Germany: Autonomy, partnership and subsidiarity

Abstract

Germany’s sport policy is based on three main characteristics: the autonomy of sport; the subsidiarity of sport funding; and the partnership with sport organisations. There is a clear separation between performance sports and grassroots sports: the regional sports confederations focus on grassroots sport and the (top-level) national sport federations coordinate high-performance sport. While the development of elite sports can be explained in terms of a principal-agent perspective, Germany’s general sports policy can be described as a form of co-governance (Groeneveld, 2009), in which the non-governmental actors share responsibility within policymaking and implementation processes (Houlihan, 1997). Following the VOCASPORT typology of sports policy systems in Europe (Henry, 2009), Germany’s sport policy can generally be categorised as a missionary configuration, because the voluntary sports movement has a dominant presence with great autonomy to make decisions.