Thomas M. Hunt

Individual Contributions for Collective Goods

There is a growing controversy as to what behavior is to be expected of individuals regarding contributions for the supply of collective goods. This paper attempts to settle some of the controversy. It attempts to do so not by showing that one of the positions taken is correct and the others wrong, but by showing that the various authors in question reach different conclusions about individual behavior in situations involving the potential supply of collective goods because they make different assumptions regarding the nature of the goods and the nature of the situations in which the individuals find themselves. The different conclusions are reconciled by a careful examination of the assumptions of the authors. Specific variables are identified which account for the differences in the models and a set of dimensions along which collective goods situations can vary is presented.

Countering the Soviet Threat in the Olympic medals race: The Amateur Sports Act of 1978 and American athletics policy reform

The Olympics were a site of Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. The successes of the Soviet Union eventually captured the attention of American policy-makers, who responded with the Amateur Sports Act of 1978. This article argues that the poor performance of the American team at the 1972 Olympic Games provided a ‘focusing event’ out of which the act emerged. It will further argue that the acts focus on elite athletics was a product of a perception in the late 1960s and 1970s that losses at international sport competitions detracted from American prestige abroad. The conservative political ideologies and athletic experiences of presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford did much to shape the way in which the problems in American athletics were approached.

The International Anti-Doping Movement and UNESCO: A Historical Case Study

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) played a major role in the development of contemporary anti-doping policy. Throughout its existence, and especially since the 1970s, UNESCO has viewed sport as an educational tool. Though it acknowledged the unique problems that drug use in sport presented, UNESCO was reticent to take a leading role in creating and enacting global policy regarding the issue. However, UNESCO eventually came to endorse the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2005 when its member nations adopted the International Convention against Doping in Sport. UNESCOs shift in attitude is explained through the application of institutional isomorphism, an organisational theory that explains the tendency of organisations in a given area or industry to become more similar over time.

A realist perspective of Sport Management Program and the H.J. Lutcher Stark governmental perceptions of Olympic boycott movements, 1936–2008

Using historical and discourse analytical methods, this study demonstrates the reciprocal relationship between sport and international relations among states and the need to incorporate sport into foreign policy deliberations. Specifically, this article traces the evolution of the USs governmental perceptions of Olympic boycotts under a realist international relations framework. In order to examine several different geopolitical contexts, the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Olympics were selected for analysis. Both international and domestic politics were considered so that the derived policies regarding a US boycott during each Olympics could be better explained. While a US boycott is unlikely in the near future, it cannot be completely ruled out as an instrument of diplomacy. At a practical level, this article suggests sport is not free from government interests, and sport organizations would be well served to plan for various government-influenced contingencies.

The President's Council on Physical Fitness and the Systematisation of Children's Play in America

This article examines the influence of physical education philosophies on the shift in policies aimed at augmenting the physical fitness of children in the United States during the Cold War. While the existing historiography on federal sport initiatives during this period astutely recognises the broader shift in focus from mass fitness programmes during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations to elite sport development under Nixon and Ford, the literature often overlooks significant nuances between the mass fitness policies enacted by Eisenhower and Kennedy. When Eisenhowers ‘total fitness’ approach fell out of favour politically, and the philosophical terrain within the field of physical education shifted towards the quantification of exercise, the Kennedy administration established a utilitarian, systematised sport and fitness policy based on measurable performance standards. This tack was a significant departure from the policy focus under Eisenhower, which emphasised play-oriented, sports-based programmes.

The doping of athletes in the former East Germany: A critical assessment of comparisons with Nazi medical experiments

A number of prominent writers on the social history and policy of sports doping in the former East Germany have compared that system with the atrocities of Nazi medical experimentation. This article draws from a range of primary and secondary sources to discuss and challenge the Nazi comparison argument. We argue that while there were many cases of secretive abuse and experimentation that led to severe side-effects, there are also examples of athletes who knew what they were taking. Moreover, the doping administrators did not have complete control over how doctors and coaches implemented the system – it was not a closed, totalitarian system that denied individual agency. We further argue that when set in the wider context of crimes within the former GDR, sports does not register as the most serious. The comparison with Nazi Germany is an over-statement constructed by writers whose emphasis on traditional sporting ethics had led them to exaggerate their argument. As such, the discussion of individual experiences opens up dilemmas, contradictions, and the space for agency, that simplistic top-down sociological and political models have so far denied.

