|  | Feature | No.59 May 2010 |

European Models of Sport: Governance, Organisational Change and Sports Policy in the EU
Ian Henry & Ling-Mei Ko
Introduction
This paper seeks to address the nature and structure of policy systems and the changes such systems might be undergoing. To accomplish this, we first outline a fourfold typology of European policy systems developed by Jean Camy and his colleagues (Camy et al., 2004) in the VOCASPORT project . Subsequently, we seek to develop this typology by teasing out aspects of governance and policy delivery which relate to each of the types. Third, we seek to outline some of the tensions experienced within European policy systems in the ways in which they are subject to forces for change. Finally, we consider a case study of policy change in England which seeks to influence and steer policy through networks and partnerships at the local level, in ways which are consistent with what Camy terms the social model.
The ´VOCASPORT` Typology of Sports Policy Systems in Europe
In the late 1990s, in the run up to the of the Nice Declaration on Sport, there was regular reference to the `European Model of Sport` (in the singular) and indeed a Consultation document of that name was published in 1998. This was a term, however, which masked the great diversity of policy systems in relation to sport which was evident among the Member States of the European Union (EU). If the term had any purchase at all on the reality of sports policy, it was in relation to the commercial sector where comparison between the American Model (profit maximisation, small number of teams, movement of franchises to highest bidding city, revenue sharing, maintaining uncertainty of outcome etc) and the European model was common, but even here there was greater diversity than might be implied by the use of this term in the singular. However, by the time the White Paper on Sport was published in 2007, the text explicitly recognised diversity in the governance systems in the Member States.
Indeed Camy and collegues (2004) in their report on the VOCASPORT project on employment in sport, one of four major projects commissioned by the Sports Unit of the European Commission, sought to characterise the national sports systems of the Member States as composed of four configurations, based on four parameters. The first is the role of public authorities, specifically the state as represented by the Ministry responsible for sport. The second parameter relates to the level of coordination of, or engagement by, the various actors involved in the sports system. This can take the form of a legal framework or simply a de facto prescription of the roles to be played by various actors. The third factor relates to the respective roles of the voluntary, public and private sectors in the delivery of sporting provision. The fourth parameter relates to the adaptability of the system to changes in demand.
Figure 1: Four Policy / Governance Configurations in Europe
The first of the four ideal typical policy systems is what Camy et al term the bureaucratic configuration, which exhibits high degrees of state involvement. 16 states exhibit this type of policy system: Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain.
The ´bureaucratic configuration` is characterised by the very active role that the public authorities take in regulating the system. There is almost always a legislative framework specific to the field (law on sport). This is a system characterised by rules from a public authority which, with its political/democratic legitimacy, does not necessarily negotiate to any great extent with other players. The voluntary sports movement acts by ´delegation`, social partners are often non-existent, and users/consumers and private entrepreneurs have a low impact on the implementation of a sports policy.
The second ideal type is the entrepreneurial configuration which is characterised by a high level of involvement of market forces, both in terms of direct provision, but also through contractual engagement by the state to manage publicly owned facilities (through for example competitive tendering procedures) . Market discipline is thus evident in both public and private sectors. Camy et al identify two states as incorporated within this configuration, namely Ireland and the United Kingdom.
The `entrepreneurial configuration` is characterised by the regulation of the system arising from the social or economic `demand` for sport. There is little to prevent the supply/demand relationship being directly regulated by the market. The public authorities` role consists essentially in setting a framework to enable this market logic to express itself. The voluntary sports movement must adapt to its requirements which correspond to the tendencies of private entrepreneurs and to attempt to maintain its positions, in this context.
The missionary configuration incorporates those states for whom the voluntary sector acts with delegated powers. Six states fall within this type: Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Sweden.
The `missionary configuration` is characterised by the dominant presence of a voluntary sports movement with great autonomy to make decisions. The state or regional authorities delegate it much responsibility for orienting the sports policy, even though they may become gradually involved in a contractual logic with it. The social partners have little presence; legitimacy belongs more to the voluntary managers than to employees; users rarely have the chance to adopt the position of consumer, and private entrepreneurs act on the fringes of the dominant system (with a variable role).
The social configuration, which incorporates only one state, the Netherlands, has high levels of interaction with partners such as trades unions, voluntary and commercial sector providers etc.
The `social configuration` is characterised by the presence of the social partners within a multifaceted system. This type of system is not univocally dominated by one player, but instead is subject to cohabitation/collaboration between public, voluntary and commercial players. The employee and employer representatives called upon to provide `governance` of the system are mostly concerned with the `common good` that sport brings, even though real tensions may appear.
