Einleitung

Section 8: politics and policy in youth sport
To begin, it is worth putting the concept of ‘small nations’ in perspective. For example, according to recent estimates, China has 400 million basketball participants (Sport in China, 2014). Even if this is an overestimation, it provides a significant contrast to observations that 60 per cent of the world’s nations have populations of less than 10 million and 48 per cent of nations have less than 5 million inhabitants. When it comes to sport, size matters, hence differences in scale have been a frequent independent variable in studies examining elite sport success (De Bosscher et al., 2008). Generating explanations regarding how and why size matters for elite youth sport raises questions regarding the possible differences, challenges and opportunities of being a small nation. In this chapter, I want to demonstrate the importance of scale in the development of policies and programmes around youth sport. I first outline the case for studying small states and consider the key characteristics that might distinguish small states from large ones, focusing in particular on the conceptual dimensions of vulnerability and resilience. I follow this with a reading of what these characteristics mean for youth sport development. In particular, I discuss whether the development of international sport for youth might have a proportionately larger impact on small states’ sport systems. At the same time, it is suggested that youth in small states may have wider opportunities for international competition and its benefits (travel, cultural exchange, etc.). Following a review of relevant sport studies, the chapter concludes by suggesting that the importance of these works lies with the distinctive ‘ecologies’ of small states.