SPORT 1913 - 2013

sport and leisure became the virtual cultural vehicle of a new kind of social citizenship in late modernity. In contemporary societies, mostly in the West but not only, the tradition- al culture of sports activities has been chal- lenged again and again. This was due to the effect of exogenous factors, such as new emerging life-styles since the 1960s, the cycle of protests of the 1970s, the uprising of a cul- ture of narcissism and post-materialistic needs (Inglehart 1996). Endogenous factors, however, were very influencing too, mainly as regards to the phenomenon of commercializa- tion of sport, new attitudes toward competi- tion and environment (the sportization of soci- ety and the simultaneous de-sportization of sport: DeKnop 1999) – contributing step by step to modify the whole cultural profile and organizational assessment of the movement. In particular, I will argue that the foundation (1913) and re-foundation (1946) of the WSM, its social rooting and its institutionalization represent not only a crucial turning point in terms of organizational change, but also an original adaptation to social change. A Social Movement? In order to analyse the historical process con- necting the foundation of ISO in 1913 – which until the declaration of war (August 4 th , 1914) already counted up pro-Labour sports organi- zations belonging to twelve different countries and about 500.000 members compared to to- day’s over 7 million full members belonging to 35 national organizations from 28 countries in

Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America – a cor- rect analytical frame needs to refer to the de- velopments which led through various and sometimes dramatic events to the successive constituencies of ISO, ISOS and CSIT (first and second version). What I mean is that we need not only to assign the Labour Sports Move- ment to the category of social movement as in Melucci’s (1982) and Touraine’s (1984) sugges- tions, and neither to refer to an abstract and merely formal typology, as proposed above. What is crucial, in fact, is rather to investigate the inner changes of the movement in its first century of activity and its capacity to answer both exogenous and endogenous challenges. Morphological structure, cognitive profile and belonging to cooperative networks represent helpful typologies only if inserted in a progres- sive re-conceptualization of its mission, its de- clared goals and the production of leaderships. This represents an interesting opportu- nity for the sociologists investigating WSM in accordance with some crucial dimensions. Each of them, in fact, implies transformations in the organizational arrangement, modifying the original morphological structure. Each of them asks for a new cognitive profile, able to include changing representations of the sport mission as well as political perspectives. Each of them, finally, puts in evidence a number of different strategies and alliances leading to give birth to new coalitions and cooperative networks in a global scenario. These crucial dimensions, on turn, have to be referred to some diachronic steps, inves-

tigating the organizational changes as indica- tors of the organizational system in order to answer new emerging challenges. The dimensions involved in all the dif- ferent seasons of WSM refer to four analytical categories: 1. foundation (1913) and re-foundations (1920, 1946) of the movement implying the constitution of a pioneers’ promoting group, a leading role exerted by active minorities and prophetic leaders; social rooting according to (iia) the defini- tion of a shared “mission”, (iib) an emo- tional self-representation (foundation myths), (iic) the location of the move- ment inside an organizational territory and (iid) the elaboration of rules able to produce a shared symbolic identification in the membership; institutionalization as external recogni- tion through: (iiia) affiliation to official organizational structures (both political and sports organizations like IOC); (iiib) participation in competitive activities and connected programmes; 4. constitution of a system of constraints and opportunities regarding infra-organiza- tional regulation, incorporation of values, emancipation and replacement of goals, loyalty, and partnership developments. Moreover, the model of the political arena summarized above must be subjected to an historical overview in order to better locate changes and different organizational strate- 2. 3.

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