The Role of Government in the Olympic Games: AComparative Study of the Beijing 2008 Olympics andthe Vancouver 2010 Olympics. (original) (raw)

Whose Accolades? An Alternative Perspective on Motivations for Hosting the Olympics

Urban Forum, 2010

This article argues that much of the literature on Olympic cities misperceives the role played by a city’s business and political elites due to the failure to take into account the historical and socioeconomic circumstances of the country concerned. The article demonstrates that the Chinese Communist Party used the Olympics as a vehicle to consolidate its legitimacy and Beijing as a showpiece to project the country’s identity and modernity internationally. The emphasis here is the interests of the Party and not urban entrepreneurialism. The essential contribution of this article is to propose a matrix as a tool for exploring the motivations of cities and countries for hosting the Olympics. The matrix comprises Olympic cities in democratic and authoritarian, and in developed and developing, countries.

Going for the Gold: The Economics of the Olympics

Journal of Economic Perspectives

In this paper, we explore the costs and benefits of hosting the Olympic Games. On the cost side, there are three major categories: general infrastructure such as transportation and housing to accommodate athletes and fans; specific sports infrastructure required for competition venues; and operational costs, including general administration as well as the opening and closing ceremony and security. Three major categories of benefits also exist: the short-run benefits of tourist spending during the Games; the long-run benefits or the “Olympic legacy” which might include improvements in infrastructure and increased trade, foreign investment, or tourism after the Games; and intangible benefits such as the “feel-good effect” or civic pride. Each of these costs and benefits will be addressed in turn, but the overwhelming conclusion is that in most cases the Olympics are a money-losing proposition for host cities; they result in positive net benefits only under very specific and unusual ci...

Whose Games? The costs of being 'Olympic citizens' in Beijing

2013

Hosting mega-events such as the Olympic Games tend to accompany numerous media coverage on the negative social impact of the Games, and the people in the affected areas are often considered to be one victim group sharing similar experiences. The research in this paper tries to unpack the heterogeneous groups in a particular sector of the housing market, and gain a better understanding of how the Olympic Games affects different resident groups. We take the example of the Beijing Summer Olympic Games and resort to empirical findings in an attempt to critically examine the experience of migrant tenants and Beijing citizens (landlords in particular) in ‘villages-in-the-city’ (known as cheongzhongcun) by delivering their own first- hand accounts of city-wide preparation for the Beijing Summer Olympiad and the pervasive demolition threats to their neighbourhoods. The paper argues that the Beijing Summer Olympiad produced uneven, often exclusionary, Games experiences for a certain segment of urban population.

An Olympic legacy for all? The non-infrastructural outcomes of the Olympic Games for socially excluded groups (Atlanta 1996-Beijing 2008)

Tourism Management, 2011

The use of mega sporting events to achieve social goals for socially excluded groups is heavily contested. Comparative evidence regarding the effects of the Olympic Games for these groups is scarce, and there is an even greater dearth of studies focusing on non-infrastructural programmes (such as sport participation initiatives, volunteering opportunities, training and employment schemes). This study identifies planning principles that allow for the development of such non-infrastructural benefits for socially excluded groups in host cities, and reviews their application in recent Olympic Games. This study examines data from 7 Olympic cities (Atlanta, Nagano, Sydney, Salt Lake City, Athens, Turin and Beijing). It shows that the Olympic Games generally bring few benefits for socially excluded groups, although these benefits are often important justifications in the bidding stage. The study highlights the growing importance placed by the International Olympic Committee on environmental sustainability, and proposes a similar emphasis on social sustainability.

The urban and economic impacts of mega-events: mechanisms of change in global games

