The Olympic legacy: Feeding London (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Over the last decades, the Olympic Games have increasingly claimed to deliver a social and economic ‘legacy’ to the host city. The 2012 Olympic Games in London have set out to deliver a legacy of better food for east London, an area perceived as ‘deprived’, with higher than average rates of obesity and significant ‘food deserts’ in its midst. Various Olympic organizations have considered the issue, resulting in the publication of a Food vision for the first time ever in Olympic history. However, with companies such as Coca‐Cola and McDonald's having been appointed official suppliers to the Games, and with an extremely limited time frame, will the Games be able to deliver on this promise?     

Deliberation and Resecuritization: Australia,Asylum-Seekers and the Normative Limits of the Copenhagen School

In the lead-up to the Australian federal election in 2010, both major political parties represented the ‘unauthorised’ arrival of asylum-seekers as a security issue. This article explores the dynamics of this resecuritization of asylum in Australia, suggesting the case has important implications for both the securitization framework and Australia's treatment of asylum-seekers. The relationship between securitization and calls for an open debate about asylum-seekers challenges the securitization framework's normative claims about political debate and deliberation as a progressive development illustrative of desecuritization (the removal of issues from the security agenda). This case also illustrates that without political leadership to engage with the social and cultural context that allows the securitization of asylum to resonate with large segments of the Australian population, the exploitation of this issue for short-term political gain will continue.     

“De-Risking” East London: Olympic Regeneration Planning 2000–2012

The concept of legacy has emerged in the twenty-first century as a dominant narrative within mega-event projects. Accordingly, event hosts now engage in detailed legacy planning. This often means creating new agencies and new plans; something that has important implications for wider urban governance and planning. This paper focuses on initiatives attached to the 2012 Olympic Games in London. One of the main aims of staging the Games was regenerating East London; and the pre-event planning (2000–2012) associated with this legacy promise is the focus here. Using evidence collected from primary and secondary research, the paper records how the governance and planning arrangements evolved over 2000–2012. These were designed to achieve regeneration effects at different scales; in the Olympic Park, the fringes of the Park and in the wider sub-region. The paper acknowledges the pioneering work undertaken in London, but also identifies the key issues, challenges and dilemmas involved. The paper concludes that Olympic regeneration planning has rescaled regeneration governance in London, privileging city-wide and national stakeholders. It also suggests that, rather than a process driven by corporate interests and public–private partnerships, London 2012 regeneration planning is best understood as government intervention that de-risked East London for private-sector investors.     

Front and Back Covers,Volume 28, Number 4. August 2012

Front and back cover caption, volume 28 issue 4 Front cover: OLYMPIC LEGACY: FOOD Over the last decades, the Olympic Games have increasingly claimed to deliver a social and economic ‘legacy’ to the host city. The 2012 Olympic Games in London have set out to deliver a legacy of better food for east London, an area perceived as ‘deprived’, with higher than average rates of obesity and significant ‘food deserts’ in its midst. Various Olympic organizations have considered the issue, resulting in the publication of a Food vision for the first time ever in Olympic history. However, with companies such as Coca‐Cola and McDonald's having been appointed official suppliers to the Games, and with an extremely limited time frame, will the Games be able to deliver on this promise? Allotments have been demolished and plans are afoot for Queen's Market, Upton Park, to be replaced by a supermarket. In response, Queen's Market traders and customers protest that demolition of their market goes against the Olympic spirit. Indeed, the Games could be used instead to help improve access to London's ethnically diverse markets far beyond the borough limits, as suggested in this postcard distributed by campaigners. As Freek Janssens argues in his guest editorial in this issue, the 2012 Games provide the opportunity to more critically assess how food serves the marginalized in our ethnically diverse inner cities. Also in this issue, Johan Fischer deals with halal, another topic that impacts athletes and spectators at the Games, with sporting events taking place during ramadan. Back cover: POVERTY AND GRASSROOTS COMMERCE Aisha, a door‐to‐door entrepreneur in CARE Bangladesh’ s Rural Sales Programme (RSP), is one of 3,000 previously ‘destitute’ women who now earns an income by selling branded consumer goods across rural villages under a partnership between CARE and global multinationals such as Danone, Bic, and Unilever. Similar female distribution systems are now popping up across the world. From Procter and Gamble's distribution of sanitary pads to ‘poor’ adolescent girls in Kenya and Malawi, to Unilever's Shakti ammas distributing soap village‐to‐village in rural India, companies aim to expand their bottom line by fostering entrepreneurial opportunities among the poor through so‐called ‘bottom of the pyramid’ (BoP) initiatives. Such initiatives reflect the changing nature of international development where new development actors – celebrities, philanthrocapitalists, multinational corporations, social entrepreneurs etc. – spearhead efforts to reduce poverty, replacing the role long occupied by states and aid agencies. Today some of the world's largest corporations have become key players in global development by selling ‘socially beneficial’ products to the ‘poor’, and by drawing them into global commodity chains as entrepreneurs. These efforts are now widely endorsed as part of a pro‐market development agenda that looks to the perceived ‘efficiency’ of the private sector to do what billions of aid dollars have been unable to do. BoP distribution systems can offer ‘poor’ women like Aisha an opportunity to earn an income and contribute to the food security of their family. But these engagements pose risks as well as rewards, and raise pressing questions for anthropologists about how, under what terms, and with what effects, global capital is linking up with informal economies in the name of development.     

