426 Int. J. Sport Management and Marketing, Vol. 2, No.

4, 2007

Policy transfer, lesson drawing and perspectives

on elite sport development systems

Mick Green
School of Sport and Exercise Sciences,
Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy,
Loughborough University,
Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK
Fax: +44-0-1509-223-935
E-mail: M.J.Green@lboro.ac.uk

Abstract: Over the past 40 years at least governments have shown a

considerable willingness to devote significant sums of public or government
controlled money (e.g. national lotteries) to the maintenance or improvement of
elite (Olympic) sporting success. With a focus on the relationship between the
UK and Australia, this paper explores the salience of the concepts of policy
transfer and lesson drawing in an analysis of the development of elite sport
systems. The evidence suggests that sport policymakers and bureaucrats in the
UK have drawn lessons from Australia but primarily in the form of policy ideas
or generalised discourses that legitimise and prioritise elite objectives.
A ‘dominant’ elite sport discourse has potential ramifications for the design,
implementation and evaluation of sport programmes. The conclusions therefore
draw attention to some of the (potentially) deleterious consequences for sport
management practice in the light of this dominant policy discourse.

Keywords: policy transfer; lesson drawing; sport policy; elite sport

development; Olympic Games; UK; Australia.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Green, M. (2007) ‘Policy

transfer, lesson drawing and perspectives on elite sport development systems’,
Int. J. Sport Management and Marketing, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp.426–441.

Biographical notes: Mick Green is a Lecturer in Sport and Leisure Policy and
Management in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences (Institute of
Sport and Leisure Policy) at Loughborough University. His primary research
interest focuses on developments in elite sport systems and policy change in
different countries. He has published in the Sociology of Sport Journal,
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Sport, Education and Society,
Leisure Studies and European Sport Management Quarterly.

1 Introduction

In recent years, public policy analyses have focused increasing attention on the
concepts of ‘policy transfer’ – and its more overtly ‘intentional’ counterpart, ‘lesson
drawing’ – especially in the UK (James and Lodge, 2003). Academic analyses have
probed the salience of these concepts within the context of an increasingly
interconnected world (cf. Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996, 2000; Dolowitz et al., 1999; Evans

Copyright © 2007 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

 Policy transfer, lesson drawing and perspectives 427

and Davies, 1999; Rose, 1991, 1993, 2005). And in the UK, empirical interrogation of
these concepts in different policy sectors (e.g. taxation, housing and prisons) has been
promoted by a £3.5 million Economic and Social Research Council Future Governance
Programme (Page, 2000). To date, however, these concepts have yet to be applied to the
sport policy and sport management sectors.
The central aim of this paper therefore is to explore the salience of the concepts of
policy transfer and lesson drawing in an examination of the various components of elite
(Olympic) sport development systems in Australia and the UK. In part, this paper is a
contribution towards Chalip’s (2006, p.1) recent exhortations for research in the ‘sport
management discipline’ to embrace two complementary branches of study:
1 An investigation of ‘the relevance and application of theories
from other disciplines’.
2 That this research is ‘grounded in sport phenomena’. A second, but no less
important aim follows from the first.
That is, to explore the transferability and thus relevance of (elite sport) policy ideas,
goals, content and practice from one country’s jurisdiction to another. In so doing, this
paper is also a contribution towards Green’s (2005, p.249) judicious insight that much
more work is required in order to bring our current knowledge about the social, political
and psychological parameters of sport participation ‘to bear on programme planning,
implementation and evaluation’. Similar lacunae are evident in the literature on policy
transfer and lesson drawing and the claims made on their behalf. In this respect, Page
(2000, pp.8–9) highlights two (of several) issues yet to be resolved:
1 “the question of significance for whom or what [of policy transfer and lesson
drawing]” and
2 the requirement to link “outcomes to processes … which would be likely to
attract a practitioner audience”.
The contemporary significance of elite sport development – the ‘sport phenomenon’
under consideration – is underscored by Green and Houlihan (2005) who note that “Over
the past 40 years at least there has been an increasing awareness among governments of
the value of elite sporting success” (p.1). Governments across a diverse range of
countries – for example, New Zealand (Sam and Jackson, 2004); China (Hong et al.,
2005); Singapore (Teo, 2005); Australia (Stewart et al., 2004) and the UK (Green,
2004a) – have shown a considerable willingness to devote significant sums of public or
government controlled money (e.g. national lotteries) to the maintenance or improvement
of elite sporting success. This is therefore a timely debate. A former senior official at the
English Sports Council (now Sport England) argued that, “Over the last 10 years, I think
if ideas have been borrowed from anywhere, they’ve been borrowed more from Australia
than anywhere else” (Interview, 26 February 2002). Moreover, a senior research officer
at the United Kingdom Sports Council (known as UK Sport) stated that UK Sport is a
partner in an ongoing cross-national research programme that seeks to “learn from other
successful European countries about establishing medal winning elites” (personal
communication, 21 March 2001; see also Sport Industry Research Centre, 2002).
This paper is structured around a number of questions that provide an organising
framework for this first attempt at examining the salience of the concepts of policy
transfer and lesson drawing in the sport policy and sport management sectors: in this
case, specifically in respect of elite sport development systems. The questions are:
428 M. Green

