ABSTRACT
The pre-eminent mega-event movement in our time, namely the Olympic movement, is evidently in a serious state of crisis as we enter the twenty-first century. This is clear from the issues raised in Chapters 5 and 6. In this chapter we aim to suggest some terms of reference for understanding and assessing the movement’s problems and the adequacy of its responses to them. There are three main steps in the discussion. In the first section we review the Olympic movement’s universalistic ideology, its global organisation and its operations in the contemporary global governance system, such as it is. In the second section we outline four key dimensions of the normative concept of global citizenship.1 These are ‘universal citizenship’, which is connected with the theory and practice of ‘human rights’; ‘mediatised citizenship’, which is connected with rights to participate in the mediatised world of trans-national media and information flows; ‘movement citizenship’, which is connected with rights of inclusion and democracy within trans-national movements, and ‘corporate citizenship’, which is connected with the responsibilities of corporate/collective actors in the systems of global governance and global civil society. In the third section we apply this citizenship frame of reference in an analysis and assessment of some of the main contemporary crises and problems of the Olympic movement.