Non-events and their legacies: Parisian heritage and the Olympics that never were

This paper examines three failed bids by the French Olympic Committee and the City of Paris to host the summer Olympic Games of 1992, 2008 and 2012 in an attempt better to understand the role of heritage designations in the context of urban change. Introducing the various sites earmarked for the Games, the paper explores the relationship between planning as a political tool and its impact on the built environment within the context of a complex web of local, national and international demands, needs and aspirations. Based on archival research, the paper explores the dialectical relationship between the demonstrated ability of city councils to declare designated ‘Olympic’ spaces as functionally ‘ready’ to absorb massive new infrastructures and questions posed by whatever physical infrastructure remains after a bid has failed. Since the timeframe chosen for the paper (1986–2006) coincides with a move by the International Olympic Committee to prioritise ‘sustainable urbanism’ as a key legacy of ‘successful’ Olympic Games, this relationship between presences and absences is mediated not just with the help of possible futures in the form of Olympic sites but has had to validate and justify the choice of terrain as well. The paper concludes with a brief meditation on the relationship between present urban heritage and possible futures in the context of mega-events like the Olympic Games.     

奥运与旅游的互动与共赢关系

本文认为,奥运与旅游应该是一种互动与共赢的关系,即"奥运为旅游的快速发展提供难得的机遇,旅游为奥运的成功举办提供切实的保障".     

奥运会对城市经济的助推作用

本文主要讨论了现代奥运会在城市经济活动中的作用以及不断增强的产业化。企业化促使奥运承办费用日益增长,同时对举办城市经济的影响日益加大。2008年北京奥运会的申办以及预期结果表明:现代城市为获得奥运会主办权而不断增强的竞争,已经成为城市经济发展的重要组成部分。     

A game of risk: Boat migration and the business of bordering Europe (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Largely in response to irregular migration flows, a Euro‐African border is under construction at the southern edges of Europe. The latest phase in this ‘borderwork’ is a system known as Eurosur, underpinned by a vision of a streamlined surveillance cover of Europe's southern maritime border and the African ‘pre‐frontier’ beyond it. Eurosur and other policing initiatives pull in a range of sectors – from border guards to aid workers – that make the statistically small figure of the irregular border crosser their joint target. To highlight the economic and productive aspects of controlling migratory flows, I call this varied group of interests an ‘illegality industry’. Casting an eye on the Spanish section of the external EU border, this article investigates how the illegality industry conceptualizes migrants as a source of risk to be managed, visualized and controlled. The end result, it is argued, is a ‘double securitization’ of migrant flows, rendering these as both a security threat and a growing source of profits.     

MAJORITY AND MINORITY NATIONALISM IN THE DANISH POST‐WELFARE STATE

The future of the nation and the Danish welfare state is one of the most important political issues today. The transition in neoliberal governance from welfare state to security state, the ongoing securitization of global and European mobility, the restructuring of public services and the re‐scaling of political and economic power has made the debate around the welfare state central. In this article I take an approach to the welfare nation state that is based on the practices and narratives of everyday life. The argument is that narrative practices in everyday life constitute a central sphere inviting studies of the struggle over the welfare community and meaning. The empirical material draws on two recent research projects that include narratives and perspectives from minority and majority population in Denmark. By analysing different perspectives on the nation the article intends to open up for both shared narratives on the welfare state but also differences in the ongoing struggle over the right to the nation.     

‘Land of Fires’: Urban Growth,Economic Crisis,and Forest Fires in Attica,Greece

This study investigates the spatial distribution and basic characteristics of 2692 forest fires between 2000 and 2011 in Attica, Greece, a rapidly expanding urban region. Fire variables were assessed, together with variables describing the socio‐economic local context in three distinct periods of Athens’ expansion (2000–2003: semi‐compact expansion and economic growth before the 2004 Olympic Games; 2004–2007: infrastructure development and discontinuous expansion following the Olympic Games; 2008–2011: crisis‐driven decline of the construction industry). Fire characteristics changed over the three periods following the negative trends in the construction industry. Burnt areas decreased in the rural area around Athens and the opposite pattern was observed in the peri‐urban belt. Our findings suggest that the temporal and spatial distribution of forest fires in Attica reflects the construction boom stimulated by the 2004 Olympic Games and the subsequent economic crisis.     

