Abstract
ABSTRACT Organised sport has become a legitimate interest group, with potential influence in wider policy-making circles. Building on a distinction between because-of motives and in-order-to motives, the purpose of this study is to analyse why sport organisations conduct advocacy while offering an assessment of the sport-internal transformative effects of advocacy activities. The analysis is based on interviews with 46 elected and staff representatives of Swedish Regional Sport Federations, and it shows (1) that a perceived de-institutionalization of organised sport’s monopolistic position in Sweden underpins the imperative to conduct advocacy, and (2) that the overarching goal-oriented purpose of advocacy is to further sport organisations’ role as advocates in future policy processes. This indicates that sport organisations are transitioning from a ‘passive custodian’ to an ‘active advocate’ role in relation to the government. We propose that this latter role may include a professionalisation of advocacy activities, and that advocacy, therefore, may accentuate internal tensions related to the trade-off between efficiency and democracy, create a need for sport-internal advocacy, and undermine future advocacy claims and/or access to policy processes.
Highlights
It is well documented that governments invest in sport to pursue state goals
We ask: What do sport organisations seek to achieve through their advocacy efforts? In this perspective, the reasons for ‘why’ are interest-based, future-oriented and signify the purposiveness of advocacy activities
Based on the Schütz (1967) distinction between because-of motives and in-order-to motives, we asked, first, What surrounding conditions do actors perceive that render advocacy an appropriate practice? and second, What do sport organisations seek to achieve through their advocacy efforts? In relation to the first question, our analysis may be summarised as a general interpretation among interviewees of a de-institutionalisation of organised sport’s previous monopolistic position in Sweden
Summary
It is well documented that governments invest in sport to pursue state goals (e.g. national unity, diplomacy). The Canadian Sport Matters Group (Sport Matters 2017), Sport and Citizenship in the European Union (Sport and Citizenship 2017), the Green Sports Alliance (Johnson and Ali 2018) and the UK-based Sports Think Tank (Sports Think Tank 2017) are all empirical examples of this emerging phenomenon Not their explicit point of departure, several sport policy articles indicate that sport organisations increasingly seek to discipline – not solely be disciplined by – governments (Bergsgard and Rommetvedt 2006, Enjolras and Holmen Waldahl 2007, Meier and Fuchs 2014, Stuij and Stokvis 2015, Stenling and Sam 2017, Yilmaz 2018). In the context of this study, the two concepts, allow us to capture advocacy efforts as both institutionally shaping and institutionally shaped
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