1 What is policy transfer?

2 Why engage in policy transfer? (within this question, the subquestions, what
factors constrain policy transfer? and who transfers policy? are also addressed)
3 From where are lessons drawn?
4 What is transferred? (Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996, 2000).
With this evidence in place, we then address the questions raised above with regard to
the significance of the evidence: in short, how useful might the evidence be for future
sport policymaking and sport management practice? What follows is not purely a
theoretical commentary. This paper draws on a study of elite sport policy development in
three sports in Australia, Canada and the UK conducted between 2000 and 2004, which
involved an extensive review and analysis of governmental literature, as well as
documents from National Sports Organisations (NSOs), including internal reports and
reviews, strategy papers and minutes of meetings. In addition, a series of interviews was
conducted with senior officials in government agencies and NSOs and with academics
and analysts of the sport sector in each country. The interviewees were selected on the
basis that they:
1 were, or had been, in senior positions
2 were involved at a strategic level of decision making and
3 had been involved in sport policy/management deliberations over several years
(for more detail, see Green, 2003; Green and Houlihan, 2005).
The interview schedules were derived from a similar set of themes to allow for
triangulation (of response) between interviewees from the NSOs, government agencies
and sports analysts. The key themes included:
1 evidence of voluntaristic (intentional) lesson drawing
2 evidence of tangible indicators of transferred policy and/or lessons drawn
3 sources of potential incompatibility between jurisdictions and
4 the potential salience of (any) lessons drawn for future decision making and
practice.
In short, interviews were used in order to:
1 gain an understanding of public sport policy programmes from the
perspective of key policy actors
2 allow distinctions to be made between the ‘rhetoric’ provided in policy
documents and the ‘reality’ of an agent’s insights into her/his perspective
on a particular policy development and
3 attempt to discern the normative values and belief systems underlying
the agent’s singular perspective, as well as an assessment of the
constraining/facilitating structural context within which she/
he operates.
 Policy transfer, lesson drawing and perspectives 429

2 Disaggregating policy transfer and lesson drawing

2.1 What is policy transfer?

At the outset it should be noted that there is much definitional ambiguity in the literature
regarding the concepts of policy transfer and lesson drawing (cf. Evans and Davies,
1999; James and Lodge, 2003; Page, 2000). Therefore, in order to provide some
conceptual clarity to what follows, we can note that policy transfer is generally conceived
of as a broader concept than lesson drawing as it takes account of ideas of diffusion and
coercion rather than just the voluntaristic activity of the latter. Following Evans
and Davies’ (1999, p.366) analysis, which problematised boundary definitions of both
concepts, for the purposes of this paper ‘policy transfer is defined in Rose’s terms as an
action-oriented intentional activity’. Moreover, for Rose (2005, p.16), “A lesson is the
outcome of learning; it specifies a programme drawing on knowledge of programmes in
other countries dealing with much the same problem”. A further crucial insight is that
“Lesson drawing cannot be politically neutral, because politics is about conflicting values
and goals” and “that there is rarely complete political consensus, even about scientific
and technical matters” (Rose, 1991, p.22). This argument draws attention to the
discussion in Section 2.2, where it is evident that the potential for conflict between
elected politicians and sport bureaucrats involved in policy development hindered
attempts to implement a strategy for an elite sport institute in the UK during the 1990s.
It is also important to state briefly what lesson drawing is not. Lesson drawing is
not a theory of how policymakers learn. It is about what is learned, the programmes
that public officials develop in order to deal with immediate substantive problems.
The immediate substantive problem in the case of elite sport development in the UK in
the early to mid-1990s was the persistently poor performances of elite athletes and
consequent low medal results at the Olympic Games, and at the 1996 Atlanta Games in
particular (Green, 2004a).
Thus policymakers are driven by the need to dispel such dissatisfaction and instead of
new knowledge per se they prefer the assurance of doing what has worked before, or
been effective elsewhere. Therefore, searching is instrumentally directed and in part, due
to the fact that policymakers have insufficient time or the knowledge to be continuously
seeking an ideal policy (cf. Evans and Davies, 1999; Rose, 2005). Indeed, Houlihan
(1991) suggests that governments’ preference for solutions in respect of sport policy are
those that promise an immediate impact, are cheap and are simple to administer.
Moreover, given the comments above on ‘what has worked before’, lesson drawing is
clearly not about ‘innovation’ because innovation research is concerned with novel or
original programmes. By contrast, lesson drawing ‘presupposes that even though a
programme may be new to a government considering it, something very much like it will
be in effect elsewhere’ (Rose, 1993, p.24).

2.2 Why engage in policy transfer?

Any search for lessons in other jurisdictions is initiated in the hope that a programme that
is viewed as working well there can be transferred to the borrowing jurisdiction
(cf. Rose, 2005). This section therefore interrogates issues surrounding why both state
and non-state actors engaged in the intentional lesson drawing form of policy transfer.
Here, the related questions of Who transfers policy? and What factors constrain policy
430 M. Green

