Often seen as host nation's largest ever logistical undertaking, accommodating the Olympics and its attendant security infrastructure brings seismic changes to both the physical and social geography of its destination. Through analyzing the social and community impact of the 2012 Games and its security operation on East London, this book considers whether utopian visions of legacy can be sustained given the demands of providing a global securitised event on the magnitude of the modern Olympics.

Often seen as the host nation's largest ever logistical undertaking, accommodating the Olympics and its attendant security infrastructure brings seismic changes to both the physical and social geography of its destination. Since 1976, the defence of the spectacle has become the central feature of its planning, one that has assumed even greater prominence following the bombing of the 1996 Atlanta Games and, most importantly, 9/11. Indeed, the quintupled cost of securing the first post-9/11 summer Games in Athens demonstrates the considerable scale and complexity currently implicated in these operations. Such costs are not only fiscal. The Games stimulate a tidal wave of redevelopment ushering in new gentrified urban settings and an associated investment that may or may not soak through to the incumbent community. Given the unusual step of developing London's Olympic Park in the heart of an existing urban milieu and the stated commitments to 'community development' and 'legacy', these constitute particularly acute issues for the 2012 Games. In addition to sealing the Olympic Park from perceived threats, 2012 security operations have also harnessed the administrative criminological staples of community safety and crime reduction to generate an ordered space in the surrounding areas. Of central importance here are the issues of citizenship, engagement and access in urban spaces redeveloped upon the themes of security and commerce. Through analyzing the social and community impact of the 2012 Games and its security operation on East London, this book concludes by considering the key debates as to whether utopian visions of legacy can be sustained given the demands of providing a global securitized event of the magnitude of the modern Olympics.

Historical research on the Olympic Movement is highly valuable as it displays processes of continuity and transformation by which knowledge building processes on the Olympic Movement, its structure and on Olympic sport can be expanded. The Olympic Movement can be addressed from multidisciplinary perspectives, including management, sociology, education, philosophy and history. This comprehensive collection examines the multifaceted profile of the Olympic and Paralympic Movement and presents new insights drawn from a variety of research projects. Historical and political dimensions of the Olympic and Paralympic Movement are addressed, along with educational, ethical, commercial and sociological perspectives. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

This book brings together a body of new research which looks both backwards and forwards to consider how far the London 2012 Olympic legacy has been delivered and how far it has been a hollow promise. Cohen and Watt consider the lessons that can be learnt from the London experience and aptly apply them other host cities, specifically Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. The Olympics are often described as a ‘mega-event’ in a way that assumes the host cities have no other existence outside, before or beyond the contexts imposed by the Games themselves. In terms of regeneration, the London 2012 Olympics promised to trigger a mega-regeneration project that was different to what had come before. This time the mistakes of other large-scale projects like London Docklands and Canary Wharf would be put right: top-down planning would be replaced by civic participation, communication and ‘the local’. This edited collection questions how far the 2012 London legacy really is different. In so doing, it brings fresh evidence, original insights and new perspectives to bear on the post-Olympics debate. A detailed and well-researched study, this book will be of great interest to scholars of urban geography, sociology, urban planning, and sports studies.

Drawing on new archival documents and interviews, this book demonstrates the evolving role of international politics in Olympic security planning. Olympic security concerns changed forever following the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) choice to ignore security after the attack in Munich left individual Olympic Games Organizing Committees to organize, fund, and provide security for the major international event. Future Olympic hosts planned security amidst increasing numbers of international terrorist attacks, and with the Cold War in full swing. For some Olympic hosts, Olympic security now represented their nation’s largest ever military operations. By the time the IOC made security more of a priority in the early 1980s, the trends in Olympic security were set for the future.

Mega-events such as the Olympic Games, World Cup finals and international political summits are occasions of almost unparalleled economic, political and social significance for host nations and cities. The scale and scope of mega-event security has continued to grow enormously since 11 September 2001, consistently involving the largest policing and security operations for event hosts outside of wartime. This book is the first to focus exclusively on the organisational dynamics underpinning the design and delivery of mega-event security. Using the G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia in November 2014 as a case study, in conjunction with comparisons with events such as the Toronto 2010 G20, the authors engage in a comprehensive assessment of the networks, strategies and tensions involved in mega-event security. By drawing on the insightful experiences of those responsible for securing the Brisbane 2014 G20, the authors look behind-the-scenes to capture the complexity of mega-event security. The authors argue that such an approach is essential to better appreciate how different conceptions of security, ways of thinking and acting, impact a range of security ideals and outcomes.