Sport and Politics

Abstract

In recent decades welfare states have expanded into the areas of leisure and cultural life, and sport has become more involved with politics and policymaking. Consequently, sport managers and representatives of sport organizations have to take into account more seriously what happens in politics. The sport sector is frequently characterized as a mirror image of the modernization process in society at large, but is it really so? Is sport a forerunner, latecomer, or a deviant case as compared with general political developments? The article compares recent changes in Norwegian sport and sport policy with general developments in Norwegian politics. The study is based on a five-dimensional scheme of analysis including: concentration versus dispersion of private and public power, executive-legislative relations, corporatism versus lobbyism, and generalisation of interests and coalition building. The scheme of analysis may be fruitful for cross-national comparative analyses.