport Participation, Evidence from Italian regions over the period 1997-2003. Journal of Socio-Economics: 40(5): 455-463.

Caruso R and Di Domizio M (2012) Hooliganism and demand for football in Italy – Evidence for the period 1962-2011. Catholic University of Sacred Heart – Milan: Institute of Political Economy Working Paper No. 62.

Cuesta J and Bohórquez C (2012) Soccer and national culture: estimating the impact of violence on 22 lads after a ball. Applied Economics 44(2): 147-161.

Cooper J (1989) The Military and Higher Education in The USSR. Annals Of The American Academy of Political And Social Science 502: 108-119.

Downward P and Riordan J (2007) Social Interactions and the Demand of Sport: An Economic Analysis. Contemporary Economic Policy 25: 518-537.

Dawson P, Dobson S, Goddard J and Wilson J (2007) Are football referees really biased and inconsistent?: evidence on the incidence of disciplinary sanction in the English Premiere League. Journal of Royal Statistic Society 170(1): 231-250.

Elias N and Dunning E (1986) Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process. Oxford (UK): Basil Blackwell.

Dunning E (1999) Sport matters. Sociological studies on sport, violence and civilization. London: Routledge.

Giulianotti R, Bonney N and Hepworth M (eds) (1994) Football, Violence and Social Identity. London: Routledge.

Green W (2008) Functional Forms for the negative binomial model for count data. Economic Letters 99: 585-590.

Kapuściński R (1991) The Soccer War. New York: Random House.

Hirschman AO (1945/1980) National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.

Howell R (1975) The USSR, Sport and Politics Intertwined. Comparative Education 11: 137-145.

Leeson PT, Smith DJ and Snow NA (2012) Hooligans. Revue D’Économie Politique 122(2): 213-231.

Marie O (2011) Police and Thieves in the Stadium: Measuring the (Multiple) Effects of Football Matches on Crime. Maastricht University: Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market Working Paper No. 05.

Miguel E, Satyanath S and Saiegh SM (2008) National cultures and soccer violence. Cambridge (USA): NBER Working Paper 13968.

Milanovic B (2005) Globalization and goals: does the soccer show the way?. Review of International Political Economy 12: 829-850.

Nevill AM, Balmer NJ and Williams AM (2002) The influence of crowd noise and experience upon refereeing decision in football. Psychology of Sport and Exercise 3: 261-272.

Poutvaara P and Priks M (2008) The effect of police intelligence on group violence: Evidence from reassignments in Sweden. Journal of Public Economics 93: 403-411.

Riordan J (1993) The Rise and Fall of Soviet Olympic Champions. Olympika, The International Journal of Olympic Studies 2: 25-44.

Riordan J (1974) Soviet Sport and Soviet Foreign Policy. Soviet Studies 26: 322-343.

Singer JD (1987) Reconstructing the Correlates of War Dataset on Material Capabilities of States, 1816-1985. International Interactions 14: 115-132.

Singer JD, Bremer S and Stuckey J (1972) Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820-1965. In B. Russett (eds) Peace, War, and Numbers. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, pp. 19-48.

Small M (1977) Doing Diplomatic History by the Numbers: a Rejoinder. Journal of Conflict Resolution 21: 23-34.

Small M and Singer JD (1966) The Composition and Status Ordering of the International System: 1815-1940. World Politics 18: 236-282.

Small M and Singer JD (1973) The Diplomatic Importance of States, 1816-1970: an Extensions and Refinement of the Indicator. World Politics 25: 577-599.

Spaaij R (2008) Men like us, boys like them. Journal of sports and Social Issues 32: 369-392.

Torgler B (2006) ‘Historical Excellence’ in soccer World Cup tournaments: empirical evidence with data from 1930-2002. Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport 2(1): 101-117.

Verbeek M (2004), A Guide to Modern Econometrics – 2nd ed. Chichester (UK): John Wiley and Sons.