This paper proposes a theoretical framework for research on three meaningful sports experiences (track and field, volleyball and military sport) in post war Rome. The main key concepts, such as the one of political arena, considered as a historically defined place of conflict among the elites, are borrowed from political sociology.
This approach, inspired by the neo-institutionalistic viewpoint, is considered to be the opposite to both an improperly extended use of the historians' categories, and the suggestions of micro-organizational theories. A sports association is described rather as the product of manifold organizational logics, which concur in defining its structural, organizational and cognitive outline.
In the final section, a hypothesis is provided, which describes a division of the organizational history of the Roman sports movement in different periods, in connection with the national and local political cycle.
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