Securing the Olympic Games: exemplifications of developments in urban security governance

• Author / Creator

  Boyle, Philip

• The Olympic Games are now characterized by overt displays of military personnel and hardware, the deployment of new surveillance technologies and policing techniques, and rapidly escalating budgets. Yet, most research on security at these urban events has been confined to the sociology of sport or the applied profession of sport management. This dissertation contextualizes the Olympic Games within current debates about security in the post-9/11 environment, and asks what the Games reveal about developments in security, surveillance, and urban governance. At the same time I also ask how the Olympics reinforce and extend these developments in socio-cultural ways. These questions are pursued through four analyses of different aspects of the Games: practices of socio-spatial regulation in Olympic host cities, ideas of resiliency and preparedness in urban governance, the performative dimensions of precautionary governance, and the production and globalization of security expertise. I conclude by suggesting that the Olympics provide a window into future directions in urban security governance.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Olympic Games
  • Surveillance
  • Security
  • Urban governance

• Graduation date

  Spring 2011

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3Z70Z

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.