Racing to Win: Competition and Co-operation between the National Olympic Committee and Public Authorities in the Development of the Botswana Sport System

Abstract

Joining the Olympic Movement provides smaller countries with material and symbolic benefits. The Olympic Games represent a unique symbolic stage for national recognition and identity construction. Resource-poor countries can also access sport development funding programmes. However, participation in the international sport system comes at the price of a ‘coercive policy transfer’. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) requires countries to subscribe to a western sport system that includes ‘sports autonomy’ as a key governance principle, which restricts the discretion of national governments. Previous scholarship suggests that coercive policy transfers can create institutional and policy misfits, which inspire translation and customisation on behalf of the receiving countries. The current paper investigates the interactions between public authorities and the National Olympic Committee of Botswana, which has been imposed by the IOC as an autonomous organisation. The study of three policy processes suggests that the interactions between the National Olympic Committee and governmental authorities are shaped by a persistent institutional misfit and organisational rivalries, which are only manageable because all actors in Botswana sport policy-making share a common interest in increasing national sporting success. At the same time, it is hard to assess to what extent the coercive policy transfer has improved policy development and implementation in Botswana.

Keywords:

• Botswana
• National Olympic Committee
• National Sports Commission
• governance
• sport policy
• sport autonomy

Introduction

Sport is one of the most widely shared forms of popular culture around the world, and it carries substantial cultural, societal and identity connotations. The relevance of sport for developing countries is often demonstrated in their willingness to join the Olympic Movement or participate in world championships, because it is ‘one of the “signs of statehood” that gains [countries] recognition from the global community’.¹ Sport might be even more important for post-colonial or smaller countries because they might lack ‘historical or other contemporary sources of national recognition’ and, therefore, try to use sport to showcase themselves in the international arena.² Sport also allows countries to develop a regional profile via their participation in continental competitions.³ Moreover, integration into the international sport system can have a positive effect for resource-poor countries, as they can benefit from sport development funding in programmes such as the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) Olympic Solidarity⁴ or football’s international governing body FIFA’s Forward programme.⁵

However, participating in the international sports arena requires countries to adapt to certain standards. Countries have to develop a national sport system that adheres to the standards and structures set up by international federations and the IOC, which act as private transnational regulators to impose very specific models of sports governance.⁶ Thus, the IOC demands that every country participating in the Olympics create a National Olympic Committee (NOC) as an autonomous non-governmental organisation (NGO) to be part of the national sport system and to coordinate all matters related to the Olympic Movement and participation in the Olympic Games. Joining the Olympic Movement requires a country to have an NOC, which is formally recognised by the IOC. Hence, participation in the international sport system comes at the price of a ‘coercive policy transfer’, which restricts the discretion of national policy-makers.⁷

With its requirement of the creation of NOCs that are part of the sport system, yet independent of government and public authorities, the IOC imposes a particular governance structure on those joining the Olympic Movement. The IOC, therefore, acts as an agent of policy transfer from the supranational to the national level. Yet policy transfer does not represent a linear process but involves manifold processes of translation, as Diane Stone has pointed out.⁸ Moreover, as explored by Jennifer Brass, a coercive imposition of NGOs can create substantial organisational tensions and rivalries and blur lines between public and private governance.⁹

Indeed, NGOs acting as transfer agents can face substantial obstacles due to institutional and policy misfit at the national level. Furthermore, policy transfer must be understood as an interactive open-ended process, which involves translation and customisation. Interestingly, there is little research applying the basic concepts of policy transfer to the coercive transfer of institutions and policies in the sport sector of developing countries.¹⁰

We argue that using concepts taken from mainstream political sciences can add to our current understanding of the relationships between the IOC and NOCs (as non-governmental stakeholders), on the one hand, and public authorities on the other hand, in the governance of sport. Conversely, the exploration of sport as a policy and governance field can also contribute to our understanding of the complex relations between NGOs and public authorities in developing countries.

Therefore, in this article we study the relations between the NOC and the government in the development of the sport system in Botswana. In order to understand how institutional tensions resulting from coercive policy transfer from the IOC via the NOC are dealt with, we examine the relationship between the Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) and the Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC), a governmental agency responsible for sport, and other governmental departments. The article has two main research objectives. First, we aim to evaluate how the BNOC interacts with public authorities. Our second aim is to discuss the extent to which these interactions serve to translate or customise transferred institutions and policies.

The choice of Botswana as a case study is well-suited to address our research objectives because the country has seen an increase in the development of NGOs and civil-society organisations since independence and, especially, since the mid 1990s.¹¹ However, existing research and NGOs working on the field in Botswana question the extent to which civil society has been allowed to develop a strong profile and participate in a political capacity.¹² Indeed, several authors have documented tensions between the state and NGOs outside the sporting realm,¹³ arguing that there is even a certain level of competition between the state and NGOs,¹⁴ and that NGOs are often only supported if they ‘are perceived as compliant and playing only a legitimising role’.¹⁵

Some researchers see Botswana’s governance and democracy in a positive light,¹⁶ as the country performs well in terms of international benchmarks and governance indexes, such as those of the World Bank.¹⁷ Moreover, authors such as Monageng Mogalakwe point out the beneficial effects of Botswana’s economic growth and the broad allocation of its economic rents, which have been created by the diamond reserves.¹⁸ Nevertheless, there are also critical views that debate the quality of governance structures and democracy, for example: ‘that Botswana is a democracy is not in question. However, the challenge lies in agreeing on the quality or depth of the democracy’.¹⁹

Strong critics of the system have termed the situation in Botswana as ‘authoritarian liberalism’,²⁰ whereas John Holm has depicted it as a ‘paternalistic democracy’, criticising the excessive power of the political elites and the ruling Botswana Democratic Party.²¹ Holm has also been critical that ‘the Botswana government, in principle, accepts the ideal that political rights ought to be respected. It has, however, been hesitant to apply them in practice too extensively’.²² In a similar vein, Karin Alexander and Gape Kaboyakgosi define Botswana as a ‘minimalist democracy’, that is to say ‘a system that does as little as possible to engender participation, transparency, access to social support, accountability and human rights, among other things’.²³ A 2021 report by Botswana NGOs, The Big Governance Issues in Botswana: A Civil Society Submission to [Botswana’s African Peer Review Mechanism], expressed their concern over the steady decline of the country over the last 10 years in the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance and Botswana’s worrying negative trend in the ‘voice and accountability’ sub-indicator of the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators.²⁴ There are also authors that prefer to laud the stability of Botswana’s democracy, especially in comparison with that of other African countries. They see the country’s development as a clear success and limit their criticism of the system.²⁵

Part of the criticism of Botswana’s democracy and quality of governance lies in the limited development of civil society and NGOs. Although there is some debate, existing research seems to coalesce around Terrance Carroll and Barbara Carroll’s graphic definition that it is ‘a mile wide and a foot deep’.²⁶ Civil-society organisations were almost non-existent in the 1980s, and they started to develop mostly in the realm of economic and employment relations; hence, the teachers’ and miners’ trade unions and the country’s chamber of commerce were among the first NGOs to gain some traction in the country.²⁷ Civil-society organisations faced systemic and structural barriers to development until the mid 1990s: these were mainly resistance on the part of the state bureaucracy to engaging with NGOs, unless it was to use them for policy and service implementation; a lack of human and economic resources; and limited reach within the country – NGOs were mostly confined to urban and more affluent areas, which left vast amounts of the rural territory of Botswana outside the reach of their activities.²⁸

This changed in the early to mid 1990s, when the state bureaucracy started to consult more often with NGOs and to implement legislation to encourage the development of civil-society organisations.²⁹ This led to the creation of new and energised NGOs, as a result of the increased availability of foreign development aid funds, with NGO staff consequently able to build contacts in international fora. This combination of international foreign aid and national political changes created a positive environment for Botswana NGOs, some of which – such as women’s rights organisation Emang Basadi – became influential.³⁰ Yet, this should not be seen as a golden era for NGOs and civil-society participation. Carroll and Carroll cautioned that most NGOs at that time still faced the same problems of lack of resources and limited reach.³¹ Moreover, the reclassification of Botswana as a middle-income country in the region resulted in a marked reduction in foreign development aid, which hurt many Botswana NGOs that were consequently less able to raise sufficient funding.³²

Botswana NGOs, although in a better position than in the 1980s, today still face similar problems in being considered a fully fledged force of civil society in the country, and NGOs struggle with lack of funding and poor staff retention.³³ In addition to the traditional difficulties of finding appropriate human resources outside urban areas to maintain activities and encourage an active membership, the reduction in development aid is also causing further funding and governance problems.³⁴ In this respect, the BNOC is an interesting case since, as we explain below, it can rely on funding from the IOC and hence has an enhanced capacity to develop its economic and human resources in comparison to other NGOs in the country. This also strengthens the BNOC’s ability to challenge government policy, which for other NGOs is far more difficult. Indeed, the NGOs’ 2021 report states that ‘barriers to participation permeate through all levels of the political process’.³⁵ They also affirm that ‘Botswana’s civil society does not have the muscle to lobby or influence government decisions and processes’.³⁶

In this context, our choice to study the relations between the BNOC and the BNSC can contribute to existing debates and research on Botswana’s civil-society development and relations between NGOs and the state, in particular since previous authors have not included sport in their research on civil society. Curiously, one of the most prolific researchers in this field explicitly excluded sport from their study of Botswana NGOs³⁷ and all the ensuing literature excluded sport too.³⁸

The paper now proceeds in four stages. First, we present the theoretical ideas guiding our research. Second, we provide historical and legal background to the development of Botswana’s sport system and compare it briefly to other countries in the region. Third, we set out the design of our qualitative process-tracing research. Fourth, we present the results and, finally, we discuss the relevance of our findings.

