Politics and ‘shock’: reactionary anti-doping policy objectives in Canadian and international sport

Abstract

This article addresses dramatic changes in anti-doping that have occurred since the 1960s internationally and since the early 1980s in Canada. We demonstrate first that in the Olympic movement, the use of performance-enhancing substances became a problem primarily because of the ‘sportive nationalism’ that pervaded the cold war. Second, a form of ‘politics of appearance’ played an important role in the creation of anti-doping policies; we show that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) created anti-doping policies largely as a reactionary measure to political concerns and to certain ‘shocks’ or ‘focusing events’ that brought the issue to the fore. Third, and most importantly, major Canadian initiatives, beginning with policy created following the 1983 Pan American Games, have been a reflection of the same ‘politics and shock’ measures that took place at the international level. This point relates to our final objective: to demonstrate that in Canada anti-doping policies evolved from being non-existent to being some of the most stringent in the world in just over two decades. We consider these major international and Canadian events through the lens of punctuated equilibrium theory, which explains both extended periods of stasis and dramatic changes in policy systems.