Camy et al go little further than identifying the four configurations and pointing out that while there are tendencies for change or stresses and strains in terms of conforming to these types, the characterisation of states as falling into these categories broadly captures aspects of the system.
Figure 2: The Four Policy/Governance Configurations and their Respective Foci
We have chosen to illustrate these four types along two dimensions, informed by Janet Newman`s work on local governance (see Figure 2). The vertical axis relates to the role of the state – centralised versus decentralised power. The horizontal axis relates to the promotion of innovation and competitiveness at one end of the continuum (by employing the commercial or voluntary sectors in delivery), to continuity (through state regulation) and sustainability (by engaging in wider social involvement).
Ten of the sixteen bureaucratic configuration types, for example, are new EU members either from Eastern and Central Europe, which have been traditionally associated with command economies and centralised states, or are micro states (Cyprus and Malta). With reference to the former Soviet bloc states, there are tendencies towards for example commercialisation , and a reduced role for the state, but each still reflects the culture of a state-led sports system to a greater or lesser degree, even though there are declining state resources available to support the system. The classic case of the entrepreneurial configuration was that of the UK in the 1980s and early 1990s under then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, where neo-liberal ideology led to the adoption of a market forces approach across a wide range of policy fields, including sport. The missionary configuration represents the group of Scandinavian countries, plus Germany and Luxembourg, which have a traditionally fiercely independent voluntary sector, while the sole example of the social configuration is that of the Dutch case which, with its traditionally pluralist tendencies drawn from the history of `pillarisation` in Dutch society, has promoted the notion of social consultation as a core feature of policy systems.
We seek here to further examine some of the policy ramifications of the four types, but before we go further, two caveats to the use of this typology should be made. First, the configurations themselves represent a picture of the `classic` configuration associated with a given state, which may have been more applicable in the past but which is currently subject to pressures for change: and second that a national policy system may exhibit aspects of more than one configuration.
Features of Governance and Policy Delivery in Each of the Four Configurations
Perhaps the first thing to note about these four types is that they imply a different focus in terms of service delivery. The bureaucratic configuration places emphasis on regulation of processes, rules and regulations concerning how to proceed, while the entrepreneurial configuration focuses almost exclusively on outputs , particularly in the context of public sector bodies contracting commercial entities to manage services, where contracts will stipulate the kinds of output to be achieved. One of the difficulties associated with the introduction of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) for the provision of sports services was that while financial outputs such as revenue targets may be readily spelled out, operationalising social outputs presented a serious challenge.
The focus of the missionary configuration is on maintaining the broad social outcome of a healthy but independent voluntary sector in sport, rather than on government specifying the nature of direct outputs to be achieved. The voluntary sector, it is assumed, should be relatively independent of direct government pressures and when given selective autonomy will produce public benefits.
The social configuration is somewhat different. It is a model reflected in the European Commission`s promotion of social dialogue in a whole range of sectors (including sport as we see in the White Paper, 2007), an approach which is premised on the notion that for policy solutions to be sustainable and implementable they have to have the commitment of all major stakeholders. This approach is thus focused on a long-term commitment to social, political and economic inclusion as a broader outcome, the building of social capacity in each sector such that multi-perspectival analyses of policy may be undertaken producing better and more sustainable policy.
Figure 3: The Four Configurations and their Principal Objective
These differential foci imply fundamentally different approaches to policy. They are in effect based on the achievement of different goals, and there are tensions between these. The core goal of the bureaucratic model is to secure accountability, while the missionary model`s insistence on freeing the sports sector from state control is to ensure flexibility and adaptability, the ability to respond to changing circumstances unfettered by the bureaucracy of the traditional state apparatus, and free from party political interests. Similarly, while the core concern of the entrepreneurial model is to secure efficiency, in terms of cost per unit of output, the social configuration is concerned with securing the social engagement of all stakeholders to maximise the benefits of consultation in terms of the quality of decisions made, but also the subsequent ownership of, and commitment to, policy by these key actors.
Figure 4: A Logic Model Approach to the Relationship of the Four Models to Stages in the Policy Process
Nevertheless, though these different approaches imply different strengths, they also imply key weaknesses. These are perhaps most clearly illustrated if we draw on a traditional logic model of policy development. Bureaucratic policy systems, because of their commitment to control processes, are more prone to bureaucratic dysfunctions which privilege process over outcome. One can account, for example, for every policy action undertaken and every penny spent, while failing to achieve any long term policy benefits.