transfer? are also considered. In exploring the reasons why these actors engage in this
activity, the distinction between voluntary and coercive transfer is highlighted – yet,
as revealed in the examples below, at the margins the distinction between the two
remains ambiguous.
Over the past 10–15 years, developments within the UK’s elite sport system reveal
degrees of intentional lesson drawing or voluntary transfer (Green and Houlihan, 2005).
However, it is also argued that there is evidence of ‘indirect coercive transfer’ (Dolowitz
and Marsh, 1996, pp.348–349). It should be noted that Dolowitz and Marsh also refer to
‘direct coercive transfer’: when one government forces another to adopt a policy.
The direct imposition of policy transfer on another country is rare however. Examples of
this form of transfer may be more commonly found amongst former Communist bloc
countries (cf. Girginov, 1998). In respect of voluntary transfer, Dolowitz and Marsh
(1996, p.346) suggest that “the primary catalyst … is some form of dissatisfaction or
problem with the status quo”. The ideas promoted for the development of the UK Sports
Institute (UKSI) network of facilities in the early to mid-1990s (originally conceived of
as the British Academy of Sport) are suggestive of voluntary lesson drawing. Iain Sproat,
the Conservative Minister for Sport at the time, argued that the government embarked on
this development because there were problems with low participation in sport, poor
Olympic medal results and alarming health reports regarding young people in Britain
(Sproat, 1996). With specific regard to elite sport in the UK and lesson drawing from
Australia, Theodoraki (1999) reinforces Dolowitz and Marsh’s comments above in
respect of voluntary transfer:
“Sproat led the Conservative’s initiative of the Academy following his visit to
the Australian equivalent [Australian Institute of Sport] where he saw a
solution to the problems of elite performers in the UK. The Atlanta 1996
Olympics placed added emphasis on the need for the Academy as low medal
scores worsened public perception and morale was low” (p.196).
However, at least one question that remains unanswered here is whether Sproat
was seeking a solution to a political problem rather than purely for policy reasons. If this
was the case, then, as Dolowitz (2003) reminds us, the lesson drawing is unlikely
“to involve little actual analysis of its possible impact on an existing situation” (p.105).
The ‘existing situation’ at this time was that the Conservative Government was in crisis
on a number of fronts, not least because of its handling of the economy but, as noted
above, also because the government faced a number of increasingly intractable sport
policy problems that were being played out ever more vociferously in the media.
Therefore, it is tempting to conclude that Sproat’s initial insistence for a centralised elite
sports institute, based on the original Australian model, rather than a decentralised
network of centres (the recommendation from sports practitioners on the ground) was
at least in part due to broader political concerns to (swiftly) assuage public and media
discontent through the establishment of a grandiose, ‘showcase’ elite institute. In short,
if claims for lesson drawing are made then we need to be clear about the detail of lessons
drawn and the reasons why.
If we accept for a moment that this was the voluntaristic rationale for UK
government intervention and subsequent lesson drawing, what were the factors that
might have led to indirect coercive transfer? Dolowitz and Marsh (1996) highlight two
factors indicative of what occurred in the UK. First, these authors argue that “A country
can … be indirectly pushed towards policy transfer if political actors perceive their
country as falling behind its neighbours or competitors” (p.349). Indeed, reflecting
 Policy transfer, lesson drawing and perspectives 431

Theodoraki’s (1999) comments above regarding public perception and low morale,
Bennett (1991) argues that “fears of being left behind on an important public issue can
trigger attention. The cumulative effect of action elsewhere may translate into a feeling
of insecurity about being the odd-man-out” (p.43). Clearly, UK policymakers were
concerned with worsening performances at the elite level, particularly at global mega-
events such as the Olympic Games.
The second factor highlighted by Dolowitz and Marsh (1996, p.349) refers to the
emergence of an international consensus acting as a push factor with regard to a
particular policy area, and
“when a common solution to that problem has been introduced in a number of
nations, then nations not adopting this … solution will face increasing pressure
to join the international ‘community’ by implementing similar programmes or
policies”.
Houlihan (1997) draws attention to the potential for a common solution to a sport policy
problem, which reinforces the notion of an international consensus acting as a push
factor. Houlihan argued that the successful Soviet model of elite sport development was
evident in Australia, and to a lesser extent Canada, “including the systematic sifting
of school-age children as a means of identifying the potential elite … the development of
specialist training academies … and the use of public money to support individual elite
athletes” (pp.6–7). In respect of the point raised earlier regarding how these two types of
transfer (voluntary and indirect coercive) merge at the margins, the example of voluntary
transfer and the first example cited above regarding indirect coercive transfer, reveal that
there is little to choose between the two types. Yet, whichever theoretical nuance is
applied, it is evident that UK sport policymakers and bureaucrats engaged in some
degree of intentional lesson drawing (for whatever political/policy reasons), at least with
regard to the development of the UKSI during the 1990s.
The developments surrounding the establishment of the UKSI also allow us to
explore, briefly, the two subquestions, Who transfers policy? and What factors constrain
policy transfer? In relation to these questions, the earlier point regarding lesson drawing
not being politically neutral, given that politics is about conflicting values and goals, is
brought into sharp relief. The potential for such conflict is heightened, given Dolowitz
and Marsh’s (1996) observation that there are “six main categories of actors involved in
policy transfer” (p.345): elected officials; political parties; bureaucrats/civil servants;
pressure groups; policy entrepreneurs/experts and supra-national institutions. Elected
officials and bureaucrats/civil servants are of interest here. In the case of the latter group,
David Pickup and Derek Casey, respectively Director-General and Director of National
Services at the GB Sports Council, visited Australia in 1992. As Pickup (1996) notes:
“the Government’s conclusion that the promotion of excellence should be
undertaken on a consistent UK-wide basis provided Derek Casey and me
with a helpful point of departure for our imminent visit to Australia,
the principal purpose of which was to study Australia’s approach to grooming
their elite athletes through Canberra’s Institute of Sport and its satellite
academies” (p.97).
As for elected officials, Iain Sproat’s (then Minister for Sport) later visit to Australia in
1995 is significant. Indeed, as acknowledged in a statement by UK Sport (1998),
“The idea to establish an academy of sport was raised by John Major, the former Prime
Minister, after the then Minister for Sport, Iain Sproat, visited the Australian Institute of
Sport (AIS) in Canberra in 1995” (p.4). There are at least two discernible strands to the
432 M. Green

conflict surrounding the lessons drawn by these two sets of actors. The first strand
centres on Pickup’s (1996) version of what was learnt from the visit to Australia
in 1992.
“doubts began to arise as we discovered that each of the State Governments had
come to resent Canberra’s claimed dominance … and the States had moved to
develop their own centres of excellence … [t]his strengthened our conviction
that … a decentralised provision of training facilities was more sensible than
creating a single mega-factory dedicated to churning out potential gold
medallists” (p.98).