Theoretical Background

The structure of and the relationships between non-governmental sporting bodies and national governmental sport authorities have been the subject of extensive scholarly debate.³⁹ One of the conclusions of this body of research is that countries are not completely free to take decisions over their own national sport systems. Indeed, any country that wishes to participate in international sport has to comply with rules defined by the international sport governing bodies (ISGBs), which has an impact at the national level.⁴⁰ The ISGBs act here as transnational private regulators which force national governments to adopt programmes and policies as part of their obligations as members of an international regime. Moreover, the ISGBs engage in what has been characterised as vertical ‘obligated coercive policy transfer’⁴¹ of a type that is most commonly associated with international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.⁴² Even if such obligated coercive policy transfers are made possible because countries perceive benefits from joining an international regime, they can create tensions. Borrowing a distinction observed by Knud Erik Jørgensen, Mark Pollack and Ben Rosamond,⁴³ these tensions can reflect institutional and policy misfits. The term ‘institutional misfit’ refers to contradictions between domestic institutions and requirements imposed by international regimes, while ‘policy misfit’ is defined as contradictions between domestic policies and externally imposed policies.⁴⁴ In sport policy-making, both of these forms of misfit are likely to occur.

Institutional misfit can result from the fact that the ISGBs impose the ‘autonomy of sport’ as a key governance principle on their member countries. This hard-to-define principle aims at granting sport organisations strong regulatory powers and far-reaching independence from public authorities.⁴⁵ The IOC understands sports autonomy as follows:

[sport organisations within the Olympic Movement] have the rights and obligations of autonomy, which include freely establishing and controlling the rules of sport, determining the structure and governance of their organisations, enjoying the right of elections free from any outside influence and the responsibility for ensuring that principles of good governance be applied.⁴⁶

The IOC imposes this principle on countries by making participation in the Olympics conditional upon the creation of an NOC as an autonomous NGO. The NOCs are further supposed to act as national representatives of the IOC. An institutional misfit is very likely because sports autonomy as governance principle has strong roots in the specific socio-cultural context of the global north, as we now argue.⁴⁷

First, sports autonomy reflects western political liberalism, according to which citizens have the right to organise their leisure activities free of state interference. For more statist or less liberal systems, the idea of sports autonomy represents a challenge as it aims to restrict governmental powers in sport policy. Second, while some scholars have depicted the autonomous organisation of sport in the global north as ‘civil society at its best’,⁴⁸ others have argued that the existence of a resourceful civil society cannot be taken for granted outside the nation states of the global north.⁴⁹ Thus, the colonial state narrowed the public space for civil society, while the political mobilisation by liberation movements reduced the opportunities for autonomous civil-society mass organisations.⁵⁰ Since many post-colonial countries often do not represent ethnically homogenous nation states, traditional, informal and ethnic associations continue to be major players in associational life and not volunteer associations in the western sense.⁵¹ In addition, given the blatant inequalities faced by many countries of the global south, civil society in a western sense – as citizens able to dedicate time and resources to NGOs – might be confined to the small minority of middle-class citizens who possess the necessary resources to claim full citizenship.⁵²

Although Botswana has some particularities as a southern African country, it still presents problems that are likely to clash with the IOC’s global-north-based idea of the autonomy of sport. Some authors have lauded Botswana as ‘exceptional’ in the African and global south context, mostly because of its economic development and stable political institutions.⁵³ However, others have questioned the extent of Botswana’s exceptionalism, arguing that it can be overly simplistic and may not accurately reflect the country’s complexities.⁵⁴

It is true that Botswana has not suffered violent ethnic conflicts. Authors such as Carroll and Carroll point out that the country has a historic cultural tendency towards inter-ethnic dialogue that avoids violence and prefers negotiation and persuasion.⁵⁵ On the other hand, researchers such as Kenneth Good have been more critical of how the dominant elite has treated ethnic minority groups, even if there have not been violent conflicts.⁵⁶ Botswana has a tradition of local deliberative forums such as the kgotlas, the ‘freedom squares’ that enable civil-society participation and dialogue.⁵⁷ However, Botswana has exhibited similar social and structural problems to other African countries, such as low levels of literacy; rapid urbanisation that has fostered inequality with rural areas; foreign influences and dependence on aid organisations; and a strong political and bureaucratic elite.⁵⁸

For our purpose here it is relevant that a typical feature attributed to global south countries, namely the weakness of civil society, can also be found in Botswana. Indeed, researchers have shown that, despite improvements, civil-society organisations in Botswana remain limited to a small minority of middle-class citizens, mostly in the urban areas. The struggle to reach rural areas and to ensure active citizen participation is recognised by NGOs themselves.⁵⁹ Moreover, although the colonial state did not have a major impact on the development of Botswana’s political institutions,⁶⁰ the governmental bureaucracy of the independent state still tended to reduce the space for civil-society action due to its reluctance to allow NGOs to participate in political debates.⁶¹

Thus, the country still presents some of the weaknesses that are typically associated with countries of the global south, although perhaps to a different degree. Important for this paper is the underdeveloped nature of civil society – even if it is a degree better than in other global south countries – and the strong paternalistic powers of the state’s bureaucratic elite that dominate policy-making, as discussed above. Thus, a policy misfit is likely to occur, since joining the Olympic movement implies adopting a model of physical activity, which has, again, strong cultural roots in the global north; is focused on elite athletes (as opposed to grassroots participation in exercise); and imposes substantial resource needs, which are hard for smaller countries to meet. Hence, some authors have criticised the policy transfer promoted by the ISGBs as a neo-colonial project inflicting just another ‘white man’s burden’ on developing countries.⁶²

In sum, sports autonomy, as imposed by the IOC through the figure of the NOC, has the potential for institutional and policy misfit in the global south context. Public authorities might oppose a restriction of their powers; the sport sector might be completely politicised; or societies might lack the resources to sustain a state-free sport sector. The investment in an elite sport sector can also be controversial. To fully appreciate the potential institutional tensions, it is important to understand that the NOCs are imposed by the IOC as a non-governmental organisation. The NOCs, as IOC representatives in the country, are supposed to act as ‘agents of policy transfer’, as their mission is to influence domestic policies in the sports and educational sector following the visions of the Olympic Movement and the principles of Olympism defined in the Olympic Charter. Moreover, the NOCs are institutionalised as permanent agents of transfer that can monitor compliance with the IOC’s rules and can initiate sanctions in case of a loss of autonomy due to perceived excessive governmental intervention.⁶³

However, the academic literature on NGOs in developing countries and on policy transfer alike suggest that such a coercive imposition of an NGO may not necessarily bring about the intended results despite the structural set-up. Scholars have shown that externally imposed NGOs often come into conflict with domestic political authorities in developing countries.⁶⁴ According to Brass, a combination of domestic factors and NGO features determine whether NGOs and government engage in a collaborative or conflictual manner.⁶⁵ Conflicts become likely in cases where NGOs do not confine themselves to service provision but seek an active policy role, and face authoritarian governments, low administrative capacity or legal uncertainty. These insights echo claims made in recent policy transfer research, which has stressed the complexity of the domestic context which modifies transferred policies through interpretation and experimentalism.⁶⁶ Therefore, scholars have abandoned linear and binary concepts of policy transfer in favour of approaches that emphasise resistance, agency on behalf of domestic actors and the negotiated character of policy transfer,⁶⁷ including the notion of ‘policy translation’ to indicate that domestic actors interpret and customise the institutions and policies transferred.⁶⁸

The translation perspective seems particularly suited to examining the relationship between NOCs and government authorities, as it is likely that institutional and policy misfits persist. Formal rules are often not a strong predictor of political practice, in particular when actors enjoy substantial agency.⁶⁹ Hence, David Dolowitz, Rodica Plugaru and Sabine Saurugger have emphasised that policy transfer should be examined not as a one-off event but studied as a process ‘that develops as it enters and works its way through the domestic policymaking setting’.⁷⁰ This suggestion is in particular relevant with regard to the NOCs as imposed agents of transfer. Due to their permanent institutionalisation, the NOCs remain active in the transfer process, as they can educate domestic actors, participate in decision-making and monitor implementation.⁷¹ Accordingly, it can be assumed that interactions between transfer agents (NOCs in our case) and domestic policy-makers, which change over time and are shaped by power relations rather than simple rational choice, are a central variable for explaining the outcomes of policy transfers.⁷²

In order to trace how the institutions and policies imposed by the IOC are translated or ‘customised’ in interactions in domestic political contexts, we follow the suggestion of Brass in examining the process of governance.⁷³ Accordingly, we can develop a first research question to guide our empirical enquiry in the relations between the BNOC and the government in Botswana that is directly linked to, and underpinned by, our first research objective presented in the introduction:

RQ1: How does the BNOC interact with Botswana government authorities in the process of sport policy-making?