In the case of entrepreneurial policy systems, the major difficulty encountered is that of translating social goals into contractual requirements for providers. Britain`s experience of CCT in the 1980s and 1990s was that contracts let by local government, which were won by commercial contractors, tended to spell out only financial arrangements with little emphasis on the social returns to be provided by the contractor, and where serious attempts were made to place a central emphasis on the achievement of social goals, such contracts were not actively competed for by commercial entities. These were often won by public sector management, which, because of the lack of competition and reduced financial resources, were not always called to account in terms of achieving social goals.
The missionary approach liberates the sports sector (in particular the voluntary sector elements in sport) from state control, funding sport `at arm`s length”, and retaining control only in relation to sport as a commercial activity. However, this approach is based on the assumption that by leaving control of sport to those with expertise and commitment, the externalities associated with sport will presumably follow. Of course government can `steer” rather than command policy through, for example, fiscal incentives but the securing of outcomes is uncertain in such contexts, and disentangling self-interest of the voluntary sector from the public interest may become increasingly difficult, especially where outcomes (beyond that of fostering a healthily independent sports sector) may remain implicit.
Finally, there is the social model, having a broad goal for the development of a sustainable and consensual policy system which both draws and contributes to capacity building in wider society and implies also what is termed in the British system `joined up policy-making” since it aims to achieve general policy outcomes such as social cohesion, healthier communities (in social, psychological and political as well as physical terms), and economic development etc. Sports policy is thus simply part of a vehicle to achieve these broader goals. The sheer complexity of this approach provides problems in terms of specifying the nature of the social outcomes to be achieved, and in terms of the trans-policy domain activity required to achieve this.
The Direction of Change within European Sports Policy Systems
While these four configurations are useful descriptors as ideal types, it is clear that sports policy systems are subject to tensions and pressures for change. One clear example of this is the growing pressure on bureaucratic systems to introduce aspects of market forces. This is evidenced, to a greater or lesser degree, in the former Eastern bloc Member States which, though they have a traditional culture of central government control of sport, are also subject to the pressures of a liberalising set of economies. Jolanta Zysko (2008) for example, points to the reduction in centralised bureaucratic control of sport in Poland, citing the decentralisation of responsibility for sports facilities and services to local government, which is however not accompanied by the provision of additional resources to allow the local authorities to manage such provision. The result is poorer quality provisions, and/or growth in opportunities for the private sector to step in, in cases of gaps in provision.
In Western Europe also, in countries as traditionally state-centric as France and Italy in terms of control and administration of sport in general (France) and Olympic sport specifically (Italy, through the activities of the National Olympic Committee (CONI)), we have witnessed growing tendencies to introduce commercial approaches to what were previously virtually uniquely state regulated and provided activities. Examples of this include the hiving off of aspects of the work of CONI into a commercial trading wing (CONI Services, with an accompanying reduction in state finance and employment), and in France the growing tendency from the 1990s to foster private sector management of public facilities, and more recently plans to privatise aspects of the activities of the French National Institute of Sport and Physical Education (INSEP) (Zysko, 2008).
However, while the UK is held up as the proto-typical example of the entrepreneurial model, there is clear evidence of a retreat from the neo-liberal enthusiasm for this approach in New Labour`s activities over the last decade. In a review that we have been undertaking over the last three years of changes in policy at the local level, we have reviewed attempts to develop `joined-up policy`, linking sports policy activity with that of other stakeholders in communities such as education, health services, environment, public safety and security, social cohesion, and the engagement of public, voluntary and public sector actors, as well as citizens` groups per se in the development of capacity in local communities to participate in the setting of, and contributing to the achievement of, local policy goals. This push to developing a local social model is one which is strongly related to the European Commission`s commitment to social dialogue at European level which is expressed in the White Paper (2007).
It is worth noting that the Dutch commitment to the social model has been undermined in some respects. In a research project undertaken in 2004 for the European Commission entitled Sport and Multicultural Dialogue (Amara, Aquilina, Henry, & PMP Consultants, 2004), our Dutch colleagues noted a retreat by at least some Dutch local authorities from the traditional commitment to pluralism/multiculturalism in the wake of the murders of the far right politician Pim Fortuyn (in 2002), and of the film maker Theo Van Gogh (in 2004). These incidents raised a national debate about the limits to social engagement with certain constituencies in Dutch society.
