Mega-events and risk colonization: risk management and the Olympics
Mega-events and risk colonization: risk management and the Olympics
This paper uses the idea of risk colonisation (Rothstein et al. 2006) to analyse how societal and institutional risks simultaneously make mega-events such as the Olympics a problematic site for risk management while contributing to the spread of the logic and formal managerial practice of risk management. It outlines how mega-events are linked to broader societal and institutional hazards and threats but at the same time induce their own unique set of organisational pathologies and biases. In this context, it is argued that the combination of societal and institutional risks create pressure for safety and security which in turn give rise to the growing influence of risk as an object of planning, operations and communication both in organisation of the Games and governance of the Olympic movement. This is consistent with the colonising influence of risk over time: both in the creation of formal institutions (such as risk management teams and divisions) and the proliferation of the language of ‘risk’ as an object of regulation and control.
London School of Economics and Political Science
Jennings, Will
2ab3f11c-eb7f-44c6-9ef2-3180c1a954f7
March 2012
Jennings, Will
2ab3f11c-eb7f-44c6-9ef2-3180c1a954f7
Jennings, Will
(2012)
Mega-events and risk colonization: risk management and the Olympics
(Discussion Paper, 71)
London, GB.
London School of Economics and Political Science
27pp.
Record type:
Monograph
(Discussion Paper)
Abstract
This paper uses the idea of risk colonisation (Rothstein et al. 2006) to analyse how societal and institutional risks simultaneously make mega-events such as the Olympics a problematic site for risk management while contributing to the spread of the logic and formal managerial practice of risk management. It outlines how mega-events are linked to broader societal and institutional hazards and threats but at the same time induce their own unique set of organisational pathologies and biases. In this context, it is argued that the combination of societal and institutional risks create pressure for safety and security which in turn give rise to the growing influence of risk as an object of planning, operations and communication both in organisation of the Games and governance of the Olympic movement. This is consistent with the colonising influence of risk over time: both in the creation of formal institutions (such as risk management teams and divisions) and the proliferation of the language of ‘risk’ as an object of regulation and control.
Text
Disspaper71.pdf
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More information
Published date: March 2012
Additional Information:
Funded by ESRC: Going for Gold: The Olympics (RES-063-27-0205)
Organisations:
Politics & International Relations
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 343644
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/343644
ISSN: 2049-2718
PURE UUID: c03b01c3-8530-4a1a-94fe-5ad6aad5fa23
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Date deposited: 09 Oct 2012 13:15
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:42
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