Anti-Doping Policy: A Partial History and Refinement
Open Access
- Author:
- Macedo, Emmanuel
- Graduate Program:
- Kinesiology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- October 22, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Francisco Javier Lopez Frias, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Jaime Schultz, Committee Member
Jonathan Bates Dingwell, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies
Michelle Sikes, Committee Member - Keywords:
- anti-doping policy
anti-doping history
The council of europe
moral communities
shame
adversarial rhetoric
stakeholder theory - Abstract:
- Two individual papers comprise the general discussion of this thesis. Together these papers highlight the development and creation of international anti-doping policy. The first paper provides background. As a historical paper, it documents the development of international anti-doping policies by the Council of Europe. Specifically, I highlight how their efforts helped establish precedent for an international anti-doping system that came to influence today’s largest international anti-doping agency, the World Anti-Doping Agency. The second paper offers a critical analysis of a more recent attempt to expand anti-doping policy by authors Larry Bowers and Raymond Paternoster. In this second paper, my collaborators and I take a critical look at their proposal for the establishment of moral communities, amongst athletes in elite sport circles, as an effort to increase athlete buy-in to anti-doping policies. In our critique, we acknowledge that establishing moral communities potentially represents an important step toward athlete buy-in. However, we also show how the authors undermine taking this important step by employing shame as a tool for deterrence without considering the ethical problems of such employment and promulgating a us vs. them mentality between anti-doping authorities and athletes. Their strategy only further hinders athlete buy-in and partnership. To foster athlete’s buy-in, we, instead, argue for athlete empowerment as a step toward legitimating anti-doping policies in the eyes of athletes.