TY - JOUR
T1 - Drivers of illicit drug use regulation in Australian sport
AU - Stewart, Bob
AU - Adair, Daryl
AU - Smith, Aaron
PY - 2011/8
Y1 - 2011/8
N2 - Most Australian sport stakeholders not only believe that government regulation is a good thing, but also assume that intervention in the drug-use problem will improve sport's social outcomes and operational integrity. In this paper we examine the regulation of illicit drug use in Australian sport through an interrogation of two cases: the Australian Football League and the National Rugby League. Using Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual frames of social field, capital, and habitus, we aim to secure a clearer understanding of the drivers of Australian sport's illicit drug regulations by (1) identifying those stakeholders who set the drug regulation agenda, (2) revealing the values and dispositions that underpin these regulations, and (3) explaining how dominant stakeholders go about sustaining their position and marginalising those stakeholders with opposing drug regulation claims. Our results show that Australian sport's drug-use regulations are driven by a set of values and dispositions that views sport as an instrument for shaping the character of its participants, and drugs as a threat to sport's moral fabric and good standing. The dominant stakeholders, comprising the Commonwealth Government, its sport agencies, and the major governing bodies for sport, imposed these values and dispositions on peripheral stakeholders by designing a drugs-in-sport social field that yielded capital and power to only those participants who endorsed these values and dispositions. Peripheral stakeholders - including players, their agents, and drug-treatment professionals - who mostly shared different values and dispositions, were sidelined, and denied the opportunity of adding to their already limited supplies of capital, power, and policy making influence.
AB - Most Australian sport stakeholders not only believe that government regulation is a good thing, but also assume that intervention in the drug-use problem will improve sport's social outcomes and operational integrity. In this paper we examine the regulation of illicit drug use in Australian sport through an interrogation of two cases: the Australian Football League and the National Rugby League. Using Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual frames of social field, capital, and habitus, we aim to secure a clearer understanding of the drivers of Australian sport's illicit drug regulations by (1) identifying those stakeholders who set the drug regulation agenda, (2) revealing the values and dispositions that underpin these regulations, and (3) explaining how dominant stakeholders go about sustaining their position and marginalising those stakeholders with opposing drug regulation claims. Our results show that Australian sport's drug-use regulations are driven by a set of values and dispositions that views sport as an instrument for shaping the character of its participants, and drugs as a threat to sport's moral fabric and good standing. The dominant stakeholders, comprising the Commonwealth Government, its sport agencies, and the major governing bodies for sport, imposed these values and dispositions on peripheral stakeholders by designing a drugs-in-sport social field that yielded capital and power to only those participants who endorsed these values and dispositions. Peripheral stakeholders - including players, their agents, and drug-treatment professionals - who mostly shared different values and dispositions, were sidelined, and denied the opportunity of adding to their already limited supplies of capital, power, and policy making influence.
KW - Bourdieu
KW - Drugs
KW - Ideology
KW - Policy
KW - Power
KW - Sport
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80052412814&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.smr.2011.02.001
DO - 10.1016/j.smr.2011.02.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:80052412814
SN - 1441-3523
VL - 14
SP - 237
EP - 245
JO - Sport Management Review
JF - Sport Management Review
IS - 3
ER -