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. Whilst place promotion and competitiveness is often the focus of the political analysis of events, the spread of what constitutes ‘the political’ crosses over into areas such as industrial relations issues, human rights, protest, history, exclusion and social justice, disaster studies, the relationship of events to election strategies and international relations. This chapter examines the following specific areas of political analysis and the political economy of events: the disciplinary contexts and importance of politics and political economies applied to Event Studies; the implications of political analysis of events and the significance of understanding the philosophical basis for research on events; the way in which understanding and applying the concepts of power affects the political analysis of events.