Further, our empirical research needs to adopt a complementary angle focusing on the outcomes of these interactions. As Brass has emphasised, the presence of imposed NGOs can result in persistent tensions and organisational rivalry.⁷⁴ However, it is also possible that NGOs and domestic authorities successfully collude in improving policy development and implementation.⁷⁵ Therefore, our next research question connects the theoretical framework directly to our second research objective:

RQ2: What is the BNOC’s impact on national sport policy-making in Botswana?

With these two research questions we can structure the article’s empirical enquiry using the key concepts of this theoretical framework. In short, the article explores the relations between the BNOC and the BNSC over a period of time, hence adopting a suitable longitudinal approach that will elicit the level of policy translation achieved by domestic policy actors in Botswana in relation to the IOC’s requirements for sports autonomy to join the Olympic Movement.

Development and Structure of the Botswana Sport System

Shortly before independence in 1966, the Botswana National Sports Council (later renamed the Botswana National Sports Commission) and the Bechuanaland National Sport Appeal Fund (BENSAF) were founded in 1965. The BNSC featured the Botswana National Football Association (BNFA) as its sole member and relied on private backers, including BENSAF, to fund its activities.⁷⁶ BENSAF focused on raising funds to construct sports facilities and purchase equipment.⁷⁷ Hence, at the time of independence, the nucleus of a Botswana sport system existed. Initially, the emerging sport system was not affiliated to the IOC, which was then still strongly associated with former colonial powers and had taken an ambiguous stance towards apartheid in South Africa. The newly independent African states only began joining the Olympic movement in the 1970s. In Botswana, the BNOC was established in 1978.

After independence, sport was not a governmental priority in Botswana. Sport administration was coordinated by a small unit under the Ministry of Health, Education and Home Affairs and the BNSC remained a private entity.⁷⁸ The focus on sport began to grow in the mid 1970s, as the BNSC was officially enshrined through an act of Parliament in 1975 which mandated that all clubs, associations and federations should fall under the umbrella of the BNSC.⁷⁹ Despite this, the government was not meaningfully engaged in sport until 1997, when the Department of Sport and Recreation was created to manage sport development in the country.⁸⁰ In addition, responding to Botswana’s perceived lacklustre performances at international events, a Committee to Investigate Poor Performance of National Sport Teams was formed and led to Botswana’s first and only sport policy strategy.⁸¹

Today, two major documents establish the foundation for Botswana’s sport system: the aforementioned 2001 National Sport Policy and the 2014 Botswana National Sport Commission Act. The 2001 policy, which has never been revised, outlines priority goals for national sport and defines the roles of the sport organisations.⁸² The roles assigned, however, are often broad and overlapping.⁸³ For instance, the BNSC and the BNOC are both charged with preparing international teams and developing grassroots sport.⁸⁴ Recognising this overlap, the 2014 Botswana National Sports Commission Act tried to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the BNSC and BNOC. At the same time, the Act gave the BNSC greater control over the activities and budgets of national sport organisations.

Responsibility for sport in Botswana rests within the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development (MYESCD), but day-to-day and strategic activities are predominantly led by the BNSC. The BNSC deals directly with national sport organisations and ‘serves as an intermediary between the government and these organisations’.⁸⁵ Additionally, the BNSC is assigned a multitude of responsibilities, including implementing the national sport policy, coordinating sport development activities, leading strategic planning, managing sport facilities, promoting sport participation, supervising the activities of member organisations and organising the Botswana Games.⁸⁶

In line with the IOC’s predominant focus on elite sport, the BNOC is responsible for the country’s participation in high-profile regional and international events, including the Olympic Games, Youth Olympic Games, African Youth Games, Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth Youth Games.⁸⁷ Furthermore, as the country’s Olympic representative, the BNOC has exclusive claim to the Olympic logo and brand and can access Olympic Solidarity funding. This profile and these resources have also inspired the BNOC to take an increasingly active role at the policy level, developing strategic plans and long-term athlete development policies.⁸⁸

As illustrated above, this is a relatively loose regulatory framework and has fostered overlaps between the mandates of the BNSC and the BNOC. Although we have focused on the history and evolution of the Botswana case, loose frameworks organised around strong governmental and non-governmental actors are hardly unusual in the region or continent. Though much of the regional literature focuses on the development and evolution of South Africa’s sport system,⁸⁹ its highly centralised nature is rather an exception. Most countries in southern Africa, as well as elsewhere in the continent, have followed similar sport development trajectories to Botswana’s. Indeed, countries such as Namibia,⁹⁰ Malawi,⁹¹ Uganda⁹² and others⁹³ situate sport within similarly loose and fragmented structures organised around often conflicting governmental and non-governmental actors. For instance, neighbouring Namibia has seen issues arise concerning policy coordination and defining the roles of different sport stakeholders.⁹⁴ Summarising a comparative study of 11 African countries, Marion Keim and de Christo de Coning note that ‘in terms of the necessary institutional arrangements for policy formulation and development … severe weaknesses exist’.⁹⁵

As Botswana’s and other regional cases show, such a set-up provides two potential avenues for conflict. First, sports organisations have broad, unclear mandates and competing claims to legitimacy.⁹⁶ Second, by implication, a government agency (the BNSC) and a national NGO (the BNOC) that has strong ties to an international organisation based in the global north (the IOC) can clash when it comes to the overall management of sport, especially when the non-governmental body attempts to impose the transfer of northern-sanctioned policies and approaches. Thus, the looseness of the framework is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it could contribute to avoid institutional misfit due to its flexibility; on the other hand, the overlap of responsibilities is the perfect scenario to foster conflict over the autonomy of sport, hence increasing the chances of policy misfit.

Research Design

The article adopts a longitudinal and qualitative process-tracing research design, which is the preferred methodological choice of the existing literature on policy transfer.⁹⁷ Since we understand policy translation as an interactive process, we employ process-tracing methods, which ‘are tools to study causal mechanisms in a single-case research design’.⁹⁸ Accordingly, we decided to examine three policy processes in which the BNOC had to interact with domestic authorities. These three policy processes cover fundamental issues such as the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the BNOC and the BNSC, and the so-called Long Term Athlete Development Framework, but also micro-collaborations such as the organisation of Botswana teams for sporting events.

The analyses of these policy processes aim at constructing narratives of structures and events by employing our analytical concepts.⁹⁹ The ambition is to build relevant, verifiable causal stories in the form of coherent sequences of motivated actions.¹⁰⁰ Process-tracing methods are suited to showing the presence of certain social mechanisms or factors but they do not allow one to infer that these were the only factors causing the outcome.¹⁰¹ However, a narrative should always be verifiable as being true to the sequence of events, actor moves and institutional outcomes, relying on a rich collection of primary sources, which are turned into theoretically relevant evidence by means of assessing, evaluating and interpreting.¹⁰² Moreover, since social processes unfold in institutional structures which actors use to shape the transfer process,¹⁰³ any relevant process-tracing research requires institutional and organisational prerequisites to be analysed. Accordingly, data collection has been carried out through the analysis of official documents facilitated by sport and governmental institutions in Botswana, as well as semi-structured interviews with representatives from government, sports organisations and external stakeholders in Botswana sport.

During a field trip to Botswana we collected documents and interviewed 24 key informants in person at their workplace. Documents included the basic legal framework of the country (both primary and secondary legislation), as well as the existing sport strategy. We also collected policy and strategic documents of both the BNOC and the BNSC in relation to their collaborations. The documents inform the process tracing of the NOC–government collaborations and were also used to design the interview guides.

To select the interviewees, we followed a strategy based on purposeful sampling.¹⁰⁴ This included both snowball sampling and maximum variation to ensure representation of all the main stakeholders constituting the Botswana sport system. Thus, participants were approached because of the information they could provide about the policy co-operation between the BNOC and the BNSC and other departments of the government. Our sampling was designed to include participants from the BNOC, the BNSC, and other ministerial departments. Furthermore, we also sought to recruit participants from sport federations, including athletes and coaches, in order to obtain a wider picture of stakeholders’ views. This was supplemented with a decision to include in the sample participants from local media that could provide a more independent opinion on the information provided by the stakeholders. These external participants were especially important to our sampling strategy, as their versions could be triangulated with those of the BNOC and the government representatives. The final group used in the study comprised five representatives of the BNOC, three representatives of the BNSC, two administrators of the MYESCD, four presidents of national sport federations, seven athletes, one coach and two representatives of the media. Table 1 provides anonymised details about the interviews and the sample. This research followed a strict protocol for participant recruitment, collection of data, analysis and data management.¹⁰⁵ Participants were fully briefed on the aims and objectives of the research and on their rights as participants through a comprehensive participant information sheet. The authors have retained audio recordings and transcripts of all the interviews, except for those participants who did not give their consent to be recorded. Transcripts and recordings were stored following data protection legislation. As participants were granted the right to anonymity in research outputs, we have taken extreme care to ensure that their identities cannot be traced. Therefore, we refer to interviews using the job position and institution of the participants cited.

