Smart Sanctions, Hollow Gestures, and Multilateral Sport: New Zealand–Fiji Relations and the Politics of Professional Rugby, 1987–2011

This article traces the response of the New Zealand government to successive military coups in Fiji in 1987, 2000, and 2006 in the specific context of rugby contacts between the two countries and the strong nexus between rugby and political power in Fiji. It argues that the emergence of market-driven and globally focused sporting structures over the last three decades has fundamentally altered the relationship between sport and politics in New Zealand and the nature of sanctions it is willing to deploy—especially when compared with earlier debates over bilateral contact with apartheid South Africa.