Speaker
Description
The study aims to investigate the governance of the sport legacy of the Beijing Winter Olympics in the pandemic circumstance. In particular, given the dominance of government in the Chinese society and the significance of cross-sector coalition in governance network, it is sought to examine changes and continuities in the power relationship between stakeholders in Olympic sport legacy governance in the difficult time of COVID-19.
A multi-dimensional governance approach is employed to analyse qualitative data, collected through two rounds of interviews with personnel holding managerial position in Chinese governments, BOCOG 2022, and private organisations related to the Beijing Olympic Winter Games.
The study scrutinizes various impact of the COVID-19 on legacy governance through revealing changes in the policy, polity and politics dimension of the governance of two sport legacy goals specified by BOCOG 2022. We also interrogate the relationship between, and the essence of, the changes and continuities in different dimensions of legacy governance. Despite the emphasis on self-coordinating, inter-organisational coalition or ruling through and by networks in the concept of governance, the study highlights the way in which the Chinese government has maintained its dominance and realised it political interests through the governance of Olympic sport legacy in the time of COVID-19. It also brings to the fore a discussion of the structural context, i.e. ‘a shadow of hierarchy’, against which governance is operated and/or constrained in a given society.
