Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games

Boykoff, Jules

doi:10.4324/9780203370421

Cited by 86 publications

(93 citation statements)

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“…Commentators from across the political spectrum have documented public subsidies to Olympic planning (Long, 2005;Preuss, 2004;Zimbalist, 2015). However, these subsidies were often overlooked in public debate because they are buried within public-private partnerships and complex subcontracting systems (Boykoff, 2014b;Flyvbjerg & Stewart, 2012;Raco, 2014). The expanding geographies and budgets of mega-event hosting have prompted calls to recognize state-led development models, not as outliers to an otherwise neoliberal/entrepreneurial form of event-led development, but as standard operating practice.…”

Section: State Intervention In Neoliberal Mega-eventsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Boston’s Olympic bid and the evolving urban politics of event-led development

Lauermann

2015

Urban Geography

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The sports mega-events industry is in the midst of a significant reorganization, and the urban politics of event-led development planning is increasingly tumultuous. Three trends stand out: (1) the mega-events industry has been professionalized through consultancies, sports federations' urban policy programs, and city-to-city knowledge-sharing partnerships.(2) Critics of mega-events have been successful in drawing attention to state intervention and public subsidies involved in megaevent planning. (3) A proliferation of anti-bid social movements has pursued a form of urban politics, which more aggressively questions the legitimacy of using mega-events to pursue urban development. I evaluate the implications of these trends with a case study of a bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Boston. The failure of the Boston bid illustrates increasing tensions between cities and the mega-events industry.

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Section: State Intervention In Neoliberal Mega-eventsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Boston’s Olympic bid and the evolving urban politics of event-led development

Lauermann

2015

Urban Geography

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“…This linear and sequential temporality of the global industry of mega-events reproduces the global neoliberal order, which, although variously patterned country-by-country, prompts "lagging" countries to speed up by organizing more and more events. In implementing the Sochi Olympics and preparing to host the 2018 World Cup, Russia joined that large group of governments that consider hosting sports mega-events as a promising way of reinforcing national prestige (Boykoff 2013;Cottrell and Nelson 2011).…”

Section: Modernity and Mega-events As The Showcases Of Progressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mega-events in the context of capitalist modernity: the case of 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics

Трубина

2014

Eurasian Geography and Economics

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This paper presents a conceptual account of the development of Russian urban space by analyzing the planning and execution of international mega-events. As place-rivalry among cities and countries under neoliberal capitalism becomes more pronounced, they pursue tighter incorporation into international markets via national developmental models. By reviewing links between modernity, capitalism, and spatiality outlined by scholars in recent decades, the author investigates how mega-events facilitate the accumulation of capital and how this is used in urban policies. With the help of capitalist boosterism rhetoric, during the 2014 Winter Olympics the Russian central, regional, and urban governments developed and exploited both the populist potential and the rent-seeking opportunities that mega-events possess. With the Winter Games in Sochi now behind, the author outlines a number of key issues that have shaped the urban development of the country and will leave a lasting legacy for a future generation to deal with. The author also summarizes larger lessons learned over the implementations of mega-events in the country.

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“…On a similar note, Timms (2012) traces the unseen struggle by PlayFair2012 to secure the rights of workers found to have been subject to 'poverty wages' and exploitative conditions in factories tendered with supplying merchandise and sportswear at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Beyond sport and leisure events, but allied to this, Lamond in this Special Issue, reveals how rampant Western-led commercialisation of Gay Pride events has served to depoliticise the transgressive ethos of LGBT protest and rights claiming such that they become co-opted into a form of celebratory capitalism (Boykoff, 2014).…”

Section: Protecting Human Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%