Table 1. Sample composition of the interviews

Stakeholder category	Number of interviewees
National Olympic Committee	5
Governmental bodies:
Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development	2
Botswana National Sport Commission	3
Sport federations	4
Other sport stakeholders:
Athletes	7
Coaches	1
Media	2
Total number of interviewees	24

For the sake of openness and transparency, we emphasise that our data collection was facilitated by a junior and a senior administrator of the BNOC, which is one of the institutions we seek to analyse. The administrators acted as gatekeepers and facilitators. They were instrumental to a successful data collection, as they helped the research team to reach all the actors in Botswana sport policy, but they did not condition the selection of the participants. In our case, the advantages of using gatekeepers to access the field outweighed any limitations, in particular because we also included independent participants.

For data analysis, we first developed a narrative of the distinct cases through the analysis of the written documents and the interviews. This provided the base for a second, more inductive analysis. The inductive analysis was developed during intense debates within the research team and was guided by our theoretical framework as well as by the statements of our interviewees.

Findings: Tracing Interactions between the BNOC and the BNSC

The MoU between the BNOC and the Government: Translating Autonomy into the Local Context

As explained above, the BNSC is entrusted with regulating sport in the country ‘at all levels’, and it is also responsible for providing ‘leadership and guidance on sport development’.¹⁰⁶ Yet the 2014 Act barely mentions the BNOC, hence providing a space to shape the relations between the two institutions that is relatively open, but conditioned by the wide-ranging responsibilities that are required of the BNSC. According to the act, the BNOC is responsible for ‘dealing with Olympic matters’, which is a relatively restricted field of operations. The BNOC is also called on to co-operate with the BNSC in sport development and participation in international competitions.

Of particular interest is the way in which these provisions are interpreted by government officials. Although they are aware of the concept of sport autonomy, the way in which they shape their language denotes a tendency to perceive the BNOC as a governmental agency similar to the BNSC:

It is a complex relation, even somehow overlapping … In a sense, you can say the BNOC is the subset of BNSC.¹⁰⁷

So, we do have two agencies there implementing sport policy, we have the National Sports Commission, and we have the National Olympic Committee, they are doing sport development programmes on behalf of the Ministry.¹⁰⁸

Over time, the BNOC has expanded its activities (described below), and the relationship with the BNSC has become more complex as a result. Both organisations recognised the need to bring greater order to this emerging rivalry, and concluded that there was a need to develop an MoU. A senior BNSC official described how the rationale to do this had come about:

it was decided that it was a good thing to do because, whether you like it or not, when we have two entities that serve sport, that serve to develop sport, that serve to promote sport, it is not good if they go differently, [not coming together] …. So, [we thought,] let us synchronise the way we do things, we will probably make some savings bringing these committees together, the human capital together, the budgets together.¹⁰⁹

The MoU is a short document, but its contents demonstrate ambition. Indeed, the MoU considers the merging of several structures of both organisations to avoid duplication, creating joint committees for disciplinary issues and for the auditing of sport organisations.¹¹⁰ Interestingly, the MoU includes a mention of the development of a joint national sport strategy for Botswana, given that the current one is almost 20 years old. During our fieldwork trip it seemed as though the MoU was about to be signed:

with the [Botswana National Sport] Commission, in principle we have already agreed to a memorandum of understanding between the two parties. What is outstanding now is for the boards to sign, but otherwise the principle of what and how we are co-operating, that has already been agreed.¹¹¹

Yet the process leading to the finalisation of the MoU was less than straightforward: it took more than a year to be adopted and was finally signed in November 2020.¹¹² The difficulties in reaching a final agreement demonstrate the resistance to the enhancing and institutionalisation of co-operation between the two parties. The delay in finalising the MoU was due to several reasons. Some were contextual and perhaps unavoidable, such as the change in the sports ministry following elections. This, however, demonstrates the importance of local structures and how these can generate institutional misfit because of legal and political uncertainty. A second motive for the delay was the resistance from the BNSC, who feared that they could lose control over the sport sector in Botswana. This demonstrates that there is a degree of resistance to incorporating the concept of the autonomy of sport, and also that national actors do have some agency in translating the concept. However, such power to negotiate the policy transfer in the context of Botswana is limited, as the MoU was finally signed and the BNSC had to come to an agreement with the BNOC that formalises, although in a soft fashion, more responsibilities for the BNOC than were initially envisaged in the 2014 Botswana National Sports Commission Act.

In terms of our guiding analytic concepts, the MoU process indicates the existence of a fundamental institutional misfit between the model of sport governance imposed by the IOC and the ambitions of Botswana public authorities to control the sport sector. It is important to emphasise that the misfit exists irrespective of policy ambitions on the part of the NOC and specific policies. Moreover, the process illustrates how difficult it is to find a stable solution that reconciles the misfit.

Policy Co-operation: The Long-Term Athlete Development Framework

This section turns now to present the Long Term Athlete Development Framework (LTADF) as an example of a concrete policy in a key area of sport. The LTADF provides the opportunity to explore the dynamics of the co-operation between the BNOC and the BNSC beyond the wider discussion of the institutionalisation of their roles in the Botswana sport system. The LTADF is an initiative of the BNOC launched in 2015. The objective of the programme is to ensure better identification of sporting talent from an early age.¹¹³

The relevance of the LTADF is actually recognised in the MoU between the BNOC and the BNSC. It is one of the first policy initiatives mentioned in the document, calling for better coordination between the two institutions by ‘[merging] the two sport development models [designed by the BNSC and the BNOC separately] …, to be called Botswana Sport Development Model’.¹¹⁴

This recommendation grasps the situation very well. There are two different set-ups for athletic development operating in parallel in Botswana and run by different organisations. But both frameworks, which have very similar objectives, rely on the same sources of public funding.

The launch of the LTADF by the BNOC is of interest because, as explained above, according to the BNSC Act of 2014 this is an area of BNSC responsibility. Therefore, the motives of BNOC activism in this policy area outside their formal competencies deserve discussion. Senior administrators in the BNOC referred, simply, to being able to use funding from the IOC’s Olympic Solidarity programme.¹¹⁵ One of the independent participants in our research suggests that this was mostly because of the deficiencies in the BNSC’s existing athlete development activities:

the Commission is doing something very similar to [the LTADF], but the problem with it is that I do not think they understand it. So they will not take the athletes through the stages of a long-term development programme. They will have group of athletes who comes every weekend or two … to come and play, and they develop from that, you know … They try to identify talent from that. But it’s not structured.¹¹⁶

For our analysis, this initiative is also of interest because the LTADF is an example whereby the BNOC uses IOC’s Olympic Solidarity funding to act as a policy entrepreneur in the Botswana sport system. The provision of resources from the international level is, therefore, one of the mechanisms that can be used to avoid institutional misfit at the national level and dilute the agency of the governmental organisations, while increasing the agency of the BNOC as an autonomous actor establishing itself in the Botswana policy-making system. This illustrates the opportunities that IOC and Olympic Solidarity provide to NOCs in countries such as Botswana, where public finding for sport is limited to modest levels. This also exemplifies perfectly the high level of dependency of Botswana NGOs on foreign aid, as highlighted by previous research. The BNOC is likely to enjoy this level of support from the IOC for some time, but as the sport system of the country develops, those resources might be diverted to other countries.

The LTADF was an ambitious initiative with an initial report of 90 pages presenting the stages of the policy, roles for stakeholders and responsibilities in the sport system to ensure the development of athletes.¹¹⁷ One interesting feature of the LTADF is that it created a working group with representatives from various stakeholder bodies, including Major Botsang Tshenyego (chairperson), Estony Hattingh (BNOC), Dr Jimoh Shehu (University of Botswana), Thatayaone Kokorwe (BNSC), Godfrey Bose (Department of Sport and Recreation), and A.B. Kamanga (BNOC).

As can be seen, there were representatives from the BNOC, the BNSC and the sports ministry working together in this task force to set up the LTADF, which demonstrates the willingness for co-operation between the stakeholders in the Botswana sport system. Such willingness was expressed regularly in our interviews with all stakeholders: ‘[w]e get along well, we work together often and they [the BNSC] are just a phone call away’.¹¹⁸ This is possibly underpinned by the country’s tradition of deliberative negotiation and dialogue, which permeates much of the political system. However, tensions over roles and competencies were also evident, as can be seen below.