The key point here is that there does not appear to have been any acknowledgement by
Iain Sproat of the lessons drawn during Pickup and Casey’s earlier visit in 1992.
Arguably, this may be related to Pickup’s (1996) observation that Sproat “was to prove
the least communicative politician responsible for the sport portfolio in my experience”
(p.135). The potential for conflict is borne out to some extent in the evidence
surrounding the implementation of the lessons drawn regarding the UKSI.
As Theodoraki (1999) notes, there were interminable delays throughout the short-listing
stages of the bidding process for the development of what was then termed the British
Academy of Sport. These delays centred on an in-built conflict over the Academy’s
function. As Trelford (1997, p.30) reported in The Daily Telegraph, “Iain Sproat, the
Sports Minister, wanted … a showcase like the Australian Academy. The sports
organisations thought [a network of facilities] would best meet the country’s real needs”.
Thus, a somewhat deeper analysis of Sproat’s actions further illustrates the requirement
for care when exploring the concepts of policy transfer/lesson drawing. For example, as
sport policy is a form of social policy and since social policies are designed within
frameworks delimited by the institutions, customs and traditions of the country within
which they are established, policymakers (especially politicians) often misunderstand the
policies they see in other countries or find themselves promoting the transfer of
little more than the idea that there might be a policy of some kind that is of use (rather
than the specific details of policy). As noted earlier, this appears to have been the case
with Sproat’s endorsement of the concept of a centralised ‘showcase’ elite institute rather
than the less (politically) spectacular concept of a network of regional facilities, but one
that would best suit the UK context.
The second strand concerning the conflict and delays surrounding the establishment
of the UKSI was, in part, due to a general election during the short-listing process for
potential locations and a subsequent change of political administration in 1997 from
Conservative to Labour. What then were the ramifications of such change for the nascent
Institute? Theodoraki (1999) found that, despite comments to the contrary before the
election by Tom Pendry, the then shadow Sports Minister, there remained a disparity of
views between politicians from different political parties about decisions on the location
and function of the UKSI.

2.3 From where are lessons drawn?

Although the primary concern of this paper is an interrogation of evidence for policy
transfer/lesson drawing between the UK and Australia in respect of elite sport systems,
it has been argued that the antecedents of these Western systems can be located in the
systematic approaches found in the former Eastern bloc states (cf. Green and Houlihan,
2005; Green and Oakley, 2001; Houlihan, 1997). As Houlihan (1997) observes,
 Policy transfer, lesson drawing and perspectives 433

“Australia, and to a lesser extent Canada … both adopted policies of elite squad
development which are very close to the Soviet model in a number of key respects”
(p.6). On one level, Houlihan may be correct that the former Eastern bloc model of elite
sport development bears several similarities to elite sport systems in Australia, Canada
and, indeed, now the UK. However, on another level, a deeper analysis reveals some
stark discontinuities. For example, a former senior official at the British Athletics
Federation (now UK Athletics), was adamant that the GDR was not more advanced than
the UK in the areas of sports science and medicine. This official argued that “If you were
to strip away the drug abuse from their programmes, their success would be no greater
than anybody else’s” (Interview, 28 May 2002). Moreover, Australian talent
identification systems bear little resemblance to what many have claimed about the
Soviet Union and GDR. Indeed, in the Olympic sports where Australia has enjoyed
considerable success there remains a strong reliance on club-based development and
social systems of recruitment, rather than formal talent identification programmes. The
examples of two high-profile Olympic sports – swimming and athletics – help to make
the point. Firstly, a senior official at Australian Swimming (the NSO for the sport)
admitted that the organisation does not have a systematic programme of talent
identification and relies instead on “underpinning programmes through age squads …
and competition and training programmes” (Interview, 5 June 2003). Secondly, a senior
official at Australian Athletics acknowledged that, in recent years, “most of, if not all,
our talent identification … has flowed through the school system … and a very large
state schools athletics championship” (Interview, 4 June 2003).
Regardless of the claims for former Eastern bloc antecedents, Dolowitz et al. (1999)
identify a number of factors that provide conducive conditions for lesson drawing
between different jurisdictions in the West: a common language; a shared (neo-liberal)
ideology; personal relations and the role of think-tanks and policy entrepreneurs.
In respect of the UK drawing lessons from Australia in relation to the development
of elite sport systems, the common language is clearly significant, removing problems of
translation and facilitating a much easier exchange of ideas. Indeed, Green and
Houlihan’s (2005) comparative study of elite sport development in Australia, Canada and
the UK found that:
“Australia has been an important influence on the emerging policy framework
for elite sport development in the UK through the appointment to pivotal
coaching posts of Australians including Bill Sweetenham, National
Performance Director for British Swimming, Deidre Anderson, UKSI
Programme Manager and Wilma Shakespear, National Director of the English
Institute of Sport” (p.188).

As Green and Houlihan go on to note, “These and other international appointments bring
ideas, methods and experiences from Australia and other leading countries and have been
very influential in shaping elite sport in the UK” (p.188). What appears to be emerging
here is that, rather than lessons being drawn from Australia regarding specific policy
mechanisms, techniques or content, for example, it is experienced Australian coaches,
scientists and senior sports administrators and their ideas that are having an important
impact on elite sport development in the UK. This is an argument borne out by a senior
official at the Amateur Swimming Association and British Swimming, the sport’s lead
organisations in the UK. This official maintained that recent changes in the sport are not
due to any notion of “the Australian model … it’s the Bill Sweetenham model … who
434 M. Green

