Jennings, Will

This paper uses the idea of risk colonisation (Rothstein et al. 2006) to analyse how societal and institutional risks simultaneously make mega-events such as the Olympics a problematic site for risk management while contributing to the spread of the logic and formal managerial practice of risk management. It outlines how mega-events are linked to broader societal and institutional hazards and threats but at the same time induce their own unique set of organizational pathologies and biases. In this context, it is argued that the combination of societal and institutional risks create pressure for safety and security which in turn give rise to the growing influence of risk as an object of planning, operations and communication both in organisation of the Games and governance of the Olympic movement. This is consistent with the colonizing influence of risk over time: both in the creation of formal institutions (such as risk management teams and divisions) and the proliferation of the language of 'risk' as an object of regulation and control.

London: Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2012. 31p.