From Democratization to Securitization: Post‐Arab Spring Political Order in the Middle East

This article examines the question: why and how the wave of democratization in the Middle East has receded, giving way to the prioritization of security in the post‐Arab Spring by conducting analyses at three levels: societal, state, and international. By applying the main concepts and theories found in the literature on democratization and securitization and by analyzing the Bertelsmann Stiftung's Democracy Status Index, the Arab Barometers Survey, and the Arab Opinion Survey, the article concludes that: at the societal level, the tragic unfolding of events after the Arab Spring prohibits the public from pushing a reform agenda; at the state level, the post‐Arab political environment raises doubts among the ruling elite about how far political reforms should be extended; and at the international level, with the rise of new security threats, international pressure on Middle East countries to democratize has been restrained, giving way to security cooperation as the top priority.     

Ireland and the Paris Olympic Games (1924): a difficult journey successfully negotiated

ABSTRACT

Ireland first competed as an independent nation in the Olympic Games at Paris in 1924. The Irish presence in Paris was largely due to the work of J.J. Keane, who became the first Irish member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1922. This made it possible for Ireland to compete independently in the Olympics. As Keane lobbied for IOC membership, he also persuaded the two rival athletic controlling bodies of Irish athletics to abandon their claims and merge into a single controlling body for the sport. An Irish Olympic Council was established by Keane to manage the Irish entry for the Paris Games. Olympic recognition was achieved against a background of tumultuous political events in Ireland that included a war of independence, a civil war and partition of the island. The British Olympic Association consistently opposed demands for independent Irish Olympic representation and in 1924 attempted to limit Irish Olympic jurisdiction to the territory of the Irish Free State, an attempt that was firmly rejected and resisted by Keane on behalf of the Irish Olympic Council. This was complicated by Irish participation in the Olympic football competition.     

亚洲城市承办奥运会时的跨城联系异同——基于北京和东京夏季奥运会的比较研究

2020 年东京奥运会引发了又一轮体育全球化的讨论热潮,而相关领域内仍缺乏对同区域内奥运会引发城市联系差异性的探讨。本研究以 2008年北京奥运会和 2020年东京奥运会为研究对象,探究其引发的城市间联系特征,研究结果表明：①两届奥运会的城市节点和城市联系均具有等级层次性;②区域性城市组团普遍存在,其中,东京奥运会时形成了以主办城市为核心的比 2008 年更大范围的洲际联系组团,体现了东京作为世界城市的巨大文化影响力。③疫情影响下,主办城市仍能通过探讨增设项目、获取区域转播权等手段提升奥运会及自身的影响力。该研究补充了现有的体育赛事型世界城市网络研究,为疫情影响下大型赛事的举办提出了建议,具有理论和现实意义。     

Barcelona—fast forward? City entrepreneurialism in the 1980s and 1990s

Since 1979 the city council of Barcelona has sought to guide the city's destiny by a variety of methods, most powerfully by securing the 1992 Olympic Games candidacy, but also by means of two strategic planning exercises, begun in 1988 and 1992. These strategies are examined within their political and economic contexts in order to understand how they relate to changes in Spanish and Catalan politics, in global/local economic shifts and in thinking on city guidance. Significant differences in the three phases of city promotion are identified. It is concluded that strategic planning within the context of the intense spatial economic competition of the late 1990s may be even more difficult for Barcelona than was its drive up to 1992.     

奥运与旅游相互促进的功能及方式——基于常规旅游价值链与全面营销导向的研究

本文在分析奥运作为全球特大型事件旅游对举办国或举办地具有的集聚性、不确定性、一次性影响特点与常规旅游对接待国或接待地具有平稳性、可持续性影响特点的基础上,运用国内外经验验证说明了奥运特大型事件旅游与常规旅游之间具有重要的互补性与互促性功能,并运用常规旅游价值链与全面营销理论进一步研究说明了如何充分发挥这种互补性与互促性功能的具体方式.     

