Speaker
Description
Integrity is both an expanding concept and an intensifying agenda in sport policy and governance. To prevent, detect and discipline unethical conduct, governments (and umbrella sport organisations) have advanced new legislation, ombudsmen, dedicated policy units, whistleblower hotlines, databases, integrity officers, education campaigns, and mediation services. Importantly, the targets and intermediaries for these regimes are extensive: paid (and volunteer) administrators, managers, coaches, and support personnel in public, private and non-profit organisations.
Owing to this array of agents and reform measures, we ask whether the integrity agenda might shape a new ‘public service bargain’ (PSB)(Hood & Lodge, 2006) between actors and those they serve (e.g., athletes, club members, politicians, citizens). Particularly, we seek to understand whether integrity regimes are transforming the implicit/explicit agreements, conventions or compacts for sport actors in relation to their roles, rights and responsibilities. The significance of a new PSB lies in signalling system-wide changes and their potential dilemmas with respect to issues of compliance, accountability, autonomy, volunteerism and risk. This presentation will report on pilot work critically assessing the integrity reform agenda and the experiences/responses of actors subject to its reach.
