Global Sports Policy
- Catherine Palmer - Deakin University, Australia
Globalization is a key part of everyday lives, and sport itself is an increasingly global phenomenon. This book successfully brings the two together, locating the study of sports policy within a broader consideration of global processes, practices and consequences.
Drawing upon a range of empirical case studies, Catherine Palmer successfully illuminates issues that have not previously been discussed. Exploring the relationship between the local and the global, globalization and governance, new technologies, human rights, environment and corporate responsibility, the author sets out the ground for a new and refreshed understanding of policy making in sport and how this affects society moreover.
Original and timely, this book is a must for sports students on all levels. It will also be of immense use for students on courses that deal with public and social policy making.
This is a thoroughly stimulating and informative text. Catherine Palmer's use of sociological theory, and theories of globalization in particular, lifts the analysis out of the nuts and bolts of sports policy and into some really thought-provoking areas which will equip the policy maker for the challenges of the 21st century
Dominic Malcolm
Loughborough University
This is an excellent analysis of the significance of globalisation for national sport policy and especially of the impact global processes at the local socio-cultural level. The book provides the reader with an empirically rich and theoretically stimulating insight into the interconnection between global processes and the experience of sport policy at the personal and community levels. Palmer's book is an important addition to the literature on sport policy-making
Barrie Houlihan
Loughborough University
Every once in a while a book comes along and you have to say to yourself, "finally"! Catherine Palmer's Global Sports Policy culls and summarizes over two decades worth of research on the global relevance of sport, the impact of the global sport infrastructure on private, public and popular culture, and the increasing degree to which sport is celebrated in policy circles as a universal panacea. Global Sports Policy is a refreshingly sociological account of burgeoning policy movements in the world of sport, balanced by empirical case studies and Palmer's ability to present complex socio-political analyses of sport through accessible language. Faculty members and students will appreciate its truly pan-continental focus on the subject area, and diverse theoretical engagement with the subject. Here, Palmer includes both the theoretical and substantive 'usual suspects' in policy discussions, and a more extended and nuanced case analysis of sports mega-events.
Global Sports Policy will be most prized amongst sociologists of sport for its keen presentation of how policy matters in global sports arena illuminate core sociological questions relating to the distribution of power in society, the nature and effects of social inequality, modernist institutionalism, how social engineering is attempted through cross-national institutions, and the relationship between human and non-human networks including the environment. The book represents the ongoing 'opening up' of the sociology of sport across and within international spaces, and her illustration of the global significance of sport at private and public policy levels underlines the global sensitivity regarding the meaning of sport in diverse cultural spaces. Global Sports Policy is a text for anyone seeking an example of how to conduct a broad-scale sociological analysis of sport, and for those heretofore unconvinced by the ongoing relevance of the social sciences in policy-based discussions across the planet.
Michael Atkinson
Associate Professor in Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto
Catherine Palmer knows both sports and social theory from the inside. I cannot think of a better guide to the ways they come together in globalization.
Ulf Hannerz Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology
Stockholm University, Sweden
Overall, this is a solid account that adds to the literature on global sport and particularly the place of policy within this fast-developing arena of scholarly work. The text will be a useful one for lecturers and students engaging in courses such as sport governance, sports policy and international sport management. Palmer’s anthropological expertise and experience in this area offers a particular vantage point and complements much of the previously published work written by those who have focused more on the business and management aspects of the global sports industry.
Global Sports Policy provides a very informative, timely, critical, and well-written point of departure for understanding the social aspects of globalization in relation to sports policy.
A really comprehensive text
Excellent book appropriate for our Business of Professional Sport module. Provides students with an overview of Globalisation in relation to global sports policy.
An excellent review of the current policy make up within the sports industry on a local, national and international scale. This text fills the gaps that many other key texts have left regarding policy factors affecting sport.
An excellent addition to the sports policy subject area which is highlighted by the range of contemporary examples used to clarify key debates.
This is an very good introduction to globalisation and sport policy. The chapters on mega sporting events are particularly useful for the studnets.
I have placed several sections from this book on the reading list for the module. Based on feedback from students this year, I will consider adding more in future.
This text compliments the growing domestic and comparative sport policy literature and provides the first truly global perspective I have seen.