The Cold War in Sports: The Relationship Between Performance Enhancing Drugs, Soft Power, and National Identity

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2017-06-15
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en
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Steroids and performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are today often seen as a tool that is ingrained in Eastern European, former Soviet, and above all Russian culture. The United States, however, also has an impressive history with doping. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the American side of doping more. The context in which this is done is the last 15 years of the Cold War. The second chapter will deal with the reality of doping by looking at the Summer Olympics events during that time period. The third chapter focuses on the perception of PEDs and steroids by Americans by looking at American popular culture of the 1980s. The social concept of national identity in relation to soft power will also be discussed in this chapter. In the fourth and final chapter the contrast between these two will be examined. Throughout this work the concept of soft power, coined by Joseph Nye Jr., will be central. The argument established in this thesis is that PEDs are both American and un-American at the same time.
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