The Development of the Swedish Sports Movement between State, Market and Civic Society – Some Remarks

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

“…As a result, public authorities cannot easily place conditions on such support for sport practices without destabilizing the autonomy that is presumably the foundation and precondition for democratic socialization in the sport movement (Bergsgard & Norberg 2010). Crucially, the level of member participation in Swedish sports has been exceptionally high, an indication that civil society makes an important contribution, measured both in financial terms and, with respect to voluntary work, to welfare objectives (Norberg 2010). Confidence in sport with social benefits and as an arena for positive socialization is fairly well established in contemporary Sweden, according to Wagnsson (2009).…”

“…However, sport was often criticized for being competitive and brutalizing, and government support was called into question (Norberg 2004). During the first half of the 1900s the sport movement concentrated its focus on youth sports and the positive contributions sport made to society by fostering participants (Wijk 2001), and increased funding for the sport movement was part of welfare policies from the 1930s on (Norberg 2010). The labour movement played a prominent role here, embracing sport as a means of promoting democratic ideals beyond class boundaries (Norberg 2004).…”

“…However, in Sweden sport -more so than military aims -was seen to instil great will-power, steadfast fearlessness, self-confidence and good morals; sport was also considered to have an impact on sobriety and general discipline since competences gained from taking part in sport were presumably transferred to broader social spheres (Lindroth 1988). In 1913, the sport movement, consolidated through the Swedish Sports Confederation, received its first annual government grants, which were seen as confirmation of the social utility of sport (Eichberg & Loland 2010;Norberg 2010Norberg , 2011. However, sport was often criticized for being competitive and brutalizing, and government support was called into question (Norberg 2004).…”

“…With respect to Sweden's archetypically statist welfare model, the introduction of new welfare mixes has been debated and conflict laden; especially, the right-wing government of 2006 advocated and endorsed this development (Johansson, H., Arvidsson & Johansson, S. 2015). The re-emergence of civil society and community work in contemporary social policy and social service provision is an interesting feature of welfare recalibration that has been viewed in relation to sport (Norberg 2010) and could be further elaborated on in relation to 'sport as a means of responding to social problems'.…”

“…Both are organizational instances of a reconfiguration of 'the social' of social work. Sport associations and the sport movement in general seem to be common representatives of civil society (Coalter 2007b;Norberg 2010;Seippel, Ibsen & Norberg 2010) and congregate a kind of managerial social entrepreneurialism (Cohen & Peachey 2015;Sherry, Schulenkorf & Chalip 2015). In Sweden too, they challenge competitive sport with new institutional logics of social entrepreneurialism (Linde 2013).…”