Policy-Making in Sport

Abstract

This article analyses how public sport policy is made as a result of the interactions between the public sport administration, the political system and sport organizations, and discusses the relevance of three theoretical approaches — corporatism, policy communities and clientelism — for explaining policy-making within the Norwegian context. It builds on two case studies. The first case study concerns the process leading up to the adoption of Parliament's white paper on `Changing Sport Life', whereas the second case investigates the processes leading to the change in the law on gambling, which had a considerable impact on sport funding. These two cases cast light on different ways in which sport policy is made. The white paper on sport life is a central policy document that defines the objectives and means of public policies within sport, whereas the law on gambling has a determinant impact on the public funding of sport. The sport administration initiated the first case, whereas the Norwegian sport confederation initiated the second case. These two case studies suggest that the neo-corporatist model that was used to characterize the field of sport from 1946 onward has been undergoing transformations during the last decade, even if some neo-corporatist features persist.