ABSTRACT
Tourist events are both explicit and implicit political occasions. The image-building which accompanies such events creates a situation in which personal and institutional interests receive a high degree of visibility (Hall 2001; Jones 2001; Paul 2004; Black 2007). However, while place promotion and competitiveness is often the focus of the political analysis of events (Hall 1992, 2006; Waitt 2001, 2008; Reid 2006; Mason 2008), the spread of what constitutes ‘the political’ crosses over into areas such as industrial relations issues (Engels 2000), rights (Lenskyj 1996; Roche 2000, 2003; Black and van der Westhuizen 2004; Price and Dayan 2008), protest (Markwell 2002; Greene 2003; Tufts 2004; Paddison 2009), exclusion (Atkinson and Laurier 1998; MacLeod 2002) and the relationship of events to election strategies (McCarthy 2002; Whitson and Horne 2006) and international relations (van der Westhuizen 2004; Yuen 2008). The chapter is divided into four main sections. The first two sections identify the disciplinary
contexts and importance of politics and political economy, respectively, for event studies. The chapter then discusses the implications of the political analysis of events for researchers and the consequent importance of understanding the philosophical basis for research on the political dimensions of events. The fourth section examines the way in which understanding and application of the concept of power – one of the core concepts of political thought – affects the political analysis of events. The chapter then concludes by re-emphasising the inherently political nature of the study of event politics.
