Football UN-ited: From the Game of War to the War of the Game

Abstract

This study presents the UN's narrative in the construction of the postwar world. Spanning a period of more than 70 years, this narrative is described through the parallel narrative of football as the game that everyone can play and win, regardless of size, attributes and abilities. Using the language of football through the words of Eduardo Galeano, the paper reveals a common history with different aspects, which is read largely in the light of Michel Foucault's thinking. In this respect, the UN is approached as fully adapted to a sovereign rationalism that organises reality by ordering each category of (international) political practice and discourse in terms of surveillance and suppression, while at the same time wielding, through its choice of strategies and techniques, a power that has a reformative and productive side. The basic aim of this study is to demonstrate, through the analogy with football, the dual nature of the UN through its application of technologies of power over the course of its lifelong operation.