This book is an analysis of both contemporary Tokyo and the contemporary Olympic Games, emphasizing the role of late-stage capitalism and political economy in shaping both. The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games were mired in scandal from the beginning of the bidding process all the way through to the end of the games. This was further exacerbated by the emergency postponement to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, with many public opinion polls supporting further postponement or cancelation in 2021. The contributors to this volume look at the Tokyo 2020 Games in the context of other modern games and the struggle to use the games as an economic stimulus. They reveal the reality of the Olympic development in Tokyo based on evidence and concrete policy analysis. This is a valuable resource for scholars both of contemporary Japan and of the Olympics and other mega-events.

The stage is set for the Beijing Olympiad to be the greatest mega-event, sporting or otherwise, in history. Still, the issues taxing many minds include whether the Beijing Games will be successful; whether they will be wrought with and wrecked by troubles; and who they will benefit. What value will the 2008 Games be to the people of China? Will they mainly serve the purposes of the dominant political, economic and cultural groups at and between the local, regional and global levels of modern social life? The Beijing Olympiad examines these among other questions, providing a range of original insights of interest to an array of scholars, researchers and students from Sports Studies to Sociology, Politics, Economics, International Relations and Legal Studies.

This book situates the 2020 Tokyo Olympics within the social, economic, and political challenges facing contemporary Japan. Using the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as a lens into the city and the country as a whole, the stellar line up of contributors offer hidden insights and new perspectives on the Games. These include city planning, cultural politics, financial issues, language use, security, education, volunteerism, and construction work. The chapters then go on to explore the many stakeholders, institutions, citizens, interest groups, and protest groups involved, and feature the struggle over Tokyo's extreme summer heat, food standards, the implementation of diversity around disabilities, sexual minorities, and technological innovations. Giving short glimpses into the new Olympic sports, this book also analyses the role of these sports in Japanese society. Japan Through the Lens of the Tokyo Olympics will be of huge interest to anyone attending the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020. It will also be useful to students and scholars of the Olympics and the sociology of sport, as well as Japanese culture and society.

The Olympic Games have become the world’s greatest media and marketing event—a global celebration of exceptional athletics gilded with corporate cash. Huge corporations vie for association with the "Olympic Image" in the hope of gaining a worldwide marketing audience of billions. In this provocative critical study of the contemporary Olympics, Jules Boykoff argues that the Games have become a massive planned economy designed to shield the rich from risk while providing them with a spectacle to treasure. Placing political economy at the center of the analysis, and drawing on interdisciplinary research in sociology, politics, geography, history, and economics, Boykoff develops an innovative theory of "celebration capitalism", the manipulation of state actors as partners that drives us towards public–private partnerships in which the public pays and the private profits. He argues that the Athens Games in 2004 marked the full emergence of celebration capitalism, with London 2012 representing its quintessential expression, characterized by a state of exception, unfettered commercialism, repression of dissent, questionable sustainability claims, and the complicity of the mainstream media. Controversial, challenging, and forthright, this book opens up a fascinating new avenue for understanding the contemporary Olympics in the context of global capitalist society. It is essential reading for anybody with an interest in the Olympic Games, the relationship between sport and society, or global politics and culture.

What drives cities to pursue large-scale, high-profile events like the Olympic games? What are the consequences for citizens and local governments? Investigating local politics in three U.S. cities - Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Salt Lake City - as they vied for the role of Olympic host, this book provides a compelling narrative of the evolving political economy of modern megaevents. The authors reveal how the megaevent strategy typically is initiated by a coalition of public and private elites; how citizen involvement is managed and often curtailed; and how latent development agendas are revived and refocused to leverage Olympic opportunities. In assessing the impact of megaevent-driven growth, they look beyond the tax revenues and stadium costs to offer a nuanced examination of the ways Olympic dreams affect local governance and social conditions in urban economies.

Explores the politics and economics of the Abe government and evaluates major policies, such as Abenomics policy reforms.

Atmosphere, the elusive ambiance of a place, enables or hinders its mobility in global consumption contexts. Atmosphere connects to social imaginaries, utopian representational frames producing the culture of a city or country. But who resolves atmospheric contradictions in a place’s social and cultural rhythms, when the eyes of the world are turned on it? Mega-Events as Economies of the Imagination examines ephemeral and solidified atmospheres in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the handover ceremony to Tokyo for the 2020 Games. Indeed, highlighting the various social and cultural implications upon these Olympic Games hosts, Tzanelli argues that the ‘Olympic City’ is produced by aesthetic "imagineers", mobile groups of architects, artists and entrepreneurs, who aesthetically ‘engineer’ native cultures as utopias. Thus, it is explored as to how Rio and Tokyo’s "imagineers" problematize notions of creativity, cosmopolitan togetherness and belonging. Mega-Events as Economies of the Imagination will appeal to postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers and professionals interested in fields such as: Globalization Studies, Mobility Theory, Cultural Sociology, International Political Economy, Conference and Event Management, Tourism Studies and Migration Studies.