The LTADF is a strategic plan for the long term, as the name suggests. For the LTADF to be implemented over time, there is a need for firm commitment on the part of the government and the BNSC, if only because of the levels of funding involved. But it seems to be at that critical juncture where the implementation of the policy stopped.¹¹⁹ Several interviewees confirmed that the initial LTADF report was presented to senior government officials, but despite interest there was never a firm decision to make the LTADF a formal government policy in the area of sport.¹²⁰

On behalf of the BNOC, interviewees recognised that only a few small initiatives have been implemented under the framework, but these were described as very patchy and not really coordinated. This was confirmed by one of the independent participants in our research, who said, ‘[t]he long-term athlete development plan is there in the picture and in papers and everything, they’ve got it, they’ve presented it; I have participated in one or two of their workshops …. But I haven’t seen a programme put in place on the ground’.¹²¹

The LTADF, as a policy, has never been properly implemented, and athlete development initiatives remain uncoordinated and replicated.¹²² The problems in the implementation of the LTADF were well summarised during an interview with a mid-rank official at the BNSC:

the long-term athlete development programme, it’s a brilliant programme. But what I can tell you is we made a mistake of identifying it with an institution. That should not have been encouraged. It should not be owned by the NOC…. It should not be owned by [the] Commission, either. It is a Botswana framework. Because if the country pays for that, at the end of the day, who are we celebrating? We are celebrating a Botswana athlete, we are not celebrating a Commission athlete or an NOC athlete. So, you see, the problem in my view seemed a personalised programme. If you personalise something and say ‘this is a commission thing’, will the NOC accept it? It would be difficult.¹²³

These words convey the views expressed by other mid-rank representatives of the different stakeholders, who are closer to the ground than board members or higher-ranked officials when dealing with policy implementation. The quote illustrates the disputes between the two agencies and suggests a level of resistance to change. It is not very difficult to see here that the BNOC tried to enter a territory that was traditionally managed by the BNSC. The BNOC benefited from IOC funding in its push to lead the new policy. Nonetheless, this was not enough to convince the government and make the plan fit within the existing structures. The case of the LTADF exposed the barriers of policy translation. First, in this initiative there were many stakeholders involved. This makes the negotiations on how to avoid policy and institutional misfit more difficult, because the stakeholders may have different policy objectives. Second, despite initial IOC funding, the LTADF would need to rely on government funding for its operating costs, which questions the extent to which the vertical imposition of the IOC policy on autonomy (financial autonomy of the NOC in this case) is really possible.

This case, in short, exemplifies the opportunities that NOCs have as a result of the vertical policies and funding provided by the IOC. It is also a strong illustration of the barriers that NOCs are likely to encounter when they attempt to take a bigger role in sport policy. With regard to our analytical framework, the case demonstrates how a fundamental institutional misfit translates into organisational rivalries when an imposed NGO starts acting as policy entrepreneur. Policy consensus does not suffice to solve these tensions, which result in deadlock and lack of implementation. This case also illustrates a traditional problem faced by Botswana NGOs, as explained above: the resistance of the state bureaucracy to engaging with NGOs in policy-making, unless it is for service delivery or furthering the government agenda. The BNOC, despite its increased resources and the governance imposition of the IOC as an autonomous body in the sport system, still faced similar barriers to those experienced by other NGOs to effective penetration of the political system and playing a prominent role in policy-making.

Preparation of Teams for Major Sport Competitions

Whereas the LTADF is an example of a longer-term and strategic policy to illustrate the relations between the BNOC and the BNSC, the preparation and selection of national teams is a different case. This refers to the preparation and organisation of the teams of Botswana in major sport events, such as the Olympic Games and the African Games. The collaboration in these cases is of a shorter-term nature, but the social and political relevance of the games adds a layer of complexity to exploration of the dynamics of policy translation and the way in which the autonomy of sport is negotiated at national level.

The BNOC has the responsibility of selecting Botswana’s teams to compete in the Olympic Games, the Youth Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games. This is in accordance with the provisions of the Olympic Charter and it is one of the examples of the translation of the autonomy of sport at the national level. Although this is clear, it also creates some tensions when there appears an institutional misfit and the responsibilities for selection are not obvious, as we explain below. Indeed, the BNSC and the national sport federations are responsible for selecting teams for single sport tournaments, such as world or African championships of different sports. This division of duties between the BNOC and the BNSC is broadly accepted in the Botswana sport system.¹²⁴

However, tensions emerged following a change in the organisation of the African Games. The African Games are the region’s main multi-sport continental competition and used to be organised by the African Union Sport Council (formerly known as the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa).¹²⁵ Since 2013, the responsibility for organising the games has been entrusted to the African Union (an international governmental organisation) and the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA, an NGO). As it is part of the Olympic Movement, ANOCA communicates directly with the BNOC, not with the BNSC.

Before these changes, the responsibility to select athletes for the African Games was taken by the BNSC, since the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa was part of the African Union, which is an intergovernmental organisation. In short, the African Games were seen as ‘government games’.¹²⁶ With the change that placed ANOCA in charge of the African Games, in theory the BNOC would be responsible for heading the Botswana delegation to the event.¹²⁷

Thus, a change in the organisation of sport at the international level created tensions at the national level in Botswana because the existing institutional structures, despite being in place, resisted the change. Several interviewees recognised the tensions created by the change around the African Games, mostly due to the political implications of a large sporting event such as the African Games.¹²⁸ Lincoln Allison, among many others, has pointed out that governments have a tendency to use sport events to improve their political image,¹²⁹ hence being able to capitalise on any success at the African Games was important for both the BNOC and the BNSC, especially the latter.

Beyond the changes in the division of competences and how this is then translated at the national level, this conflict is mostly underpinned by the fact that it is the national government that provides most of the funding for training, accommodation and travel to the games.¹³⁰ Therefore, it is easy to see the reasons why the BNSC and the government would object to the BNOC and the Olympic structures taking the socio-political credit of any success in the African Games. A senior officer in the MYESCD suggests that there is a need for a clear division of competencies to sort this issue:

I’ll give you an example of the preparations for teams. You see, right now we do have different competitions – the BNOC has been biased towards preparation for the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games. And the BNSC has been biased towards preparation of the All-Africa [i.e. the African] Games and the Regional Games. But now we are saying that if the BNOC is for elite sport and the BNSC is for mass participation, then let’s make sure [the] Commission is involved now with cultural development, sport development, and then … the BNOC are [responsible for] our teams go[ing] out [to international sport competitions] … So that is now the thinking, because right now we are having two different agencies, all preparing teams at different times [for different international sport competitions] … So we are saying that, no, let it be one organisation [which deals with all matters relating to sending teams to competitions].¹³¹

The implementation of those changes at the national level is not easy, though. Several interviewees suggested that this conflict had been discussed at the highest political level between the BNSC and the BNOC boards. Following those high-level negotiations, a provisional solution was found for the Botswana delegation to the 2019 African Games in Rabat (Morocco):

Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) chief executive officer Tuelo Serufho announced that the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development is investing P18 million (£1.3 million, $1.4 million, €1.4 million) before the team leaves for Morocco for the Games due to begin on 19 August.

The BNOC is also working together for the first time with Botswana National Sport Commission to coordinate the team for the Games scheduled to end on August 31. ‘For the first time, the Association of National Olympic Committees in Africa and African Union (AU) Sport Council are delivering the Games together’, Serufho told local newspaper Mmegi.¹³²

Therefore, these 2019 African Games were the first in which the BNSC and the BNOC collaborated jointly. The wording of the quote above is of interest in that respect. The press report features a statement from the BNOC CEO, whose tone is diplomatic and non-confrontational, announcing the ‘working together’ of the two organisations. This can be interpreted as a compromise between the two organisations. Indeed, as can be seen in the three cases we have presented in the article, such a compromise is the accepted tone in Botswana sport despite institutional misfits regarding the autonomy of sport and the responsibility of the BNOC. Whereas there were undoubtedly tensions in relation to the African Games, the MoU or the LTADF, there was also a willingness to work together for the sake of Botswana sport, an idea very much reinforced by most of the interviewees: ‘we are just a phone call away’.¹³³ On the other hand, it is also important to note that, again, the episode of the African Games demonstrates the increasing role that the BNOC is willing to take in the sport structures of Botswana, which creates organisational rivalries. Although these rivalries could be solved in the case examined, the institutional misfits and the resistance to change that we have uncovered mean that the policy entrepreneurship of the BNOC is bound to create more conflicts unless a more stable solution, such as perhaps merging both organisations, is found.¹³⁴

Discussion and Conclusion

We now discuss the three policy processes examined in the light of our theoretical framework. As becomes evident from Table 2, all three policy processes demonstrate the existence of a persistent institutional misfit created by the obligated coercive policy transfer imposed by the IOC.

