Publications / Reports / 2003 / 2003:008 Statlig idrettspolitikk i Norge og Frankrike
Statlig idrettspolitikk i Norge og Frankrike
ISBN print: 82-7763-183-9
Pages: 43
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This report compares public policies within sport in Norway and France and focuses on the relationships between the state and the voluntary sector. To questions are of interest: first the relationship between the state and the voluntary sector generates a tension between two forms of legitimacy and between different foundational principles for the coordination of social life. On one hand the state’s legitimacy is anchored in the public interest and the state has a monopoly over the use of coercive means in order to achieve its objectives. On the other hand the sport voluntary sector’s legitimacy is based on citizens’ autonomous engagement grounded on self decision and reciprocity. The institutional architecture that characterizes the relationships between the state and the voluntary sector in France and Norway can be analyzed as two ways of reducing this tension i.e. as institutional compromises between different logics of action. By setting the two systems in contrast it becomes possible to make visible these institutional compromises. Second, the two institutional models are the result of historical development. In spite of their differences the two systems are obliged to adapt to changes that find their origins within the sport voluntary sector but also that follow more general societal trends.