Olympic legacy and cultural tourism: exploring the facets of Athens’ Olympic heritage

This study examines the effects of the Olympic Games on Athens’ cultural tourism and the city’s potential to leverage the Olympic legacy in synergy with its rich heritage in order to enhance its tourism product during the post-Games period. In doing so, a qualitative and interpretive approach was employed. This includes a literature review on Athens’ 2004 Olympics to identify the sport facilities and regeneration projects, which constitute the Olympic legacy and heritage. Based on that, an empirical analysis was undertaken, by collecting official documents about the 2004 Olympics, and conducting five semi-structured interviews with tourism/administrative officials. The findings indicate that the Olympiad contributed significantly to Athens’ built and human heritage, revealing the dimensions of new venues/facilities, infrastructure, transportation and aesthetic image of the city, and human capital enhancement. Hence, the Games affected to the multifaceted representation and reconstruction of the city’s identity and cultural heritage. However, the potential afforded from the post-Olympic Athens remains unrealised due to lack of strategic planning/management. The study concludes that there is a need to develop cross-leveraging synergies between the Olympic legacy and cultural tourism for the host city. Finally, a strategic planning framework for leveraging post-Games Olympic tourism is suggested in order to maximise the benefits of Olympic legacy and heritage in a host city’s tourism development.     

Heading west? Georgia's Euro‐Atlantic path

Events in Ukraine in 2014 are likely to transform the presence and role of western institutions such as NATO in the post‐Soviet area. The crisis has starkly revealed the limits of their influence within Russia's ‘zone of privileged interest’, as well as the lack of internal unity within these organizations vis‐à‐vis relations with Moscow and future engagement with the area. This will have long‐term implications for the South Caucasus state of Georgia, whose desire for integration into the Euro‐Atlantic community remains a key priority for its foreign and security policy‐makers. This article examines the main motivators behind Georgia's Euro‐Atlantic path and its foreign policy stance, which has remained unchanged for over a decade despite intense pressure from Russia. It focuses on two aspects of Georgia's desire for integration with European and Euro‐Atlantic structures: its desire for security and the belief that only a western alignment can guarantee its future development, and the notion of Georgia's ‘European’ identity. The notion of ‘returning’ to Europe and the West has become a common theme in Georgian political and popular discourse, reflecting the belief of many in the country that they are ‘European’. This article explores this national strategic narrative and argues that the prevailing belief in a European identity facilitates, rather than supersedes, the central role of national interests in Georgian foreign policy.     

The marginalisation of Paralympic heritage

The impact of the Paralympic Games and disability sport upon the lives of people with disabilities and the perceptions of non-disabled society regarding people with disabilities has been immense. Yet examples of this disability sport and Paralympic heritage are all but invisible amongst the wider area of sports heritage. This paper will attempt to outline some of the possible reasons why this might be the case and cite some examples of how this apparent marginalisation of Paralympic heritage might be overcome as we move forward beyond the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.     

Debating diaspora: Securitization framework and the Turkish state's making of dissent abroad

A burgeoning scholarly interest in diaspora governance has recently established that state policies of engagement and mechanisms of control exist simultaneously. While the sending state aims at fostering relations with some groups, it devises strategies to monitor and control some others in diaspora. In explaining this discrepancy, the scholarship points at the heterogeneity in diaspora as well as state perception of political migrants as a security threat due to their role in long-distance opposition. Referring to the legitimacy of the political apparatus in defining their subjects, the literature indicates that migrants are framed as dissent when the political authority classifies them as such. This article contributes to the existing literature by examining how certain diaspora groups are politically constructed as dissent. Using securitization theory as an analytical framework and taking Turkish parliamentary debates (1960–2003) as a case study, this research explores the politics of establishing three major dissent groups in Europe, namely the communists, Islamists, and Kurds. The article shows that based on distinct narratives each category has its own course of construction though at times these processes occur simultaneously. It also demonstrates the agreements and conflicts among political parties over how to frame diaspora groups and the role of symbolic power as a constitutive element in the practice of securitization. Finally, it argues that while securitization rests on the symbolic power of political actors, under certain circumstances they do not need to occupy a position of authority as they can mobilize securitization despite being in the opposition.     

Maximum Working Class Unity? Challenges to Local Social Movement Unionism in Cape Town

Joint political mobilisation between trade unions and community groups, often referred to as ‘social movement unionism’, has been upheld as a way forward for organised labour in a neoliberal world economy. Analysing the interaction between unions and communities is critical for understanding the potential and actual roles played by trade unions in voicing the concerns of marginalized workers and poor communities. This article examines the efforts of organised municipal workers and urban social movements trying to unite their forces in post‐apartheid South Africa, by looking at the politics of the Cape Town Anti‐Privatisation Forum (APF). While the participants of the APF have in common their opposition to commercialisation and privatisation of service delivery, their political unity is fragile. By contrasting the ‘ideal‐type’ social movement unionism depicted in the contemporary literature on labour and globalisation with the findings of this particular case, we uncover some main dimensions along which this organisational cooperation is challenged. In contrast to the political unity experienced during the anti‐apartheid struggle, the APF initiative operates in a restructuring post‐apartheid economy where bridging internal organisational differences and confronting the hegemonic position of the African National Congress (ANC) in civil society have proved particularly challenging.