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Review Symposium: P. Fussey, J. Coaffee, G. Armstrong and D. Hobbs, Securing and Sustaining the Olympic City: Reconfiguring London for 2012 and Beyond

Sport mega-events like the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup, many generations on from their birth, continue to thrive in the early 21st century and to make distinctive and often controversial contributions to the processes of cultural globalization which mark our times. They are increasingly being used to provide markers of and catalysts for various versions of modernization in contemporary developing societies. However, they also continue to receive relatively little academic attention, including from sociology, outside of specialist fields within sport and leisure studies. The inexorable approach of the London 2012 Olympics and the increasing interest of British and international publics in this event might change this situation somewhat, even if only on a temporary basis. In British academic publishing over the next year or two the lights are being switched on for studies of the Olympic phenomenon, and the book reviewed here is one of these lights. The book addresses two sociologically significant aspects of the Olympics, namely those relating to security and to urban development, and it does this with particular reference to the London 2012 Olympic Games. It has been authored collectively by a group of writers with substantial expertise and reputations in relevant fields – Armstrong in sport cultures, Hobbs and Fussey in criminology, and Coaffee in urban planning – and it is based on their ongoing research into the London 2012 Olympic project. This research includes studies of the security systems being organized for the event, the impact of the preparation of the event on local crime and policing, and local people’s perceptions of and attitudes to the event. The book is divided into two main parts. Part 2 aims to focus on relevant features of London 2012, and Part 1 aims to provide historical, comparative and other contexts to assist with the interpretation of this focus. Overall, in their analytic perspective the writers aim to take a ‘cross-disciplinary’ and ‘social constructionist’ perspective on security in Olympic events, one which recognizes the complex interplay of social factors from which they are constructed, including various forms and levels of agency in addition to technological, hegemonic, global, historical and local factors. In their normative perspective the writers aim to take a view which is to one extent or another critical of official policy-makers’ versions and visions of the 2012 event and its ‘legacies’, and also which is concerned on behalf of the practical interests of local citizens and communities in the boroughs of East London most affected by the Olympic Review Symposium