As communities continue to be pressured by economic, social and cultural changes, sport is frequently advocated as one means by which communities can respond to interdependent ‘wicked’ policy problems resulting from the continually evolving pressures of globalization. Sport is often seen as a mechanism or conduit for assisting communities in maintaining cohesion and building both social and economic capacity. While the potential for individual benefits from sport involvement is well documented, for many policymakers the more fundamental and important concern is the potential for positive externalities to be aggregated to the broader community or social level. Long and Sanderson (2001:187) argued there is a ‘belief that benefits accrue beyond the individual in ways that support community development and regeneration’, while Coalter (2007) suggested that sport has achieved a relatively high profile in recent years partly due to assumptions about its potential in areas such as social and economic regeneration, crime, health and education. Green (2007) argued that a number of governments increas- ingly utilize sport to realize an array of objectives in a range of different policy sectors. For example, Green (2004:374) indicated that the 2002 UK sport policy ‘Game Plan’ pointed to ‘the symbiotic, and overtly instrumental, relationship between sport (and increased physical activity, in general), educa- tion and health policy’. Houlihan, Bloyce and Smith (2009:5) noted that
‘governments tend to treat sport in an extremely instrumental manner, seeing it as highly malleable and visible, but relatively low-cost response, to a number of non-sport problems ranging from nation building to social welfare’.
These expectations of sport have been partly encouraged by the emergence over the past decade of ‘third way’, ‘active citizenship’, ‘social coalition’ and
‘mutual obligation’ policies, which have direct relevance to sport and have also incorporated elements of sport into broader policy initiatives. In essence, third-way policies represent a shift in the focus of delivery from direct govern- ment service provision to ‘whole of government’ partnerships with private and third-sector agencies. Sport seems well-positioned to have an impact on a range of policy outcomes given the extent of its broad popular appeal (espe- cially in the sense of the ‘imagined community’), levels and nature of individ- ual involvement and the economic scope of the sport industry. Thus, there has been a growing fascination among many national governments with the role of sport in delivering a raft of ‘non-sport’ outcomes to communities. Such benefits are frequently conceptualized within terms such as ‘social capital’,
‘social regeneration’ and/or ‘social inclusion’. But, because of sport’s increas- ing business and commercial elements, government policy now intersects with areas beyond the community regeneration/social inclusion agenda, such as broadcasting, gambling and economic development.
The increasing demands being made on sport should be considered in rela- tion to the argument from Parrish (2008:80) that sports have ‘long contended that the special characteristics of sport place them outside the normal scope of state regulatory oversight’. So, while sports would like to continue to be self- determining, Parrish (2008:80) concludes that (in Europe at least):
The plea for self regulation has received conditional support from nation states and the EU. This is because whilst the specificity of sport justifies limitations on states’ control over sport, it also encumbers the governing bodies with social responsibilities not generally shared by ‘normal’ industries. Sport therefore has a public function and the expansion of its social and economic significance and its growing organisational sophistication and internationalisation has attracted increased interest from public policy makers. Sport is used as a tool of nation building (particularly when sporting
individuals and teams assume a representative function at European and World Championships), as a provision of a public good, as a tool for health promotion, as a means of combating social exclusion, as a tool for crime prevention, as a vehicle for economic
development and as a tool of foreign policy.
Policy Intersections with Sport 7
Houlihan (1997:109) argued that the ‘trend over the past thirty years has clearly been for central governments to become more closely involved in sport and to seek to exploit sports in pursuit of a broad range of domestic and international policy objectives’. Chalip (1996:viii) suggested that, ‘the study of sports policies can tell us a great deal about our most instrumental policy concerns’, while Green and Houlihan (2005) concluded that govern- ments viewed sport almost exclusively in instrumental terms. Green (2006) argued that sport programs in the UK had been linked to realising social welfare policy goals in sectors, such as education, health, social exclusion/
inclusion, drug abuse and safety, and the family. Green (2004:374) also noted that regional sport organizations were being encouraged to contribute to issues such as ‘health, education, crime reduction, community cohesion and social inclusion, neighbourhood and community regeneration, and economic growth and sustainability’.
While such politically salient functions for sport might be attractive because they appear to underpin the ‘value’ of sport, the inherent non- instrumental qualities of sport might conversely be perceived as less impor- tant. Another theme evident in a number of analyses of the evolution of sport policy development suggests that ‘conspicuous by its absence is any sus- tained attempt to defend the promotion of sport for its intrinsic benefits, thus creating a situation where the advocates of sports development were fre- quently those with little direct involvement in sport, but with a view as to how it could contribute to their own policy objectives’ (Houlihan, 1997:22).
Similarly, Green (2006) suggested that the change in policy priorities accom- panied by the expanding intersection of sport with other sectors meant that sport policy initiatives have shifted in emphasis from those designed ‘for sport’ to those seeking extraneous benefits ‘from sport’. While it might also be the case that the formation of links between sport and other functions means that sport has the potential to influence these agendas, it appears that so far, sport has generally fulfilled a secondary role as governments (rather than pluralist policy networks or communities) seek to increase their control over policy. This view is summarized by Green (2006:228):
In sum, on the one hand, ‘sport’ in general now enjoys a far higher political saliency than at any time over the past 40 years. On the other hand, this increased saliency has to be tempered by the realization that government is also now ‘shaping’ sport policy development with a far tighter hand than ever before.
As indicated by Houlihan (1997), the sport policy network has not always featured centrally in framing policy responses with the other areas that engage or intersect with sport policy. As a ‘policy taker’, the sport sector frequently plays
a secondary role in framing policy interventions in some of the broader social and economic areas. Consequently, sport has little control over the directions in which it is pushed and the responsibilities and expectations placed upon it through both regulatory and enabling policy initiatives. As a result, lead central agencies, such as the ASC, Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC), Sport Canada and Sport England, are in danger of losing touch with their grass-roots constituency if they miss the opportunity for relevance and influence as sport policy intersections continue to expand. For example, if these agencies con- ceptualize community capacity building only in the context of sport’s elite- participation dichotomy, then they will have only a limited capacity to influence policy development in areas and issues of intersection. Green (2007:944) argued that objectives in other areas are either peripheral or exist only to support elite sport objectives and thus ‘it is the commitment to the elite level that frames strategic thinking and specific policy objectives’. By not engaging fully in a com- prehensive array of future challenges, it is likely, therefore, that sport policy might evolve primarily through other related areas. Without increased involve- ment from the broader sport policy community in solving systemic wicked pol- icy problems, the future of sport may be delegated to other policy communities with limited knowledge and understanding of the sport sector.