Mega Events in Post-Soviet Eurasia

Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and Exclusion

Andrey Makarychev, Alexandra Yatsyk, Andrey Makarychev, Alexandra Yatsyk

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781137490940
• eBook ISBN: 9781137490957
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

The edited volume explains why sport mega events can be discussed from the viewpoint of politics and power, and what this discussion can add to the existing scholarship on political regimes, international norms, national identities, and cultural narratives. The book collects case studies written by insiders from different countries of post-Soviet Eurasia that have recently hosted— or intend to host in the future —sporting events of a global scale. Contributing authors discuss cultural, political, and economic strategies of host governments, examining them from the vantage point of an increasing shift of the global sport industry to non-Western countries.  Mega-events often draw domestic lines of cultural and social exclusion within host's polities. It is these ruptures and gaps this volume explores, contributing to a better understanding of the intricate interconnections between global institutions and national identities.  

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

Andrey Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk (eds.)Mega Events in Post-Soviet EurasiaMega Event Planning10.1057/978-1-137-49095-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Sports, Politics and Boundaries: Playing the Inclusion/Exclusion Games

Andrey Makarychev^{1, 2} and Alexandra Yatsyk^{1, 2}

(1)

University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

(2)

Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Russia

End Abstract

This book offers a variety of views on a relatively new trend in the global industry of sports mega events—the growing interest, supported by the corresponding material resources, of non-Western countries to host them. A number of Western cities (such as Toronto, Hamburg, Munich, Stockholm and Krakow) have recently dropped their Olympic bids, largely because of the huge financial expenses they entail, along with demanding requirements of global sports organizations that are critically perceived by local citizens. In the meantime, many non-Western countries are increasingly eager to host global sports events. Particular manifestations of this trend are FIFA World Cups in South Africa (2014), Russia (2018) and Qatar (2018), as well as Olympic Games in Beijing (2008), Sochi (2014) and, again, in Beijing in a not-so-distant future (2022). This trend might be explained from different angles—economic, political, cultural, and the like—and deserves greater attention, since it provides a framework for analysis of the larger dynamics in world politics, stretching far beyond sports as such.

As global phenomena, mega events represent trans-national practices of governance (regulation, control, monitoring and surveillance) grounded in neoliberal logics of entertainment, commodification, gentrification and marketization. By the same token, there is an important normative dimension of mega-projects that foster global rules, principles and regulations. Seen from a national perspective, mega events are testing grounds for strengthening national identities through emotionally charged discourses on collective Selves, but also ‘through the construction of stadiums, parks or sporting grounds; institutionally through clubs, federations, competitions and their regulative frameworks and culturally through inventing its own national traditions and national styles of play’ (Faje 2015: 162). A sub-national level of analysis implies focusing on regional/urban strategies of place promotion and territorial branding, with all duly understood limitations imposed by central authorities, which is particularly the case of non-democratic countries.

The shift of mega events to the global East and South raises a number of questions pertinent to a large part of research vocabulary used in social sciences. On a general note, the authors of this edited volume assume that the growing appeal of mega events for countries that do not associate themselves with the West requires more attention of researchers to a variety of the researchers of globalization, sovereignty, soft power, nation branding, and a few others. The application of these concepts to mega-event studies allows reaching beyond the widely discussed areas of financial, economic, administrative and managerial technicalities, and unpacking global sportive events as multi-dimensional spaces where different narratives, identities and imageries collide and compete with each other.

One of the most important contributions of this volume to the existent literature on sports and politics is the accentuation of a plethora of deeply normative issues that mega events raise. Certainly, global sports events are business projects, based on mobilization and redistribution of resources; yet at the same time, they are also nodal points for identity-making. Sports events of different scales have a huge potential for promoting national identities, though sometimes in explicitly radical and aggressive forms. Yet they can also appeal to trans-national points of reference based on history (the Commonwealth Games), geography (the Mediterranean Games), cultural markers (European Youth Olympic Festivals), religion (Islamic Solidarity Games) or political status (football tournaments for unrecognized states).

