ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the rise of elite sport and talent development on the public policy agenda. It describes how the institutional arrangements for talent policies vary across countries and regimes; including policy-making and makers, as well as how the administrative and financial structures for talent policies are set up. The chapter also discusses how structural differences, combined with the cultural elements of the regimes, lead to an array of implications for working with talent policies. Reflecting governments' low priority of sport in the past, sport policy issues have historically either been located within government departments whose responsibility is much broader than sport, such as departments of education or defence, or non-existent – or at least rather invisible – within the government machinery. The integration of elite sport, and thus talent identification and development policy, into the public administration of nation states has provided political decision-makers with real possibilities to influence the conditions constraining the implementation of such policies.
