State intervention in sport: a comparative analysis of regime types

ABSTRACT

The historical use of sport for political purposes is well documented. Since the early twentieth century, many states have shaped their national sport policies to support broader domestic and foreign policy agendas. However, while sport policy scholars, in particular, have developed descriptive accounts of disparate approaches to sport policymaking, relatively little attention has been paid to identifying the factors that explain this variance. As a consequence, the variables that influence and constrain state choice when it comes to sport policy remain underspecified. This project addresses this deficit in the current literature by exploring how political regime type influences sport policy development. The analysis compares the recent sport policies of three countries which differ on the basis of regime type: an autocracy (Qatar), a partial democracy (Lebanon), and a full democracy (United Kingdom). While there is tentative evidence to support the widely held notion that states ‘use’ sport for similar purposes, this comparative survey reveals that the policy approaches and efficacy likely vary on the basis of regime type, and argues that this variable should be more explicitly considered in future sport policy research.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative methods
• Lebanon
• political regimes
• Qatar
• sport policy
• United Kingdom

Acknowledgments

Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Paris (2024) and Los Angeles (2028) are both scheduled to host the Summer Olympics for the third time within the next decade.

2. On 24 March 2020, in response to the risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Summer Olympics were postponed to 2021.