has said that the acid test of success is Olympic gold medals, nothing else counts, and
I agree” (Interview, 18 March 2002). Moreover, a former UK international athlete who is
now involved with UK Sport in redesigning programmes for elite performers, argued that
“This [UK] government has become obsessed with the [idea of] the Australian model”,
which has not been universally accepted by all (Interview, 23 August 2002).
The notion of ideology is also important in that not only have both Australian and
UK governments prioritised elite sport development as a significant focus of political
intervention in general but they have also both adopted neo-liberal beliefs (e.g. business
principles, target setting, audits and inspection, sanctions for poor performance)
in the prioritisation of sports for funding in particular (cf. Green and Houlihan, 2006).
The notion of personal relations does not just refer to Prime Ministerial/Presidential
(political) relationships, rather it is also about relationships formed by policy
entrepreneurs/experts. One prominent example during the late 1990s is that of
Roger Moreland, then Director of the UKSI project, who was part of an International
Forum on Elite Sport (attended by experts from 17 countries), convened for the first time
in Sydney in 1999. Amongst other issues, this forum discussed ‘essential factors in a
successful elite programme’ and the ‘evaluation of the performance of an elite
programme’ (Moreland, 1999, p.1).

2.4 What is transferred?

It is important to note that it is rarely possible to quantify the extent of policies
transferred or lessons drawn. As Dolowitz et al. (1999) observe, “Governments do not
provide convenient lists of what they borrow or from where they borrow. There are also
difficulties in establishing whether transfer has occurred” (p.719). However, following
our earlier stated position, in order to better delineate evidence of lesson drawing, this
analysis is restricted to interrogating “action-oriented learning – that which takes place
consciously and results in policy action” (Evans and Davies, 1999, p.368). A key aspect
of this definition is the element of intentionality, which makes an agent essential to
the policy transfer process. In this respect, the intentional activity of a state actor,
Iain Sproat (although Sproat’s intentions were questioned earlier) and non-state actors
(sport bureaucrats), Derek Casey, David Pickup and Roger Moreland have been
highlighted. Further examples of such activity are provided below.
As noted, it appears that ideas and attitudes from Australia have been transferred,
primarily through key individuals relocating to the UK. Although the evidence in UK
national sport policy statements is less clear-cut, the Conservative Government’s
document, Sport: Raising the Game (Department of National Heritage, 1995) placed far
greater emphasis on elite sport achievement than had previously been apparent in the
UK. This political legitimation of the significance of elite sport development was
reinforced in the Labour Party’s first major sport policy statement, A Sporting Future for
All (Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), 2000) and more recently in
Game Plan in 2002 (DCMS/Strategy Unit, 2002). It was suggested in Section 2.2 that a
key catalyst for this change in political and policy emphasis was the UK’s poor
performances at the Olympic Games. This mirrors the Australian experience, where the
failure to win any gold medals at the 1976 Montreal Olympics caused a public outcry and
created the political environment for change (cf. Stewart et al., 2004). This changing
emphasis in the UK is also apparent in the transfer of ideas about institutions, for
example, in the lessons drawn regarding elite sport institutes. A UK Sport (1997) internal
 Policy transfer, lesson drawing and perspectives 435

policy statement reinforces this view, wherein the influence of Australian ideas with
regard to the UKSI was unequivocally acknowledged. This statement not only
maintained that UK Sport must be “astute enough to utilise the lessons from abroad”, but
also that the “Director of Sport Sciences at the Australian Institute of Sport was one of
the outside consultants recruited to assist in the technical evaluation” (p.2) for the
development of the UKSI.
There is also some evidence of the transfer of ideas in respect of specific policy
instruments, for example, in the revision of talent identification procedures. As Sport
England’s Senior Research Manager acknowledged, “Australia, the former Soviet Union
and East Germany have been identified as having (or having had) a more proactive
approach to the development of talent. Australia has been hailed as a good example of
how talent can be developed” (cited in English Sports Council, 1998, foreword).
However, as noted in respect of the actions of a former Minister for Sport (Iain Sproat),
statements such as these from policymakers require a far deeper analysis. Indeed, two
years before this English Sports Council statement was released, Prescott (1996)
questioned a slavish adherence to talent identification procedures that mirror those found
in the former Eastern bloc: “The question of whether the identification of talent was of
prime importance or whether the harsh training regimes were largely responsible for the
extraordinary success of Soviet and other Eastern European athletes remains
unanswered” (pp.12–13).
The final point here centres on whether the UK has drawn lessons regarding
the effective targeting of resources. In other words, given that governments have to
allocate scarce resources – and sport is just one of many legitimate claims for such
resources – actors involved in elite sport development in the UK are under increasing
pressure to further prioritise the range of sports deemed ‘worthy’ of funding (cf. National
Audit Office (NAO), 2005). The NAO’s (2005) review of support provided to elite
athletes recommended that UK Sport should be “prepared to take tough decisions based
on whether sports merited funding and on what scale” (p.6). The NAO review is notable
in that it commissioned research into the ways in which Australia and Italy and the
Netherlands, fund and support different sports and their elite athletes. The prioritisation
of sports for funding was established in Australia over a decade ago. As a senior official
at the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) acknowledged, “In the early 1990s … we
had specific sports that we were targeting for success” (Interview, 5 June 2003).
Moreover, a major federal government review of sport and recreation in Australia
confirms that “The ASC chose eight sports in the early 1990s to receive a boost in
funding”, in large part due to the forthcoming Sydney Olympic Games (Commonwealth
of Australia, 1999, p.33).
Confirmation that lessons had been drawn from Australia in this respect is provided
by a former senior official at the English Sports Council: “We looked at what Australia
had done with its focus on eight sports, plus the development of the AIS as part of our
planning process for elite athlete development in the UK” (Interview, 26 February 2002).
Thus there appears to be persuasive evidence that the development of funding/
support programmes in the UK over the past 10–15 years (notably the
three-tiered National Lottery-funded World Class funding programme, UK Sport’s
prioritisation of sports into four funding categories and the NAO recommendations that
even fewer sports should be funded), reflects lessons drawn from Australia during
the 1990s.
436 M. Green

