State intervention in voluntary sport: the inner city policy context
The state has defined a ‘voluntary sector’ in leisure in order to integrate elements of voluntary activity into its overall response to perceived ‘problems’ in society. The nature of this response has evolved from a general concern with the ‘problem’ of leisure in an expanding economy to the need for policies to deal with the reappearance of an open crisis of the economy and the emergence of mass unemployment. The state has taken measures to dictate the direction of grant aid and support to particular parts of the voluntary sector, in accordance with the evolution of these concerns. But the nature of the state's response also heightens tensions within existing organizations, as well as between different levels of the state apparatus.