Sport in Society, 2021

Mega-events are global affairs with profound effects across a variety of scales, and are the focus of a large and growing body of academic inquiry. This special section in Sports in Society centers on the urban and economic impacts of mega-events on the societies that host them, offering an examination of individual cases and emerging patterns. The authors explore different dimensions of the recent mega-event experience from around the world, proposing novel ways of theorizing these outsized expressions of transnational sport, politics, commerce, and culture. Combined, these contributions unpack how socioeconomic and cultural contexts shape the organization of events and impact hosts in variegated and contingent ways in the Global North, South, and East. This introduction offers a brief overview of the landscape of the existing research before summarizing each contribution and placing them in context within the broader literature. All told, the articles in this special section explore how the Olympics, the FIFA Men's World Cup and the Commonwealth Games deploy different mechanisms to transform urban space, and offer innovative means of understanding what megaevents can do to the people and places that host them. Introduction: from mega-events to giga-events With great fanfare, a man pulls a card from an envelope and reveals the name of a host: 'The winner is…'. Some people in the audience-and around the world-leap from their seats, cheering in triumph. Others applaud politely or are crestfallen. Transnational business plans worth billions of dollars in construction, broadcast media, and sponsorships start heating up. Elsewhere, the newly christened host begins preparations through costly, sometimes controversial, and transformative urban development plans. And within that host city, in a growing hailstorm of media attention, residents pursue their daily lives in the context of these changes. Some of them anticipate the celebrations, catching the waves of increasing excitement. Others ignore it or profess not to care, while still others plan acts of protest and resistance. Nonetheless, excited or not, all these people will be affected to a certain extent. These are patterns seen worldwide when conducting the Olympics, the

Leveraging of the Olympic Games on Mega-Sporting Events: A Strategic Framework for the Development of Sport

Mega-sporting events can be described by their leveraging and intricacy in management and delivery. This article reviews the literature on the characteristics of such events and, drawing specific models from almost recent Olympic Games, it identifies the character and dimension of their leveraging on the host country and society. The paper finalizes that while the perspective of economic development is the driving power behind bids for hosting the Olympic Games, the heritages that pursuit their hosting are hard to measure, prone to political explanation and multifaceted. The mega-sporting events are in essence, only the catalyst for the efforts.

When the Games Come to Town: Neoliberalism, Mega-Events and Social Inclusion in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2013

This paper aims to contribute to a burgeoning dialogue on evaluating the sustainability of sport mega-events by introducing three strategies for implementing the International Olympic Committee's (IOC's) Olympic Games Impact (OGI) study. The three techniques are bundling/leveraging, before-after control and sustainability scorecards. This paper begins by offering a twofold definition of OGI, one based on the OGI Technical Manual and one based on the author's experience undertaking this initiative. Second, it presents and discusses the OGI critiques that exist in the sport mega-event impact literature. Although only recently implemented, critical analyses of the OGI methodology have already produced a handful of critiques. Third, the experience of applying OGI in an examination of the 2010 Games is the grounds for suggesting two new critiques. Fourth, the paper describes, using empirical data from 2010, how the OGI researchers have addressed the methodological critiques by: (1) connecting indicator data to public policy objectives; (2) positing a provisional means to create a sustainability standard; and (3) comparing changes in the indicator data in the host to nonhost jurisdictions. This article would be of interest to future prospective Olympic host cities, researchers of mega-events and their impacts and practitioners who evaluate urban sustainability.

Social science perspectives on the 2012 Olympic Games

2008

This symposium arises from a public event held on 14 March 2008 by the Academy of Social Sciences, in cooperation with the University of East London, as part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) 2008 Festival of Social Sciences. The purpose of the symposium is to explore the contribution which social scientists can make to the understanding of the London Olympics, and to clarify issues of public benefit of different kinds which arise from the hosting of the 2012 Games in London.

When the World Gathers: a political review of the Olympic Games

2019

“When the world gathers, there is always a chance for political change”1. Unluckily, in many occasions, international sport gatherings have produced boycotts, bans and even terrorist attacks, proving how sport has been linked to politics since its origin. Specifically, from their creation in the 8th century before Christ until today, the Olympic Games have been the site of increasingly visible protests and demonstrations by a wide array of international actors. In fact, the Olympic Games are the perfect context in which to understand the reflection of the real, social and political reality of the time, and, in many ways, they present a metaphor on the society within which they are celebrated. In the present essay, we qualitatively study press articles and existing bibliography to analyse the fronts of conflict and protests since the beginning of the modern Olympic Games, to try to understand why they have been such arenas for contention, in what ways this conflict has materialized within the functioning of the Games, and around what topics and societal cleavages these confrontations have arisen. Without entering into deep detail, the present essay provides a holistic overview of political conflict in the Olympic Games.