3 Discussion and Conclusions

This paper had one primary aim: to interrogate the evidence for the intentional lesson
drawing form of policy transfer between the UK and Australia in respect of elite sport
development systems. In so doing, a secondary aim was to provide a contribution to
recent exhortations in the sport management literature (cf. Chalip, 2006; Green, 2005)
that argue for a research agenda that should not only synthesise theoretical insights from
other disciplines but also that this research should help to illuminate future sport
policymaking and sport management practice.
At first sight it is tempting to argue that the development of the elite sport system in
the UK is simply an adaptation of the system in Australia. However, a deeper analysis
reveals a much more complicated and complex picture1 because, at least in part, “Sport
programmes are social systems with their own internal dynamics … They are embedded
in a broader system of social relations” (Green, 2005, p.243). On a theoretical/conceptual
level insights from the literature on policy transfer and lesson drawing certainly have a
degree of salience in alerting sport policymakers and bureaucrats to the possibilities of
drawing lessons about programmes that have achieved success in one jurisdiction
(country) for application in their own country. In the case of UK sport policymakers and
bureaucrats drawing (elite sport) lessons from Australia, it is at the level of policy ideas
or ‘policy as discourse’ (cf. Bacchi, 2000) – primarily transferred through senior sport
administrators, coaches and scientists – rather than concrete programmes, techniques and
tools where we find the greatest evidence of lesson drawing.
In this respect, Houlihan’s (2005, p.176) development of a framework for analysis of
public sector sport policy is instructive in pointing to the need for interrogation ‘in terms
of the metaphor of levels’. This perspective rests on the argument that, in order to better
understand policy processes and policy change, it is necessary to interrogate the
interaction between surface levels of policy and the deep structure which determines
within limits the range of variation of the surface levels (Benson, 1982). Houlihan (2005)
identifies three levels of analysis in the sport policy area. At the shallowest (surface)
level, is the pattern of administrative arrangements that in the UK sport policy area
would include the gradual decline in the role of local authorities and the relative rise in
importance of national agencies linked to a variety of central government departments.
At the next level, is the pattern of interorganisational resource dependencies, which is
concerned with questions of the distribution among organisations of resources such as
knowledge, finance, facilities, potential elite athletes, authority and administrative
capacity. A recent example of resource dependence in the area of sport policy would be
the requirement for (Olympic sport) NSOs to comply with UK Sport’s staggered targets
in return for funding allocations in the long lead-in to the Beijing and London Olympic
Games. Crucially, one of the key targets set by UK Sport is for NSOs to have in place a
“robust process … for identifying the necessary talent characteristics to reach the
podium” (UK Sport, 2006a, p.2). At the third (and highly resistant to change) level, are
the embedded structural values fundamental to the social formation (e.g. patriarchal
attitudes to participation in sport, class-based patterns of participation and voluntarism
preferred to state intervention).
It is at the second level of interorganisational resource dependencies that is of
interest, where Houlihan (2005) argues that recently in the UK there have been a number
of shifts in the ‘policy paradigm’ within which sport organisations operate. Of note is the
gradual retreat “from a policy discourse centred on the value of ‘sport for all’ as an
 Policy transfer, lesson drawing and perspectives 437

integral part of the process of elite sport development to one which emphasises the
demonstration effect of elite success as a catalyst for increasing participation” (Houlihan,
2005, p.181). The former discourse assumed a somewhat ad hoc and fragmented
approach to elite development according to which mass participation was important in
providing the volume of participants from which the elite would emerge. In contrast,
prominence is now given to improving the sophistication of early talent identification
and concentrating that talent in a small number of elite sport institutes or development
clubs (with the hoped-for outcome of increased numbers of Olympic medals), but clearly
insulating the elite development process from wider issues relating to participation.
As discussed throughout Section 2, an elite sport policy discourse has emerged steadily
in the UK, with Australia proving to be a fertile breeding ground for this discourse; a
discourse moreover that has added force to developments in elite sport in the UK from
the mid-1990s onwards. This discourse has been promoted by sport policymakers and
bureaucrats as ‘popular wisdom’ (Chalip, 2006, p.10) for the political legitimation of
elite success. The gradual emergence of a strong elite sport development system is not in
and of itself particularly contentious. However, as Bacchi (2000, p.50) argues, from a
‘policy as discourse’ perspective, “the battles [are] not simply at the level of wanting or
resisting a particular policy initiative but at the level of constituting the shape of the
issues to be considered”.
This leads on to an examination of the potential consequences for sport management
practice of dominant policy ideas/discourse around elite sport development for the
design and implementation of sport programmes (cf. Chalip, 2006; Green, 2005).
As Chalip (2006, p.10) argues, sport sociologists and psychologists “have become adept
at exposing fallacies in popular wisdom about sport but they rarely consider the
implications of those fallacies for sport management”. The ‘problem’ for sport
management practice is clear, given the evidence that an increasing number of countries
(including Australia and the UK) have built or are at least building, entire sport system
based on some form of talent identification systems (Chalip, 2006; Green and Houlihan,
2005). But, as Chalip (2006, p.11) reminds us, “what if talent is neither identifiable nor
sufficient to assure competitive success?” Moreover, Chalip goes on to suggest that the
“design and management of sport systems seeking to produce excellence should not be
based on talent identification but instead requires processes and practices intended to
optimise athlete recruitment, retention and advancement” (p.11; see also Green, 2005).
In this respect, for Green (2005, p.243), sport programmes must incorporate designs that
inculcate and maximise social support systems: ‘Family and community support groups,
team social functions and mentoring need to be structured into programme design’.
These observations resonate with MacPhail and Kirk’s (2006) interrogation of young
people’s socialisation into sport. These authors draw on recent developments in the UK,
in particular the promotion and implementation of what is known as the
Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model, which provides a framework for
structuring young athletes’ development through a number of stages, from the
‘FUNdamental’ through to the ‘Training to Win’ stage. The promotion and indeed
legitimation, of the LTAD model is a pertinent example of the ways in which dominant
policy ideas and discourses generated at central government level (cf. DCMS/Strategy
Unit, 2002) become embedded as ‘common sense’ ways of working for sport
organisations and practitioners. And one of the prominent characteristics of this
dominant discourse around models such as the LTAD is the resource dependency of
NSOs on government funding agencies (in the UK, primarily UK Sport). In other words,
438 M. Green