An Evaluation of the Implementation of the Social Model Approach to Local Sports Governance in England
When New Labour came to power in the UK in 1997, Tony Blair had committed himself to a communitarian view of politics (Blair, 1996; Etzioni, 1993; Tam, 1998). This view was one that moved beyond the traditional Left`s commitment to direct provision by the public sector, and the New Right`s commitment to the market as the most efficient provider of services, to a `Third Way` which gave a new emphasis initially to the third sector (A. Giddens, 1994; A Giddens, 1998), and subsequently to an emphasis on partnership`s between the public, private and third sectors. This move away from an ideological commitment to either state or market, heralded a more pragmatic commitment to find the approach in any given context (be it state, market, third sector or a mixture) which offered the best value for money, as evidenced in the Best Value initiative in the provision of local government services (Nicholls, 1999; Williams, 1999).
This commitment to best value had translated, by the opening of the following decade, into a concern to establish cross-sector partnerships and networks for the delivery of a whole range of local services, including sport and recreation. The networking and partnership approach was seen as fostering `joined-up policy` networking across policy agencies and domains (Darlow, Percy-Smith, & Wells, 2007) (implicating sport and exercise in the health education, community safety and community development policy agendas for example) which was in turn seen as a means for addressing `wicked` policy problems such as `obesity`, which are the product of multiple causes, incorporate responses in different policy domains, and are complex and difficult to address (Weber & Khademian, 2008).
In line with this commitment to networks and partnership working, the government introduced County Sports Partnerships (CSPs) in 2002 to bring together actors from different policy domains and from the different sectors (public, private and third sector). The CSPs were charged with facilitating cooperation across the domains and sectors in order to meet government goals in sport but also in health, education and community safety. While our focus here is on local networks in sports policy in England, there is growing international literature on the development of forms of network governance across a range of policy domains, reflecting what Hill and Lynn (2005), in a multi-national review of governance, describe as a
widespread … belief that the focus of administrative practice is shifting from hierarchical government toward greater reliance on horizontal, hybridised and associational forms of governance. (Hill & Lynn, 2005: 173)
In 2005-2008, the Treasury funded an evaluation of a number of initiatives introduced into the new CSP system in two counties. The evaluation undertaken was led by one of the authors (Henry, Downward, Harwood, & Robinson, 2008), and included a review of the impact of a Social Network Analysis (SNA) undertaken, which sought to map out the interaction between members of sports and related policy actors in the two counties` sports systems. The detail of the SNA and its application is provided elsewhere (Henry, et al., 2008) and for reasons of space restrict ourselves to some lessons learned from the application of the SNA to map out the operation of the networks and partnerships.
Each of the counties identified over 200 individuals belonging to a variety of constituencies or policy relevant organisations. A web-based questionnaire was issued to these individuals asking them to indicate the regularity with which they contacted other individuals in the network over work issues, to secure a decision, to learn about innovations, or for social reasons. The results generated a map of interaction between participants, which was fed back to the individual participants and their organisations. Our evaluation team interviewed 40 individuals twice, immediately after the results of the SNA had been given to them in early 2005 to discuss those policy bodies and constituencies with which they had regular contact and those which were relatively disconnected from the network. The first interviews focused largely on whether the respondents recognised the pattern which emerged in the SNA and if they could explain why such patterns had emerged. The second set of interviews took place in 2007-8 and focused on any actions taken to try to improve interaction with other constituencies and to identify any changes in the nature and level of interaction, networking and partnership taking place. In addition, 18 other single interviews were conducted with participants.
We will comment here only briefly on some of the themes to emerge from the interviews, which relate to the establishing of networks and partnerships in each of the two counties, and which have a bearing on the attempt to introduce a social model sort sports policy per se. Figure 5 provides a selective schema of the networks of constituencies/stakeholders.
Figure 5: A Simplified Schema of the Constituencies Surveyed in the Social Network Analysis of County Sport Partnership.
The constituencies or stakeholders (we prefer to use the term constituency here because these are groups which the CSP officers felt should be stakeholders on local sports policy though some (in particular the health constituency) did not always see themselves as having a relevant interest in this policy domain) that were of particular interest to us in the evaluation process, and thus from which interviewees were selected, were as follows:
(a) The County Sport Partnerships in the two counties. These two organisations though named partnerships were actually facilitators of a sports partnership or network in each of their respective counties, since this was their principal role. They sought to develop and sustain links between those bodies which they saw as relevant to the delivery of sporting opportunities in the county. Their activities were driven by both national goals and targets (set by national government in terms of increasing participation rates in sport and exercise), and goals set regionally (by the Regional Sports Board) and locally by the various actors brought together by the partnership.