It is the normative dimension of the expanding industry of mega events that raises a conceptual issue of the intricate dynamics of inclusion and exclusion as key mechanisms of international socialization. By and large, strategies of inclusion presuppose a set of neoliberal, post-politically consensual and consumption-driven policies, whereas exclusion is epitomized by cleansing cultural and social spaces of mega events from potentially conflictual meanings and interpretations for the sake of safety and marketization.

Both inclusion and exclusion can be understood in the framework of an ambiguous interlacing of making and unmaking of cultural and political boundaries. Non-Western hosts use mega events as springboards for legitimizing their roles and overcoming relative peripherality in the global milieu by means of joining practices ‘designed to encourage and advance private capital in an increasingly competitive globalized world’ (Friedman and Andrews 2010: 84). Yet these attempts can exacerbate normative divides between democracies and non-democracies, with issues of human rights, environmental protection, transparency, tolerance and multiculturalism at their top.

On the one hand, mega events erase some of the extant boundaries and promote host cities and nations as open to the global world and eager to take advantage of its multiple opportunities. Major sport tournaments and championships can be studied as cross-/trans-border events with huge de-bordering potential. On the other hand, mega events hosted by non-Western countries might exacerbate existing ruptures or create new dividing lines. Many non-democratic hosts often face critical reactions from the West that accuses them of corruption, low environmental standards, and violations of democratic rights under the guise of security protection. Indeed, non-Western hosts are post-political regimes (managerial, administrative, project-/event-based) that operate within a neoliberal logic of branding and place promotion, but in the meantime adhere to outdated, archaic practices of social relations and wealth distribution. Mega events in many non-democratic countries remain top-down neopatrimonial projects aimed at opaque redistribution of resources and power within the patron—client clan-like type of relations cemented by corruption in global sports organizations. From a critical analysis perspective, ‘sport these days is a tool of capitalism, part of the machine that persuades us to buy stuff we don’t need, fuelling economic growth that may or may not be in our true interests—but most certainly serves the interests of a growing clique of corporate executives and shareholders whose individual wealth amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars’ (Jennings 2011: 390).

It is from this double perspective of inclusion/exclusion and the making/unmaking of boundaries that the authors of this volume discuss the origins of politicization of sports through global events. One of the paradoxes addressed is that post-political strategies of neoliberalism are not necessarily hotbeds of the global and the cosmopolitan, but rather they are, in many cases, sources of country-specific identity discourses and practices, and in this respect their roles have to be taken into serious account along with political institutions and the mass media. It is through references to experiences of non-Western hosts that post-politics has to be reconceptualized—not as a denial or evanescence of the political momentum, but rather as its mimicry and transformation into seemingly non-ideological and mainly market-oriented practices.

Sports mega events are complex interfaces of communication, spaces for international socialization, and playgrounds for synthesizing cultural plurality and celebrating diversity. Each of these aspects of mega events is in one way or another linked to relations of power and (re)distribution of power resources. The authors of this collective volume explore different effects for power relations that the ensuing interconnections entail. Power in this context is understood as a broad spectrum of mechanisms of (re)creating and (re)shaping identities and subjectivities on the basis of various discourses and practices of exclusion and inclusion, as well as boundary (un)making.

Arguably, three distinct models of inclusion/exclusion can be singled out, each one grounded in a specific reading of the universal. The first model is based on a post-political proliferation of administrative and managerial practices of governance, along with the corresponding standards articulated through policies of international sports bodies—the International Olympic Committee (IOC), International and European Football Associations (FIFA and UEFA) and others. As seen from this perspective, organizers of global sports events have to obey to a rather strict and, in most cases, non-negotiable list of procedural requirements that regulate both material aspects of host cities (e.g. hotel and transport infrastructure, rules of advertising, property rights, financial regulations) and symbolic dimensions of mega events (e.g., opening ceremonies are on principle cleansed of references to wars and military episodes, narratives by which host countries’ might expose their historical glory). Due to the global media coverage, mega events ‘exhibit all the salient features of postmodern culture: proliferation and dissemination of images, glitzy, high-tech produced intensities, pastiche and implosion of forms, and quotation and repetition of past images and styles’ (Segrave 2000: 272). Alexandra Yatsyk in her chapter explicates how national and subnational host authorities (more specifically, in the city of Kazan, Russia) culturally appropriate this global proliferation of universal norms and regulations, and how their policies of inclusion into global mega-event industry intertwine with multiple exclusionary moves—from destroying ancient urban areas to filtering out certain cultural and historical interpretations. Karolina Tetłak in her chapter discusses the financial side of the mega-event global machinery, drawing attention to the universalization of the practices of tax benefits accorded by host governments to international organizers of mega events, a practice that excludes—or strongly discriminates against—democratic mechanisms of transparency, accountability and the rule of law.

