Politics, Economic Development, and the Volvo International Tennis Tournament

As cities turn to sport as a vehicle for encouraging economic development, sport managers increasingly find themselves in the midst of debates over urban policy. The purpose of this study was to examine the decision-making process that brought the Volvo International Tennis Tournament to New Haven, Connecticut. Because New Haven has been the center of classic debates over community power, the Volvo tennis case offers an excellent opportunity to examine the use of the theories of urban politics in understanding how development decisions are made. The Volvo case suggests that a synthesis of Stone's regime theory and Peterson's economistic paradigm provides a useful model for identifying the key players in economic development.