From corporatism to open networks? Structural changes in German sport policy-making

Abstract

Since the Second World War, policy-making in German sport has strongly relied on neo-corporatist arrangements where the sport associations possess negotiation capacities as well as co-regulatory skills and enjoy routine access to the government. Recently, however, a number of neo-corporatist arrangements in Germany have been eroding or have been completely refined. Accordingly, interest group involvement has been transformed from neo-corporatism into competitive corporatism or into more ‘open’ policy networks. Given these far-reaching changes, we explore whether policy-making in sport shows similar trends due to a number of exogenous shocks. We propose that some of the issues at stake can be addressed by conducting a quantitative study on access patterns to federal policy-making. Our findings support the idea of more complex and interdependent policy-making in sport. However, we find hardly any evidence for eroding neo-corporatism but for increased politicization of sport policy. Moreover, our study makes the limitations of a pure sociometric approach evident. While network analysis appears to be a useful tool, it has been complemented by qualitative accounts of policy processes.