(b) The Education Constituency referring largely to School Sports Partnerships and Sports Colleges which are required to employ Partnership Development Managers to promote partnership between schools and colleges within their own locale. Performance indicators for this group include the number of hours of quality physical education and sport provided for young people in their schools, and links with out-of-school clubs and sporting organisations measured by the numbers of pupils joining recognised clubs.
(c) The Health Constituency, which is made up locally by Primary Care Trusts which manage hospital provision and the activities of local medical practitioners employed in General Medical Practices serving the community. Key performance indicators here related to a mixture of medical service and (preventative) public health measures. During the process of the evaluation (in the government`s Comprehensive Spending review of October, 2007) reduction of childhood obesity was added by government to the list of indicators of local performance (Department of Health, 2008).
(d) National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of Sport, the national sport federations, some of which are large and relatively independent (e.g. soccer), medium sized with a local presence (e.g. tennis) or small with perhaps regional presence but little by way of local involvement (e.g. netball). Key performance indicators here are promoted at the elite level by the governance requirements placed on NGBs by UK Sport (ICSA, 2002) and in terms of participation by Sport England (Sport England, 2008). These indicators include increased participation rates, increased numbers of qualified community coaches and increased club accreditation.
(e) Local authority sport development services, which may vary from well developed service provision to minor activity in any given local authority since provision of sport and recreation services has traditionally been discretionary rather than a statutory requirement. Three principal approaches to performance indicators have been used across the period of New Labour governments. The first was Best Value indicators introduced in 1998 benchmarking performance in management of facilities and services. This was updated by the development of Comprehensive Performance Assessment indicators which introduced, among other things, a focus on raising participation levels, and subsequently in the Government`s Comprehensive Spending Review of 2007 when a new performance framework for local government and Local Authority Partnerships was introduced with explicit reference to `joined-up policy` (see Figure 6).
(f) Community Sports Networks (also referred to in some areas as Local Sports Alliances) are micro-networks of clubs and facility managers/providers at local (sub-county levels).
Figure 6: The New Performance Framework for Local Authorities and its Relationship to Public Service Agreements and National Indicators
The government agenda of joined-up policy is clear from the linking of goals between local and national government, and across national government departments as evidenced in Figure 6. However, the evidence provided by the snapshot at local level in the two counties and by our subsequent interviews suggests that this promotion of the engaged network, the social model, is by no means complete.
Evidence from the SNA illustrated that in both counties the health constituency had not engaged with sports constituencies and vice versa. In one county however, the education sector (in particular the Partnership Development Managers in the education system) exhibited strong network links with other constituencies in the sport network while in the other county the opposite was the case. In both cases, there was only limited engagement of commercial sector providers. Local authority engagement in the network and that of National Governing Bodies of sport was variable. Interview data goes some way to explaining this pattern and subsequent reported `movement` in the network.
The impact of professional cultures was a key factor referred to by both health practitioners and members of other constituencies, particularly local government officers, who noted that the health sector hierarchy was dominated by clinical medicine and that public health rather than clinical medicine was seen as having a significantly lower status and thus given much lesser prominence. The dominant professional culture in medicine therefore tended to prevail. The culture of the educational professional was also invoked by one of the counties in which there had been a record of particularly poor interaction between Education Partnership Development Managers and others (particularly in sport development departments and the CSP itself). These members of staff enjoyed education sector contracts in terms of salary and vacation times and saw themselves as performing a different role to that of the non-education constituencies. Thus, their interaction tended to be restricted to other educationalists and to an extent with NGBs. In the second county, by contrast, there was a significant difference in relation to the education constituency and its core workers, Partnership Development Managers (PDMs). Here, there had been an established tradition of cooperation between the various constituencies prior to the founding of the CSP, with schools playing a key role and in many instances shared community and school use of facilities having been established for some time. In this instance, local culture seems to have been significant. The contrast in the level of trust between the Partnership Development Managers (PDMs) in schools and the CSP in the two counties was reflected in the meetings of the educationalists. In one county, CSP members were allowed access to PDMs` meetings to make a presentation on matters of joint interest but were asked to leave the meeting after the presentation when the matter was subject to discussion. In the other county, however, CSP members had a standing invitation to attend meetings on a regular basis and were encouraged to stay for the duration of the meeting.