failure to comply with top-down ‘policy dictates’ (cf. Green, 2004b) that ‘compel’ NSOs
to implement such models often results in threats of reduced funding for future
programme design (UK Sport, 2006a).
It is therefore not sufficient for sport policymakers and bureaucrats to borrow
dominant policy ideas about elite sport development from abroad and then ‘impose’
these ideas at home without carefully working through the potential consequences of
implementation with sport management practitioners and also with those who are the
ultimate object of these policy ideas: talented young athletes. In this respect, a former
senior official at the British Athletics Federation (now UK Athletics) drew attention to
talent identification mechanisms with regard to young athletes and argued that “Nobody
cares what happens to them if they aren’t successful. Nobody seems to be asking
the question at all about how people put together their lives when they have failed
to make it through the talent ID [identification and development] process” (Interview,
28 May 2002).
The deleterious consequences of failing to heed such concerns resonate with
MacPhail and Kirk’s (2006, p.72) analysis of an athletics club in England, which
found that there was a real lack of procedure in following athletes through their
involvement in the club and with little concern for those that ‘drop out from the sport’.
Moreover, if lifelong participation in sport and physical activity is one of the normative
goals of sport policy interventions – as the policy and political rhetoric in the UK and
Australia appears to suggest (DCMS/Strategy/Unit, 2002; Department of Industry,
Science and Resources, 2001) – then the views of young athletes must be taken into
account in the design and implementation of programmes for sport. Indeed, MacPhail
et al.’s (2003, p.69) analysis – which advocates that we listen to the voices of young
people in sport and physical recreation – posed a salutary question for practitioners
charged with the design and implementation of sport programmes in the UK: “What are
the incentives for young people to participate in sport if they are merely there to make up
the numbers and later to be discarded while their more talented and often socially
privileged peers, progress?”
To conclude, insights from the literature on policy transfer and lesson drawing in the
interrogation of the ways in which UK sport policymakers and bureaucrats have drawn
lessons from Australia in respect of elite sport development systems point primarily to
the transfer of dominant policy ideas and discourses that prioritise elite objectives.
However, as Chalip (2006, p.12) argues, “excellent sport programmes are distinguished
from mediocre programmes not by what is done, but rather by how it is done”. The
lesson for sport policymakers, analysts and management practitioners is clear: the design,
implementation and evaluation of sport programmes requires more than just the narrow
criterion of ‘success’ (e.g. medals and trophies). A concerted research programme is
therefore long overdue into the ways in which athletes are recruited and move through
development systems such as the LTAD pathway models now in favour in the UK. Such
research is an urgent requirement, not least in the UK with the 2012 London Olympic
Games just six years away. The UK government is currently providing the largest ever
investment in elite sport as part of UK Sport’s ‘No Compromise Investment Strategy’
(UK Sport, 2006b, p.2) for the realisation of its goals of over 60 medals and fourth place
in the Olympic medals table in 2012. It remains to be seen whether sport policymakers
and practitioners in the UK reveal a similar desire to investigate ‘how’ (Chalip, 2006)
these goals will be achieved.
 Policy transfer, lesson drawing and perspectives 439

References
Bacchi, C. (2000) ‘Policy as discourse: What does it mean? Where does it get us?’ Discourse:
Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp.45–57.
Bennett, C.J. (1991) ‘How states utilise foreign evidence’, Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 11,
No. 1, pp.31–54.
Benson, J.K. (1982) ‘A framework for policy analysis’, in D. Rogers and D. Whetten (Eds).
Interorganisational Coordination: Theory, Research and Implementation, Iowa: Iowa State
University, pp.137–176.
Chalip, L. (2006) ‘Toward a distinctive sport management discipline’, Journal of Sport
Management, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp.1–21.
Commonwealth of Australia (1999) Shaping Up: A Review of Commonwealth Involvement in Sport
and Recreation in Australia (Sport 2000 Task Force), Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Department for Culture, Media and Sport (2000) A Sporting Future for all, London: Department for
Culture, Media and Sport.
Department for Culture, Media and Sport/Strategy Unit (2002) Game Plan: A Strategy for
Delivering Government's Sport and Physical Activity Objectives, London: Department for
Culture, Media and Sport/Strategy Unit.
Department of Industry, Science and Resources (2001) Backing Australia’s Sporting Ability:
A More Active Australia, Canberra: Department of Industry, Science and Resources.
Department of National Heritage (1995) Sport: Raising the Game, London: Department of National
Heritage.
Dolowitz, D.P. (2003) ‘A policymaker’s guide to policy transfer’, The Political Quarterly, Vol. 74,
No. 1, pp.101–108.
Dolowitz, D.P., Greenwold, S. and Marsh, D. (1999) ‘Policy transfer: something old, something
borrowed, but why red, white and blue?’ Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 52, No. 4, pp.719–730.
Dolowitz, D.P. and Marsh, D. (1996) ‘Who learns what from whom? A review of the policy
transfer literature’, Political Studies, Vol. 44, pp.343–357.
Dolowitz, D.P. and Marsh, D. (2000) ‘Learning from abroad: the role of policy transfer in
contemporary policymaking’, Governance: An International Journal of Policy and
Administration, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp.5–24.
English Sports Council (1998) The Development of Sporting Talent 1997, London: English Sports
Council.
Evans, M. and Davies, J. (1999) ‘Understanding policy transfer: a multi-level, multi-disciplinary
perspective’, Public Administration, Vol. 77, No. 2, pp.361–385.
Girginov, V. (1998) ‘Capitalist philosophy and communist practice: the transformation of Eastern
european sport and the International Olympic Committee’, Culture, Sport and Society, Vol. 1,
No. 1, pp.118–148.
Green, B.C. (2005) ‘Building sport programmes to optimise athlete recruitment, retention, and
transition: toward a normative theory of sport development’, Journal of Sport Management,
Vol. 19, No. 3, pp.233–253.
Green, M. (2003) ‘An analysis of elite sport policy change in three sports in Canada and the United
Kingdom’, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Loughborough: Loughborough University.
Green, M. (2004a) ‘Changing policy priorities for sport in England: the emergence of elite sport
development as a key policy concern’, Leisure Studies, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp.365–385.
Green, M. (2004b) ‘Power, policy and political priorities: elite sport development in Canada and
the United Kingdom’, Sociology of Sport Journal, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp.376–396.
Green, M. and Houlihan, B. (2005) Elite Sport Development: Policy Learning and Political
Priorities, London: Routledge.
440 M. Green

