Different socities, different conditions : Lessons from anti-doping in elite-sport on a global level

• Justice and fairness in sport is fundamental for its legitimate existence. On a global level, the creation of the World Anti-Doping Agency and the regulatory framework World Anti-Doping Code was formed largely as a consequence of the need for a coordination of the work against performance enhancing drugs in sports. Today, the anti-doping system often means application of rules and "best practice" developed in the cultural West for the cultural rest. Research on anti-doping policy or practice not only tends to be based on deductive models, these models may also assumingly be culturally biased. Moreover, we have relatively little knowledge of the practical conditions for individual athletes concerning implementation of the rules in different contexts around the world. This presentation, however, adds to the existing research with new empirical findings from interview data on diverging conditions for elite athletes in different social, cultural and geographical contexts. Through exploring how 13 elite athletes from five continents and three different sports federations perceived the anti-doping programme, we were able to show that global anti-doping policy was implemented in different contexts under different conditions. These differences included infrastructure, knowledge and support. How participation in anti-doping procedures on an everyday basis is endorsed may thus vary around the world.By examining our interview data on the athletes’ perceptions and experiences in relation to theories of procedural justice, we were able to analyse the legitimacy of anti-doping in practice. These findings suggest that inequities and structural injustice emerge on an individual level because of the varying contexts and conditions. In turn, the consequences may have implications for the legitimacy of the anti-doping work. In order to understand implementation processes of regulations, we propose that anti-doping policy-making pay attention to differences that may exist on an individual and practical level. Perspectives that underpin regulations applied globally should in other words be sensitive to varying contexts and conditions.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

anti-doping

elite sport

Samhällsvetenskap/Humaniora

Social Sciences/Humanities

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)