Suomen julkinen liikuntapolitiikka valtionhallinnon näkökulmasta vuosina 1917-1994

Abstract

The main aim of the study was to clarify the changes that took place during the study period, in the years 1917-1994, in state sport policy, the social functions of sport, sport administration, public funding, and in the division of tasks between the different state authorities. Talcott Parsons' functional theory was chosen as the main theory for the study. Parsons describes four socially indispensable functions: adaptation (A), goal attainment (G), integration (I), and latency (L). These four functions have been applied to the area of physical culture to explain and analyse state sport administration. The main research results can be summarized as follows. The development of physical culture has been closely connected to the developments in society. This is true also for the sport functions, i.e. the social effects of sports. During the first decades after acquiring independence, the integration function held an important place. After the Second World War, and especially from the 1960s onward, the effects related to physical fitness were emphasized. These clearly reflect Parsons' adaptation function. In the past few years, national integration and competence have again received increased attention in Finnish sport policy. The strategy carried out in sport policy has developed from a rather haphazard and indifferent attitude toward a controlling and partly patronizing attitude, then to a supportive, stimulative approach, and finally again toward a controlling strategy in some areas of sport culture. The attitude has been supportive generally at times when economic resources became more abundant, namely after the Second World War. The patronizing approach has been directed at sport for all, sport research, and international sport activities. The new basis for the patronizing attitude stems from the economic depression and the popular principle of management by objectives. The so-called clean values of sports, such as amateurism, fair play, and patriotism were especially emphasized in the early years of independence and during the Second World War. After the war, these values gradually deteriorated, and some features which were earlier experienced as negative, such as commercialism and professionalism, are now accepted. The previous value-rationalism has given way to techno-rationalism.