Table 2. Comparison of the policy processes

Policy process	Level	Misfit	Interaction	Impact
Memorandum of Understanding	Institutional	Institutional misfit: fear of losing governmental influence	Intense bargaining over competencies	Unstable institutional compromise
Long Term Athlete Development Framework	Policy programme	Institutional misfit: organisational rivalry	Joint programme development and intense bargaining over competencies	Innovative but unimplemented programme
Preparation of teams	Micro-level	Institutional misfit: organisational rivalry	Intense bargaining over competencies	Compromise: joint presentation of teams

This institutional misfit results from the fact that government authorities in Botswana aim at exerting political control over domestic sport development and policy-making, mostly through the MYESCD and, especially, the BNSC. These hierarchical ambitions seem to reflect more fundamental features of Botswana politics, that is, its character as ‘paternalistic democracy’ where civil society shows limited development, while political elites are unwilling to allow NGOs to participate in political debates. Hence, Botswana’s state bureaucracy is known for its reluctance to engage with NGOs that do not content themselves with pure service delivery. Such hierarchical ambitions are not compatible with the institutionalisation of an NOC as an autonomous NGO, which has the opportunity to act as policy entrepreneur. The fundamental institutional misfit works its way through the domestic policy-making setting and is converted into an organisational rivalry between the BNOC and the BNSC. The cumbersome process of negotiating and signing the MoU is indicative of the difficult translation of a coercively imposed NGO. The institutional misfit could be preliminarily resolved by defining shared policy responsibilities between the BNOC and the BNSC. However, the LTADF process suggests that organisational rivalries prevail and are actually enhanced by the fact that the BNOC does not confine itself to service provision but seeks an active role in policy design. In so doing, the BNOC acts in accordance with its mission as an agent of policy transfer, and it is provided by the IOC with the resources to do this but challenges the hierarchical ambitions of Botswana’s political elites.

The LTADF process suggests that the organisational rivalry between the BNOC and the BNSC does not, however, reflect a policy misfit regarding national sport policies. As shown, both organisations agree on the relevance and the objectives of the LTADF policy and share a common interest in boosting Botswana’s performance in Olympic sports. Indeed, the MoU calls for a common athlete development programme, reinforcing the idea that this is not a policy misfit. Hence, both organisations fully subscribe to the adoption of a sport system developed in the global north. Thus, the LTADF process is indicative of a key feature of Botswana politics, that is, the existence of a national political elite that is united by a shared vision of national development.¹³⁵ The process also indicates the relevance of another feature of Botswana’s political tradition: the tendency towards common dialogue and debate. However, the non-implementation of the LTADF indicates that a policy consensus in principle, a cordial relationship between the organisations and an inclusive policy development process do not suffice to guarantee a commitment by government authorities to see the initiative implemented, especially when it has originated in an NGO, in this case the BNOC. This reflects the struggles of civil-society organisations in Botswana which, at the end of the day, despite their increasing role (and in the case of the BNOC despite its resources) still find it difficult to engage with the state bureaucracy in meaningful policy-making.

Organisational rivalries also shape micro-level processes such as the preparation of teams for international competitions. The rivalry translates to a fight for recognition that in turn fuels uncoordinated policies and, at times, active obstruction of each other’s programmes.¹³⁶ Some of our interviewees perceive a merger of the two organisations as a potential solution to the institutional tensions and organisational rivalries,¹³⁷ a perspective that echoes that of authors such as Louis Moustakas.¹³⁸ This form of policy transfer translation – that is, the merger of the NOC with the governmental sports agency – has been implemented in a number of other countries (for example, Germany, South Korea and South Africa) to varying degrees of success, as conflicts have not necessarily disappeared in those countries.¹³⁹ Indeed, it is also possible that a merger could simply transform the institutional misfit into intra-organisational conflicts.

Concerning our first guiding research question, we can conclude that the interactions between the BNOC and governmental authorities are shaped by a persistent institutional misfit and organisational rivalries. Nevertheless, the interactions are also characterised by deliberative efforts to create positive relationships. The rather cordial character of the interactions reflects the absence of a policy misfit since all actors in Botswana sport policy-making share a common interest in increasing national sporting success. However, the basic policy consensus reduces neither the conflict over the government’s role nor organisational rivalries. The BNOC has failed to gain a resource commitment from the public authorities for its policy programme and competes with the BNSC for recognition.

Given these persistent tensions, it is difficult to provide a definitive answer to our second research question concerning the impact of the coercive policy transfer on Botswana sport policy-making. While it is obvious that the presence of the BNOC as an imposed NGO has created persistent tensions and rivalry, it is hard to assess to what extent the BNOC has improved policy development and implementation. Moreover, even though the BNOC can access significant support from the IOC and Commonwealth Games Federation, the entire sport sector, including the BNOC, remains heavily reliant on government funding,¹⁴⁰ which guarantees that the government exerts substantial control over sport policy-making.

Regarding our contribution to a more general understanding of the impact of coercive policy transfers and the relations between public authorities and NGOs, our case study serves to demonstrate at least two things. First, tensions between public authorities and imposed NGOs can arise simply as a result of the fact that coercive policy transfers limit the sovereignty of national public authorities. Sports autonomy as imposed by the IOC also restricts the power of democratic and capable governments. Second, in accordance with theoretical expectations, policy entrepreneurship by NGOs serves to increase the misfit, which might be attenuated by policy consensus.

Finally, we need to consider the overall contribution of our study. The choice of Botswana as a case study has been demonstrated to have both advantages and disadvantages. As previously discussed, Botswana has features that are both typical and atypical of a developing country. On the one hand, the stability of the country facilitates access to information and participants, and contributes to the quality and rigour of the research. This is valuable for any research and makes Botswana a worthwhile case study. On the other hand, the stability of policy-making is not necessarily replicated elsewhere in the context of southern Africa, which might be seen as reducing the generalisation and explanatory powers of the case study.

As we have pointed out, in our view the differences are in fact more ones of scale than of nature. Indeed, Botswana still features levels of economic disparity within the country, clear differences in development between the urban and rural regions and, importantly, a weak civil society unable to participate in policy and politics to the extent that it would like to, as recognised by the country’s NGOs themselves. But perhaps more relevant to our study is that the Botswana sport system is similar in structure, division of responsibilities and funding dynamics to most of the countries in the region and, for that matter, to many other countries in the global south. Thus, we would argue that when we take into account the focus on sport policy and governance, Botswana is much closer to being an illustrative case study than an intrinsic case study, even when (as with all case studies) it is always important to take into account the limitations of its particularities.

Our study demonstrates the value of sport policy as a field of research in assessing the relations between governmental and non-governmental actors. Thus, we would suggest that future research on governance, democracy and civil-society participation in the African context needs to include sport organisations, a sector of civil society that has been neglected in the past. Similarly, our article also reveals both the impact and the limitations of the IOC’s Olympic Solidarity and the consequences such funding can have in national politics. Further research needs to be undertaken to understand those dynamics and, for those studying foreign aid in a global context, sport development programmes need to be included in their analysis too. Finally, our study reveals that NOCs can be important actors in sport policy, but that their role will be heavily mediated by the local institutional and policy context. More research is needed to understand the variables that mediate NOC roles at national levels in different countries.

Acknowledgements

Research presented in this article was supported by the International Olympic Committee under its Advanced Olympic Research Grant Programme – 2018/2.

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of Modisaotsile Phatshwane and Seno Frederic for their assistance in the organisation of the fieldwork visit for this research. The authors also would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the journal editor for their comments and feedback to improve this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Borja García

Borja García School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University, Epinal Way, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK. Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7841-7805

Henk Erik Meier

Henk Erik Meier Institute for Sport and Exercise Science, University of Münster, Horstmarer Landweg 62b, 48149, Münster, Germany. Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5852-4814

Louis Moustakas

Louis Moustakas Institute for European Sport Development and Leisure Studies, German Sport University, Am Sportpark Müngersdorf 6, 50933, Cologne, Germany. From 15 January 2024: Department of Sport, Culture and Event Management, University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Tirol, Andreas Hofer-Straße 7, 6330, Kufstein, Austria. Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3388-4407

Notes

1 D. Reiche, ‘Why Developing Countries Are Just Spectators in the “Gold War”: The Case of Lebanon at the Olympic Games’, Third World Quarterly, 38, 4 (2017), pp. 996–1011, 1005.

2 J. Kang, J.-O. Kim and Y. Wang, ‘Salvaging National Pride: The 2010 Taekwondo Controversy and Taiwan’s Quest for Global Recognition’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 50, 1 (2015), pp. 98–114, 100.

3 Reiche, ‘Why Developing Countries are Just Spectators’.

4 M.T. Zammit and I. Henry, ‘Evaluating Olympic Solidarity 1982–2012’, in I. Henry and L.-M. Ko (eds), Routledge Handbook of Sport Policy (Hoboken, Taylor and Francis, 2013), pp. 93–105.

5 Reiche, ‘Why Developing Countries Are Just Spectators’.

6 H.E. Meier and B. García, ‘Protecting Private Transnational Authority against Public Intervention: FIFA’s Power over National Governments’, Public Administration, 93, 4 (2015), pp. 890–906; H.E. Meier and B. García, ‘Beyond Sports Autonomy: A Case for Collaborative Sport Governance Approaches’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 13, 3 (2021), pp. 501–16.

7 D.P. Dolowitz and D. Marsh, ‘Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy-Making’, Governance, 13, 1 (2000), pp. 5–23.

8 D. Stone, ‘Transfer Agents and Global Networks in the “Transnationalization” of Policy’, Journal of European Public Policy, 11, 3 (2004), pp. 545–66; D. Stone, ‘Understanding the Transfer of Policy Failure: Bricolage, Experimentalism and Translation’, Policy and Politics, 45, 1 (2017), pp. 55–70.