Forging a Kingdom: the GAA in Kerry 1884–1934

broader vicissitudes of Argentinian-Jewish history. Chapter Two, which focuses on the early history of Jews in Buenos Aires, and Chapter Seven, which examines Atlanta’s links to ‘social and ethnic tensions’ (p. 143) and modern Jewish communal and familial relations, both situate the club firmly in its Jewish context in a way that is regrettably absent from the largely narrative central chapters, which focus mainly on the development and travails of the club. Given the author’s expertise on Jewish-Argentine history, and the repeated assertion that ‘the history of the Jewish experience in Argentina cannot be written without paying special attention to Atlanta’ (pp. 5, 164), it is fair to expect a more concerted effort to link the Atlanta case study to the broader social, cultural, political and cultural Jewish context. It is unfortunate that much of the volume gives the impression of the ‘Jewish’ aspect of Atlanta’s story occurring away from, rather than in tandem with or influenced by, trends within the country’s Jewish history. It has to be said that this book is not the holistic overview of the connection between Jews, football and the construction of identities – be they Argentine, Jewish or Argentinian-Jewish – suggested by its title. In short, it is a well-researched and detailed, yet largely narrative, account of the history of a modestly successful, professional neighbourhood club in Argentina’s capital. Despite this though, it still makes some significant observations concerning the link between sport and minority integration, exclusion and identity formation and is a powerful reminder that any attempt to understand ethnic or minority experiences is flawed without a deep consideration of that group’s connections to sporting and leisure pursuits. Futbol, Jews and the Making of Argentina is an admirable and interesting foray into an underresearched area and should – as the author hopes – act as an ‘invitation’ (p. 12) to other scholars of South America to more deeply consider the connections between sport and minority history.

The Health Risks of Doping during the Cold War: A Comparative Analysis of the Two Sides of the Iron Curtain

This article compares East Germanys Cold War-era approach to doping to that of the USAs in terms of their respective impacts on medical risk. Although deserving of criticism on many levels, the GDR doping programme featured a number of safeguards designed to minimise medical dangers. Unlike their East German counterparts, American governmental units were not directly involved in the administration of performance-enhancing substances. The US approach to doping was not ideal in terms of medical risk, however. As a result of the countrys regulatory approach to doping, the countrys athletes frequently turned to black market sources for doping agents. It was also relatively common for American athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs without the benefit of medical supervision. The US approach to doping was in these ways inferior to that of East Germanys on the subject of medical risk.

Drugs, the Law, and the Downfall of Dancer's Image at the 1968 Kentucky Derby: A Case Study on Human Conceptions of Domesticated Animals

The disqualification of Dancers Image at the 1968 Kentucky Derby for the presence of a prohibited substance reveals much about the human–animal relationship. The horse was, on the one hand, depicted in anthropomorphic terms as an honourable competitor unjustly stripped of a victory. At the same time, Dancers Image was treated as simply a piece of physical property. In short, human conceptions of domesticated animals are dichotomous in nature.

The Diplomatic Context of Doping in the Former German Democratic Republic: A Revisionist Examination

Paying particular attention to political dynamics within the Eastern-bloc, this article seeks to outline the diplomatic context of what remains the most notorious episode of state-level doping in modern sport history: the cold war-era doping program run by the German Democratic Republics Stasi national security police and intelligence organisation. To do so, it aims to integrate archival research on the subject with high-level geopolitical analysis. This approach offers more nuanced perspectives on the diplomatic meaning of sport and performance-enhancement in East Germany than is present in the existing literature.