There is a growing demand, from host city populations in particular, that basic democratic principles and procedures in decision‐making are upheld in planning and delivering MSEs so that hosts can be held accountable by their primary stakeholders. Thus, formalising institutional commitments to transparency and engagement provides an advantage to ensuring the democratization of the MSE planning process and improving levels of public participation in the decision-making process. Public participation can take myriad forms, but includes providing information to the public, allowing the public to comment on decisions, or allowing the public to have a say in the decision itself. The nature and types of stakeholder participation in the formalized process is important to understanding the mechanisms by which public participation facilitates positive social outcomes. Host organizing stakeholders that resist or even ignore the democratization of decision-making processes open the planning and delivery of MSEs to public resistance. This pathway will explore the effectiveness of civic participation, through the lens of oppositional movements formed, or brought together, around the bidding or delivery of MSEs. Research enquiries, focused on targeted MSEs will explore the formation of oppositional groups at the bid stage, the importance of the local political, economic and social context, their tactics, techniques and, crucially, continuation beyond their initial purpose. Enquiries will consider the relationship between advocacy and oppositional groups and the host organizers. The research will also include a focus on event bidding processes, looking at the approach to the ‘activism of prevention’ taking place for future event bids, ‘failed’ bids and the oppositional legacy for the groups and organisations that campaigned (but failed) to prevent MSE bids from going ahead.

Current blogs- Pathway 2: Practices of democratization and opposition

Eventrights scholars participate in IOA’s Young Participants session

EventRights' Professor David McGillivray (university of the West of Scotland) was recently invited to present his research on "Mega events and Public Space" to the International Olympic Academy's (IOA) 60th International Session for Young Participants, an online...

Qatar World Cup and Sportwashing: Adam Talbot

The term sportswashing has emerged in recent years, often to decry sporting events being hosted in authoritarian regimes with the purpose of improving reputations. First used to describe the 2015 European Games in Baku, the term has been applied to Russia’s hosting...

EventRights scholars draw attention to Qatar World Cup Human Rights concerns

This article was initially written for the North Carolina State University News.Jason Bocarro, EventRights scholar has given permission to repost. As Qatar looks to kick off the 2022 FIFA World Cup on Sunday, human rights issues – ranging from migrant worker deaths...

Longitudinal study on the impact of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games upon the lived experience of people with disabilities living in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area

I visited Tokyo from 29th April to 30th May 2019 to commence a longitudinal study on the impact of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games upon the lived experience of people with disabilities living in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area. Using my contacts in Japan I was...