9 J. Brass, ‘Blurring Boundaries: The Integration of NGOs into Governance in Kenya’, Governance, 25, 2 (2012), pp. 209–35; J. Brass (ed.), Allies or Adversaries (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016).

10 Meier and García, ‘Beyond Sports Autonomy’.

11 T. Carroll and B.W. Carroll, ‘The Rapid Emergence of Civil Society in Botswana’, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 42, 3 (2004), pp. 333–55.

12 Botswana Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO) and South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), The Big Governance Issues in Botswana: A Civil Society Submission to the APRM (Gaborone and Johannesburg, BOCONGO and SAIIA, 2021); J.D. Holm, P.P. Molutsi and G. Somolekae, ‘The Development of Civil Society in a Democratic State: The Botswana Model’, African Studies Review, 39, 2 (1996), p. 43.

13 M. Carbone, ‘Weak Civil Society in a Hard State: Lessons from Africa’, Journal of Civil Society, 1, 2 (2005), pp. 167–79; Z. Maundeni and K. Suping, ‘The Politics of Exclusion in Botswana: A Creation of the Independence Constitutional Talks’, PULA: Botswana Journal of African Studies, 27, 2 (2013).

14 S. Kang’ethe, ‘Evaluation of the Support to Care Giving by Local Nongovernmental Organisations (NGOs) in the Kanye Care Programme, Botswana’, Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 46, 2 (2014).

15 M. Mogalakwe and D. Sebudubudu, ‘Trends in State-Civil Society Relations in Botswana’, Journal of African Elections, 5, 2 (2006), pp. 207–24.

16 J.A. Robinson, ‘State Formation and Governance in Botswana’, Journal of African Economies, 15, Supplement 1 (2006), pp. 100–40.

17 BOCONGO and SAIIA, The Big Governance Issues in Botswana; K. Alexander and G. Kaboyakgosi, A Fine Balance: Assessing the Quality of Governance in Botswana (Oxford, African Books Collective, 2012).

18 M. Mogalakwe, ‘From Pre-Colony to Post-Colony: Continuities and Discontinuities in Political Power Relations and Governance in Botswana’, Journal of African Elections, 5, 2 (2006), pp. 5–20.

19 Alexander and Kaboyakgosi, A Fine Balance, p. 3.

20 K. Good, ‘Diamonds and Malign Governance in Botswana’, Review of African Political Economy, 24, 74 (1997), pp. 539–53.

21 J.D. Holm, ‘Botswana: A Paternalistic Democracy’, World Affairs, 150, 1 (1987), pp. 21–30.

22 Ibid., p. 22.

23 Alexander and Kaboyakgosi, A Fine Balance, p. 3.

24 BOCONGO and SAIIA, The Big Governance Issues in Botswana.

25 Robinson, ‘State Formation and Governance in Botswana’; I. Taylor, ‘The Limits of the ‘African Miracle’: Academic Freedom in Botswana and the Deportation of Kenneth Good’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 24, 1 (2006), pp. 101–22.

26 Carroll and Carroll, ‘The Rapid Emergence of Civil Society’, p. 348.

27 P.P. Molutsi and J.D. Holm, ‘Developing Democracy when Civil Society is Weak: The Case of Botswana’, African Affairs, 89, 356 (1990), pp. 323–40; Holm, Molutsi and Somolekae, ‘The Development of Civil Society’.

28 Holm, Molutsi and Somolekae, ‘The Development of Civil Society’; Carroll and Carroll, ‘The Rapid Emergence of Civil Society’.

29 Carroll and Carroll, ‘The Rapid Emergence of Civil Society’.

30 Ibid.; M. Lekorwe and D. Mpabanga, ‘Managing Non-Governmental Organizations in Botswana’, The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 12, 3 (2007), pp. 1–16.

31 Carroll and Carroll, ‘The Rapid Emergence of Civil Society’.

32 Lekorwe and Mpabanga, ‘Managing Non-Governmental Organizations’.

33 BOCONGO and SAIIA, The Big Governance Issues in Botswana, p. 41.

34 Lekorwe and Mpabanga, ‘Managing Non-Governmental Organizations’.

35 BOCONGO and SAIIA, The Big Governance Issues in Botswana, p. 47.

36 Ibid., p. 40.

37 Holm, Molutsi and Somolekae, ‘The Development of Civil Society’.

38 Lekorwe and Mpabanga, ‘Managing Non-Governmental Organizations’; Carroll and Carroll, ‘The Rapid Emergence of Civil Society’.

39 J. Scheerder, A. Willem and E. Claes, Sport Policy Systems and Sport Federations (London, Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2017); R. Siekmann and J. Soek, ‘Models of Sport Governance in the European Union: The Relationship between State and Sport Authorities’, International Sport Law Journal, 3–4 (2010), pp. 93–102; K. Hallmann and K. Petry (eds), Comparative Sport Development (New York, Springer New York, 2013).

40 Meier and García, ‘Protecting Private Transnational Authority’.

41 Dolowitz and Marsh, ‘Learning from Abroad’.

42 A. Street, ‘Policy Transfer in Kyrgyzstan: The Case of General Practice Fundholding’, in M. Evans and M. Evans (eds), Policy Transfer in Global Perspective (London, Routledge, 2017), pp. 113–27.

43 K.E. Jørgensen, M. Pollack and B. Rosamond (eds), The SAGE Handbook of European Union Politics (London, SAGE Publications, 2007).

44 T.A. Börzel and T. Risse, ‘Conceptualizing the Domestic Impact of Europe (2003)’, in T. Risse (ed.), Domestic Politics and Norm Diffusion in International Relations: Ideas Do Not Float Freely (Abingdon, Routledge, 2016), pp. 150–71.

45 J.-L. Chappelet, Autonomy of Sport in Europe (Strasbourg, Council of Europe Publishing, 2010).

46 International Olympic Committee (IOC), Olympic Charter (Lausanne, IOC, 2021), p. 8.

47 Meier and García, ‘Beyond Sports Autonomy’.

48 L. Allison, ‘Sport and Civil Society’, Political Studies, 46, 4 (1998), pp. 709–26.

49 P. Chatterjee, The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the World (Delhi, Permanent Black, 2004).

50 C. Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1994).

51 M. Lo, ‘Re-Conceptualizing Civil Society: The Debate Continues with Specific Reference to Contemporary Senegal’, African and Asian Studies, 5, 1 (2006), pp. 91–118.

52 Chatterjee, ‘The Politics of the Governed’.

53 R. Joseph, Africa’s Political Atlas: A Panorama of the New Era (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991); Robinson, ‘State Formation and Governance in Botswana’; J.E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York, Norton, 2003).

54 M. Bratton, ‘Second Elections in Africa’, British Journal of Political Science, 18, 2 (188), pp. 241–54; Good, ‘Diamonds and Malign Governance in Botswana’; J.M. Giblin, ‘The Political Economy of the Kalahari Debate’, African Studies Review, 31, 3 (1988), pp. 43–68.

55 Robinson, ‘State Formation and Governance in Botswana’; Carroll and Carroll, ‘The Rapid Emergence of Civil Society’.

56 K. Good, ‘Enduring Elite Democracy in Botswana’, Democratization, 6, 1 (1999), pp. 50–66; K. Good. ‘The State and Extreme Poverty in Botswana: The San and Destitutes’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 37, 2 (1999), pp. 185–205; see also G.E.J. Mogomotsi and P.K. Mogomotsi, ‘Recognition of the Indigeneity of the Basarwa in Botswana: Panacea Against their Marginalisation and Realisation of Land Rights?’, African Journal of International and Comparative Law, 28, 4 (2020), pp. 555–76.

57 Molutsi and Holm, ‘Developing Democracy’.

58 Ibid.; Holm, ‘Botswana: A Paternalistic Democracy’.

59 BOCONGO and SAIIA, The Big Governance Issues in Botswana; Lekorwe and Mpabanga, ‘Managing Non-Governmental Organizations in Botswana’.

60 Robinson, ‘State Formation and Governance in Botswana’.

61 Holm, ‘Botswana: A Paternalistic Democracy’.

62 J. Connor and M. McEwen, ‘International Development or White Man’s Burden? The IAAF’s Regional Development Centres and Regional Sporting Assistance’, Sport in Society, 14, 6 (2011), pp. 805–17.

63 H.E. Meier and B. García, ‘Abandoning Hopes for Veto Power: Institutional Options for Sport Governing Bodies in the European Union’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 5, 3 (2013), pp. 421–43.

64 Ibid.; Brass, ‘Allies or Adversaries’

65 Meier and García, ‘Abandoning Hopes for Veto Power’.

66 D. Stone, ‘Transfer and Translation of Policy’, Policy Studies, 33, 6 (2012), pp. 483–99; Stone, ‘Understanding the Transfer of Policy Failure’.

67 M. Evans, ‘International Policy Transfer’, in D. Stone and K. Moloney (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Global Policy and Transnational Administration (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 93–110; O. Porto de Oliveira, Handbook of Policy Transfer, Diffusion and Circulation (Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2021).

