The power to shape policy: charting sport for development and peace policy discourses

Abstract

This paper discusses findings from a development policy discourse analysis that was conducted using six key sport for development and peace (SDP) policy documents. The research was guided by a theoretical framework combining postcolonial theory and actor-oriented sociology in order to critically analyse SDP policies. Based on this analysis, three theses are proposed: (1) SDP policies are unclear, circuitous and are underpinned by political rationalities; (2) coordinated and coherent SDP policy approaches between the One-Third World and Two-Thirds World suggest that ‘partnership’ is possibly akin to ‘developmental assimilation’; and (3) SDP policy models are wedded to the increasingly neoliberal character of international development interventions. Proposals for future research on SDP include an increase in the use of: (1) anthropological perspectives to uncover how those on the ‘receiving end’ of SDP policies are influenced and challenged by taking up the solutions and techniques prescribed for them; and (2) postcolonial perspectives that re-orient questions and concerns towards the Eurocentric standpoints couched in development policies, and asks scholars to uncover how power relations, authority and influence are embedded in the social processes of policy-making. The article concludes by arguing that SDP policies are messy, unpredictable, ambiguous and, at times, contradictory.

Keywords:

• sport for development and peace
• policy discourse analysis
• postcolonial theory
• actor-oriented theory
• United Nations

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Dr Peter Donnelly for encouraging me to write this paper, and for his insightful comments and feedback on earlier drafts. Thank you also to Dr Bruce Kidd for his comments, and to Dr Wendy Frisby and Dr Brian Wilson for their support with my broader Masters thesis project upon which much of this paper is based. Of course, any oversights or errors are entirely my own. I would also like to thank Dr Barrie Houlihan and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this paper. I am indebted also to Phyllis Racey Glass for her inspiration and support on this project and many others.

Notes

1. I will use the language of ‘One-Third World’ (First World/North) and ‘Two-Thirds World’ (Third World/South) as discussed by Mohanty (2004), and Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Prakash (1998). These terms are non-essentialist and also represent the social minorities and social majorities in both the North and South with a focus on quality of life. At the same time, they remove any ideological and geographical binaries as found in other terms (e.g. North/South, Third World/First World).

2. Agathangelou and Ling (2004) suggest that a postcolonial framework is similar to social constructionism because it ‘begins with the premise that we intersubjectively create our worlds’ (p. 518).

3. Thank you to an anonymous reviewer for making this distinction.

4. I am indebted to Dr Brian Wilson for introducing me to the work of David Harvey, and neoliberal theory as it intersects with SDP.