Sport policy in Sweden

Abstract

Contemporary sport policy in Sweden is the result of a century-long relationship between national and local governments and voluntary, non-profit and membershipbased club sport which has resulted in extensive financial support to organised sport. The relationship is defined by an 'implicit contract' in which the government decides on the extent and the purpose of the funding, and the recipient, the Swedish Sports Confederation, determines the details of the distribution and administration. These funds are distributed to 20,164 sport clubs and their 3,147,000 members in exchange for the realisation of social policies on public health and the fostering of democratic citizens. While an important cornerstone of the relationship has been the autonomy and self-determination of the recipient of the funds in their capacities as civil society organisations, recent decades have witnessed an increase in demands on performance outputs. These demands have explicated a wider social responsibility for organised sport and entailed a system for follow-up and control of the results of the government support via key performance indicators. In these ways, the corporatist agreement and consensus traditionally characterising the public-civil society interaction has been accompanied by governing mechanisms associated with neo-liberal ideologies which in turn are putting the sustainability of the implicit contract to the test.

Football for Inclusion: Examining the Pedagogic Rationalities and the Technologies of Solidarity of a Sports-Based Intervention in Sweden

“…Here, sport has been politically assessed as a means of social inclusion (e.g., Government Offices, 2015). In Sweden, expectations of sport practices contributing to social objectives have recently been more explicit (Fahlén & Stenling, 2016;Norberg, 2011). Sport contributing to social objectives is not a new idea: in the early 1900s, the sports movement was mobilised, with the ideal of diligence and participation, to encourage children and young people to get active, and to highlight sport as a means of developing democratic ideals and creating solidarity by overcoming class conflicts (Norberg, 2011).…”

Sport as a Means of Responding to Social Problems : Rationales of Government, Welfare and Social Change

“…In its self-representation, the sport movement could draw on notions of youth culture and youth problems to promote sport as a solution, highlight specific social utility and motivate public financial support (Wijk 2001). In a broader sense, this has been the case in the post-war period; the sport movement has organized practices with public support in a corporatist partnership model (Bergsgard & Norberg 2010;Fahlén & Stenling 2015) based on implicit expectations that sport has positive effects on public health, democratic socialization and social integration (Bergsgard & Norberg 2010). In many ways, the sport movement can be seen as intertwined with the Scandinavian and socialdemocratic way of doing welfare, with aspirations of universal outreach and far-reaching ambitions to reduce risk and combat social inequalities (Bergsgard & Norberg 2010).…”

“…In many ways, the sport movement can be seen as intertwined with the Scandinavian and socialdemocratic way of doing welfare, with aspirations of universal outreach and far-reaching ambitions to reduce risk and combat social inequalities (Bergsgard & Norberg 2010). One key ambition of the welfare state was to provide youths with recreational and meaningful leisure time that would benefit both individuals and wider society by producing healthy, democratic citizens (Fahlén & Stenling 2015). Formally, the sport movement (organized through the Swedish Sports Confederation) has been autonomous of state and public authorities yet still dependent on public funding.…”

“…Governmental programs like The Handshake from 2004 and The Sports Lift, which replaced it in 2007, are worth mentioning here. They allocated funding for sport-based projects on the premise of public health, equal opportunities and social integration (Fahlén & Stenling 2015) and increased government funding dramatically (Norberg 2010). According to Österlind (2016, p. 13-14), participating in organized sport for social objectives is "regarded as 'cost-effective' solutions to problems that are caused by social and economic disadvantages and inequalities" by policy makers.…”

“…A regime of practice utilizing sport as a means of responding to social problems is emerging globally (Coalter 2007b;Houlihan 1997Houlihan , 2011) -and, with special relevance to this thesis, in Sweden (Fahlén & Stenling 2015;Norberg 2011;Stenling 2015). Social problems such as segregation, exclusion, drugs, violence and crime have been highlighted as serious social policy challenges in times of austerity and social turmoil (Ferguson & Lavalette 2013;Webb 2006), and responding to social problems in a welfare state context is generally considered to be a goal of modern social work and welfare provision (Parton 1996, Payne 2014Webb 2006).…”