Double Play: On the Instrumentalization of Civil Society Organizations

In a time of social liquefaction and a network approach to governance, citizens and their organizations are increasingly expected to contribute to the revitalization of society (Brandsen et al., 2015). In a range of domains, civil society organizations (CSOs) are valued and used by governments for contributing to a diversity of public issues. This paper zooms in on one of those domains: sports. In a range of North-west European countries, including the UK, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands governments ascribe voluntary sport clubs (VSCs) a valuable role for the common good and increasingly use them as partners for contributing to public issues, like counteracting overweight among youth, improve social integration of immigrants, improving social cohesion in neighbourhoods and activating the elderly. Contributing to the greater good in society is becoming an institutional norm to which VSCs have to conform. In the eyes of governmental agencies organizing for public value seems to be what constitutes VSCs as a good and virtuous organization. In this paper this institutional development is understood as a process of instrumentalization.