Koch, Michael (M. Sc.)

Doctoral research project

Sports funding as a control instrument for political actors. – An institutional and financial analysis of discretionary scope in sports funding in Rhineland-Palatinate.

State funding for organised sport in Germany ranges from an ideal partnership-based, subsidiary relationship between sports organisations and political actors on the one hand, to a power-oriented, cooperative and engaging relationship on the other. On the theoretical basis of methodological individualism and rational choice assumptions of the (individual) actors involved, an increasing cooperativisation of organised sport can be assumed in the absence of restrictions. To test this hypothesis, Michael Koch's doctoral thesis examines the genesis of the relationship between organised sport and politics over a period of 30 years in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, using a triangulation of document, network and financial data analyses. Structurally, Rhineland-Palatinate, with a higher-level state sports association, three regional sports associations, which until 2008 were the sole shareholders of the Rhineland-Palatinate lottery company (subsequently, 51% of the shares went to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate), and a fairly stable political environment (from 1947 to 1991, the CDU governed in various coalitions, followed by the SPD, which has governed continuously since then), an interesting framework for examining political action with regard to the promotion of club and association structures in and on the basis of organised sport.