The Olympic Games and the Environment

Abstract

es with regard to these three ideal types of governance would have helped the reader to understand the choice of issues being addressed. Another element missing from this book was theoretical reflections on a general level. Every now and then the authors mention different kinds of cultural premises as well as local visions and shifts between liberal, Keynesian and ‘‘developmental’’ models of governance, which leads me to ask if these changes are due to discourses of governance spreading internationally among political leaders and implemented with respect to local cultural premises as kinds of governmentality with local variances. The material presented could also lead to questioning the stability of the recent structure of the global capitalist market, where the four cities are benefitting from low transportation costs and huge differences in wages and profitability between different regions in the world. How long will this situation last, and how risky would it be to invest all strategic planning on the presumption that this situation will last? Another question that remains unanswered is, What caused the transformation from a period dominated by the rebuilding of the nation states after WWII and its focus on central state planning and public welfare systems? The widely spread governmentality of the period from 1950 to 1980 is a shadow of a former period in a presentation that focuses almost exclusively on the thirtyyear period from 1980 to 2010, when neoliberalism came to dominate the thinking of political leaders worldwide. A more basic discussion of the differences between these two periods might have given the analysis an interesting perspective. All together, Struggling Giants generates interesting issues and questions, stirring the reader’s mind with its magnificent material. The Olympic Games and the Environment, by John Karamichas. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 242pp. $90.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780230228610.