The second model is grounded in a different concept of universality as based on equality of nation states as constitutive members of the international sports community. In the case of international sports organizations this translates into the principle “one country—one vote”, which reflects the idea of sovereign equality of all member states and their non-discrimination on the basis of the nature of domestic regimes (be they democratic or authoritarian, and so on). It is within this logic of universality that attempts to raise normative issues and question the appropriateness of treating authoritarian and totalitarian regimes on equal footing with democracies is rebuked as undue politicization. Andrey Makarychev in his contribution to this volume looks at the linkages between sports and politics in Russia through the prism of sovereignty, the constitutive element of Putin’s political discourse. Adilzhan Nurmakov on the example of Kazakhstan explains how much the regime of President Nazarbaev invests in raising the country’s profile via diverse high-profile events, while Anar Valiyev’s chapter touches upon similar policies of the government of Azerbaijan. In all these cases the ruling elites balance between culturally articulating their European credentials on the one hand and preserving their authenticity and autonomy on the other, which makes inclusion/exclusion games particularly complicated.

Unlike the first two models, the third plays more decisively upon political strings by claiming the universality of human rights as the utmost raison-d’etre for any version of globalization worthy of the name. This norm-based reading of universalization leads to conflicts with both logics mentioned above, since in its most radical form it delegitimizes autocracies on the grounds of violations of democratic principles and contests the appropriateness of hosting mega events in countries with poor human rights records. Multiple boycotting campaigns aimed against non-democratic hosts are conceptually grounded in the third vision of universality in sports. In their chapter Ryhor Nizhnikau and Niko Alvari discuss the case of the World Ice Hockey Championship held in Minsk for demonstrating political context of the normative pressure which the Lukashenko regime faced in its relations with the West. By the same token, Bo Petersson and Karina Vamling discuss the importance of ethnic and environmental issues, widely raised internationally, for the Sochi Olympic project and its international legitimation.

It is in the complex context of three competing and partly overlapping versions of universality and the ensuing models of inclusion/exclusion that the growing importance of normative issues in the global sports arena has to be discussed. This book is focused on a recent shift of the sports mega-event industry from more or less traditional Western venues to new hosts whose normative standards are different from Western ones. Of course, the growing Orientalization of mega events can be viewed as a peculiar type of outsourcing and thus as a cost-saving—and in this sense still Western-centric—strategy of non-Western hosts adjusting to and complying with neoliberal approaches to transformations of urban spaces, patterns of consumption, gentrification, rationalization and other elements of the global sports industry (Carter 2011:134).These transformations cause multiple effects on national sovereignties of non-Western hosts. Unlike Western nations/cities with relatively well-established destination brands, most mega-event hosts in post-Soviet countries have much less recognizable international profiles and thus are keen on investing resources in developing their (re)branding strategies and looking for new pathways to reach global audiences. Phillipp Casula points in this direction, discussing Russia’s bidding policy for the Sochi Games from the viewpoint of the ideas of modernization and diversity.

Yet controversies unfold as soon as it comes to the implementation of the most value-ridden norms promoted ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction: Sports, Politics and Boundaries: Playing the Inclusion/Exclusion Games
• 1. Mega-Events and Social Issues
• 2. Post-Soviet Autocracies and Mega-Events
• 3. Global Norms and Local Governance
• Backmatter