There was, however, some evidence of shifting professional cultures that could contribute to a breaking down of the `silo` departmentalism just described. While medical and educational professional identities have a considerable tradition and thus may be fairly deeply embedded, in the case of the sports development constituency there was evidence of a willingness to move across traditional policy boundaries rather than maintaining inter-professional boundaries. The following quotation from one interviewee serves to illustrate this tendency:
I mean my team when I spoke to you before [18 months earlier], we were probably about 8 sports development officers. We`re now 32 …. sports development officers, active arts officers, coaches, leisure and play officers, play officers, sports fitness trainers, food for life trainers, extend CT exercise people, mental health people and 10 physical... 10 fitness trainers and 3 GP referral officers. (LA Interviewee)
The incorporation of staff whose roles are defined not in terms of sport, or even in relation to exercise, but in terms of healthy diet and mental health, demonstrates the greater flexibility in embracing this trans-policy domain role.
While cooperation across policy boundaries was variable, both partnerships had been relatively unsuccessful in engaging the commercial sector. The only prominent exception was that of GP referral scheme where a general medical practitioner prescribe exercise in place of drug treatment to be taken at one of a number of public or private health and fitness clubs with qualified staff. Patients are given a limited free or reduced cost membership with the hope of `hooking` new clients. With this exception, the commercial sector did not engage with the rest of the policy network to a significant degree (Isaacs et al., 2007; Poulter & Hunt, 2008; Richardson et al., 2008; Sorensen, Kragstrup, Skovgaard, & Puggaard, 2008).
Each of the constituencies pointed out that their priorities were driven to a considerable degree by their own key performance indicators (KPIs), and that the level of variety and complexity in these systems of KPIs militated against their alignment in cooperation between sectors. However, there was some emerging evidence that Local Area Agreements (a new form of local contractual agreements between local stakeholders and central government) had begun to break down barriers between different constituencies. As Figure 6 illustrates, central government had begun to insist on the joining-up of policy vertically (between central and local government) and horizontally, across policy domains. While at the time of writing (and even more so at the time of the interviews) the new Local Area Agreement (LAA) system introduced by government in 2008 was still relatively new, some actors commented on its impact:
I think the LAA has generally spurred on much more partnership, much more feeling that we ought to do things in partnerships. The LAA only came in here this year and so links haven`t been good between us and sport has definitely not been a priority for us at all but will be more so in the future. (Primary Care Trust Representative)
Others gave examples of how both sport and non-sport agencies had signed up to the same performance indicators and a subsequent change in practice had been fostered by this mechanism.
Conclusions
In this paper, we have sought to argue that the notion of a European approach to sports governance, or a `European model of sport policy`, is naïve. In fact the national policy systems of the European Union Member States exhibit considerable variety and are also subject to change. In many instances, that change is a shift away from direct bureaucratic, hierarchical control of sport, which might be said to constitute traditional government of sport, towards an approach more fittingly described as governance. This shift away from government towards governance is one which is evident in a wide range of policy areas and in a wide range of political systems. As Moore and Hartley (2008) put it:
we seem to be going through a revolution in the governance of public production systems as governments seek to reach beyond their borders to find additional resources, additional operating capacity and even additional legitimacy to achieve their assigned goals. (Moore & Hartley, 2008: 5)
We have focused on the case of the English sports policy system and its attempt to join up policy across policy domains and from the local to the national. The development of the governance literature is clearly linked to the development of networks. Rhodes (1997) indeed identifies networks as `the defining feature of governance” and identifies governance systems as manifesting four key characteristics: interdependence between organisations; continuing interaction between network members; game like interactions `rooted in trust and regulated by rules of the game negotiated and agreed by network participants” (p. 1246); and implies a significant degree of autonomy from the state. The governance system under construction in England is however an `unfinished work` and the exploratory data referred to in our account suggest that, rather than trust between stakeholders, the development of social capital in the professional domain, it is the financial imperative of government funding which is fostering joined-up thinking in initiatives such as Local Area Agreement where partnership is a precondition of funding.
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Contact
Ian Henry
Director Centre for Olympic Studies and Research
Member of Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy
Loughborough University
Email: I.P.Henry@lboro.ac.uk
Dr. Ling-Mei Ko
Southern Taiwan University
College of Business
Department of Leisure, Recreation, and Tourism Management
Yung-Kang City, Tainan County, Taiwan

http://www.icsspe.org/