Political Philosophy and the Managerial Class: Implications for the Administration of Sport

Abstract

Although today some athletic events are organized by those without any administrative qualifications, much of modern sport management reflects the technocratic global culture from which it springs: formalized, institutionalized, and professionalized. Some recent critical assessments of our dominant philosophical influences have been extremely unkind to the administrative practices that they have spawned. Among the charges leveled is that management, in general, lacks a moral and epistemological base and is self-serving and antidemocratic. Much of this criticism is relevant to the management of modern sport. This paper presents an overview of the positions of philosophers Alasdair Maclntyre, John Ralston Saul, and Charles Taylor and examines management's relationship to sport in light of their critiques. A general philosophical framework is constructed upon which specific questions about specific activities of sport management can be asked and possibly answered. The results have implications for the education and work of sport managers.