Richard Gruneau - John Horne (ed.): Mega-Events and Globalization. Capital and Spectacle in a Changing World Order. London - New York: Routledge, 2016, 233 s.
Abstract
In a lot of scientific disciplines the interest in the research about sport mega-events is still growing in the last years. One of the very important works about this issue is the reviewed book which aims to describe the fundamental social-economic problems caused by mega-events.
The title of the book, however, is very vague and anticipates some deficits - firstly, the term "mega-event" is not defined concretely, than it is not clear on which period the authors focus and, lastly, the choice of mega-events does not seem to be well-grounded: FIFA World Cups 2010, 2014, 2022, Olympic Games 1968, 2008, 2016 and Asian Games 2010, 2014. Analysing them the authors try to explain how the mega-events negatively influence political-economic and social sphere in the host countries.
They also describe the connection between the events and the global capital. In their approach the authors use the theories of the political economy which enables to point out the social injustice caused by organising the mega-events.
Yet, this approach is not able to emphasise other shady sides of the mega-events like their influence on the construction of gender or fuelling of nationalism. The question of the trustability of the analysed documents and the question of the direct causality between the mega-events and different social problems are also left aside.
Nevertheless, the point of view of this book is very inspiring and it would be attractive to use its theoretical-methodological instruments of the political economy for the research about the Czech gymnastic association Sokol.