68 Stone, ‘Understanding the Transfer of Policy Failure’, p. 67.

69 P. Bromley and W.W. Powell, ‘From Smoke and Mirrors to Walking the Talk: Decoupling in the Contemporary World’, Academy of Management Annals 6, 1 (2012), pp. 483–530.

70 D.P. Dolowitz, R. Plugaru and S. Saurugger, ‘The Process of Transfer: The Micro-Influences of Power, Time and Learning’, Public Policy and Administration, 35, 4 (2020), pp. 445–64.

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid., p. 462.

73 Brass, ‘Blurring Boundaries: The Integration of NGOs into Governance in Kenya’.

74 Ibid.; Brass, ‘Allies or Adversaries’.

75 Brass, ‘Blurring Boundaries: The Integration of NGOs into Governance in Kenya’.

76 Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC), ‘Establishment of the BNSC’, web page, available at www.bnsc.co.bw/about-us, retrieved 14 April 2020.

77 O.M. Toriola, ‘A Comparative Analysis of Youth Sports Programmes in Botswana and Nigeria’, International Sports Studies, 22, 2 (2000), 57–71; P. Wass, ‘Initiatives to Promote Civil Society in Botswana in the 1960s: A Personal Memoir’, Botswana Notes and Records, 36 (2004), pp. 74–81.

78 Toriola, ‘A Comparative Analysis of Youth Sports Programmes’.

79 Ibid.; BNSC, ‘Establishment of the BNSC’.

80 Toriola, ‘A Comparative Analysis of Youth Sports Programmes’.

81 J. Shehu and M.M. Mokgwathi, ‘A Discourse Analysis of the National Sport and Recreation Policy for Botswana’, Sport, Education and Society, 12, 2 (2007), pp. 193–210; Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture (MYESCD), National Sport and Recreation Policy for Botswana (Gaborone, MYESCD, 2001); T. Tshube and S.J. Hanrahan, ‘Coaching and Coach Education in Botswana’, International Sport Coaching Journal, 5, 1 (2018), pp. 79–83.

82 Shehu and Mokgwathi, ‘A Discourse Analysis’; T. Tshube, L. Kasale and B. Manatsha, ‘A Critical Overview of Sport Development in Botswana’, International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 20, 4 (2022), pp. 1–16.

83 L. Moustakas and T. Tshube, ‘Sport Policy in Botswana’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 12, 4 (2020), pp. 731–45.

84 Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture, ‘National Sport and Recreation Policy for Botswana’.

85 Toriola, ‘A Comparative Analysis of Youth Sports Programmes in Botswana and Nigeria’.

86 BNSC, ‘Establishment of the BNSC’; Parliament of Botswana, Botswana National Sport Commission Act of 2014: BNSC Act No. 30 of 2014 (Gaborone, Government Printing and Publishing Services, 2014).

87 Botswana National Olympic Committee, website home page, available at https://www.botswananoc.org, retrieved 26 January 2022.

88 Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC), Botswana Long Term Athlete Development Implementation Guide (Gaborone, BNOC, 2015).

89 S. Jacobs, V. de Bosscher, R. Venter and J. Scheerder, ‘Country Profile: Sport in South Africa’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 11, 1 (2019), pp. 175–91; D. Malarack, M. Keim and C. de Coning, ‘South Africa’, in K. Hallmann and K. Petry (eds), Comparative Sport Development (New York, Springer New York, 2013), pp. 253–68.

90 R. Chappell, ‘Sport in Namibia’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 40, 2 (2005), pp. 241–54;

91 R. Nyirongo, ‘Country Report: Malawi’, in M. Keim and C. de Coning (eds), Sport and Development Policy in Africa – Results of a Collaborative Study of Selected Country Cases (Stellenbosch, African Sun Media, 2014), pp. 60–5.

92 E. Sebata and Y. Li, ‘Country Profile: Sport Policy in Uganda’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 14, 4 (2022), pp. 759–73; S.S.B. Kasoma, ‘Uganda’, in K. Hallmann and K. Petry (eds), Comparative Sport Development (New York, Springer New York, 2013), pp. 269–80.

93 M. Keim and C. de Coning (eds), Sport and Development Policy in Africa – Results of a Collaborative Study of Selected Country Cases (Stellenbosch, African Sun Media, 2014).

94 Chappell, ‘Sport in Namibia’; P. Gschwender, ‘Country Report: Namibia’, in Keim and de Coning (eds), Sport and Development Policy in Africa – Results of a Collaborative Study of Selected Country Cases, pp. 101–14.

95 Keim and Coning, Sport and Development Policy in Africa – Results, p. 176.

96 L. Moustakas, ‘The Case for Merging the Botswana National Olympic Committee and National Sport Commission’, Managing Sport and Leisure (2021), pp. 1–4.

97 Stone, ‘Transfer and Translation of Policy’; Stone, ‘Understanding the Transfer of Policy Failure’.

98 D. Beach and R.B. Pedersen, Process Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2013), p. 2.

99 M. Rowlinson, J. Hassard and S. Decker, ‘Research Strategies for Organizational History: A Dialogue Between Historical Theory and Organization Theory’, The Academy of Management Review (2014), doi: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2012.0203.

100 R. Aminzade, ‘Historical Sociology and Time’, Sociological Methods & Research, 20, 4 (1992), pp. 456–80.

101 Beach and Pedersen, ‘Process Tracing Methods’.

102 Ibid.

103 Dolowitz, Plugaru and Saurugger, ‘The Process of Transfer’, p. 461.

104 A.C. Sparkes and B. Smith, Qualitative Research Methods in Sport, Exercise and Health: From Process to Product (Abingdon, Routledge, 2013), p. 70–1.

105 The project was granted ethical clearance by Loughborough University’s Ethics Review Sub-Committee under reference number HPSC-2495.

106 Parliament of Botswana, Botswana National Sport Commission Act of 2014.

107 Interview with senior administrator from the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development (MYESCD), 28 March 2019, Gaborone.

108 Interview with senior officer from MYESCD, 28 March 2019, Gaborone.

109 Interview with senior BNSC board member, 28 March 2019, Gaborone.

110 Botswana National Olympic Committee and Botswana National Sports Commission, Memorandum of Understanding (by and between the Botswana National Sport Commission and Botswana National Olympic Committee herein referred to as parties) (Gaborone, BNSC and BNOC, 2018).

111 Interview with senior BNOC board member, 27 March 2019, Gaborone.

112 D. Kgangkenna, ‘BNOC, BNSC Consolidate Relationships’, Sunday Standard, Gaborone, 7 November 2020, available at https://www.sundaystandard.info/bnoc-bnsc-consolidate-relationships/, retrieved 17 November 2023.

113 Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC), Botswana Long Term Athlete Development 2020 and Beyond Strategic Plan (Gaborone, BNOC, 2015); BNOC, Botswana Long Term Athlete Development Implementation Guide.

114 Botswana National Olympic Committee and Botswana National Sports Commission, ‘Memorandum of Understanding’.

115 Interview with senior BNOC board member; interview with senior BNSC board member.

116 Interview with high-level coach, 1 April 2019, Gaborone.

117 BNOC, Botswana Long Term Athlete Development Implementation Guide.

118 Interview with senior BNOC administrator, 27 March 2019, Gaborone.

119 Interview with senior professional athlete, 1 April 2019, Gaborone; interview with high-level coach.

120 Interview with senior MYESCD administrator.

121 Interview with high-level coach.

122 Interview with senior BNOC board member; interview with senior professional athlete; interview with junior athlete, 1 April 2019, Gaborone.

123 Interview with mid-rank BNSC official, 28 March 2019, Gaborone.

124 Interview with senior BNOC board member; interview with mid-rank BNSC official.

125 African Union Sports Council Region 5, ‘History’, web page, available at http://www.auscregion5.org.bw/about/history/, retrieved 3 September 2016.

126 Interview with senior BNSC board member.

127 Ibid.

128 Ibid.; interview with senior BNSC board member; interview with senior BNOC board member.

129 L. Allison, The Politics of Sport (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1986).

130 Interview with mid-rank BNSC official.

131 Interview with senior MYESCD administrator.

132 D. Mackay, ‘Botswana Government Fund Country’s Team to Compete in African Games’, available at https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1083304/botswana-govt-funds-african-games-preps, retrieved 2 November 2023.

133 Interview with senior BNOC administrator.

134 Moustakas, ‘The Case for Merging’.

135 Alexander and Kaboyakgosi, A Fine Balance; R.G. Harvey, ‘From Diamonds to Coal? Critical Reflections on Botswana’s Economic Future’, The Extractive Industries and Society, 2, 4 (2015), pp. 827–39.

136 Moustakas, ‘The Case for Merging’; Tshube, Kasale and Manatsha, ‘A Critical Overview of Sport Development in Botswana’.

137 Interview with senior BNSC board member; interview with senior BNOC board member.

138 Moustakas, ‘The Case for Merging’.

139 Hallmann and Petry, ‘Comparative Sport Development’.

140 Moustakas and Tshube, ‘Sport Policy in Botswana’.