Green, M. and Houlihan, B. (2006) ‘Governmentality, modernisation and the “disciplining” of

national sporting organisations: Athletics in Australia and the UK’, Sociology of Sport
Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp.47–71.
Green, M. and Oakley, B. (2001) ‘Elite sport development systems and playing to win: uniformity
and diversity in international approaches’, Leisure Studies, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp.247–267.
Hong, F., Wu, P. and Xiong, H. (2005) ‘Beijing ambitions: an analysis of the Chinese elite sports
system and its Olympic strategy for the 2008 Olympic Games’, The International Journal of
the History of Sport, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp.510–529.
Houlihan, B. (1991) The Government and Politics of Sport, London: Routledge.
Houlihan, B. (1997) Sport, Policy and Politics: A Comparative Analysis, London: Routledge.
Houlihan, B. (2005) ‘Public sector sport policy: developing a framework for analysis’,
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp.163–185.
James, O. and Lodge, M. (2003) ‘The limitations of “policy transfer” and “lesson drawing” for
public policy research’, Political Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.179–193.
MacPhail, A. and Kirk, D. (2006) ‘Young people’s socialisation into sport: experiencing the
specialising phase’, Leisure Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp.57–74.
MacPhail, A., Kirk, D. and Eley, D. (2003) ‘Listening to young people’s voices: youth sports
leaders’ advice on facilitating participation in sport’, European Physical Education Review,
Vol. 9, No. 1, pp.57–73.
Moreland, R. (1999) Report on the International Forum on Elite Sport: Sydney, Australia
(September), Unpublished paper.
National Audit Office (2005) UK Sport: Supporting Elite Athletes (HC 182 – SE/2005/9 Session
2004-2005), London: The Stationery Office.
Page, E.C. (2000) ‘Future governance and the literature on policy transfer and lesson drawing’,
Paper Presented at the ESRC Future Governance Workshop, London, 28 January.
Pickup, D. (1996) Not Another Messiah: An Account of the Sports Council 1988-93, Edinburgh:
The Pentland Press.
Prescott, J. (1996) ‘Talent identification and development in female gymnasts’, Coaching Focus,
Vol. 31, pp.12–13.
Rose, R. (1991) ‘What is lesson drawing?’ Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp.3–30.
Rose, R. (1993) Lesson drawing in Public Policy: A Guide to Learning Across Time and Space,
Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.
Rose, R. (2005) Learning from Comparative Public Policy: A Practical Guide, London: Routledge.
Sam, M.P. and Jackson, S.J. (2004) ‘Sport policy development in New Zealand: Paradoxes of an
integrative paradigm’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 39, No. 2,
pp.205–222.
Sport Industry Research Centre (2002) European Sporting Success: A Study of the Development of
Medal Winning Elites in Five European Countries, Sheffield: Sport Industry Research Centre.
Sproat, I. (1996) Sport: Raising the Game: The Government’s Strategy for Sport, London:
Department of National Heritage.
Stewart, B., Nicholson, M., Smith, A. and Westerbeek, H. (2004) Australian Sport: Better by
Design? The Evolution of Australian Sport Policy, London: Routledge.
Teo, L. (2005) ‘An analysis of elite sport policy in Singapore from 1990 to 2005’, Unpublished
MSc Thesis, Loughborough University, UK.
Theodoraki, E. (1999) ‘The making of the UK Sports Institute’, Managing Leisure, Vol. 4, No. 4,
pp.187–200.
Trelford, D. (1997) ‘Academy process set to run and run’, The Daily Telegraph, 28 January, p.30.
 Policy transfer, lesson drawing and perspectives 441

UK Sport (1997) The British Academy of Sport – A Vision for Success (Internal paper), London:
UK Sport.
UK Sport (1998) ‘United Kingdom’s serious intentions for sport and coaching’, Coaching Focus,
No. 37, pp.4–5.
UK Sport (2006a) Funding Release Triggers (Press release), London: UK Sport, pp.1–2.
UK Sport (2006b) Transforming the UK High Performance Sport System (Press release), London:
UK Sport, pp.1–4.

Note
1
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for emphasising this point in an earlier draft of this paper.