Olympiads as Mega-events and the Pace of Globalization: Beijing 2008 in Context

This article is about the relationship between the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and 2004-8 Beijing Olympiad as mega-events and the processes of globalisation, on the one hand, and the progress of the post-Cold War new world order, on the other. The article outlines the globalisational approach to conceptualising, analysing and making sense of mega-events in general and the Beijing Olympiad in particular; and suggests that the Beijing Olympiad was the greatest mega-event of all time, and is likely to remain the greatest mega-event for the foreseeable future, over-shadowing for instance the London Olympiad. The author argues that the 2008 Games were awarded (by the West) to Beijing as a reward for the PRC both coming outside and coming onside as a capitalist social formation; for the PRC having embraced mainstays of the Western cultural account and, above all, of Western-style capitalism (albeit with Chinese characteristics); for the PRC having peacefully abandoned its ideological struggle against capitalism and its Cold War stand-off with the West; and for the PRC having in effect sealed the fate of historical materialism, the old world order, and the second phase of globalisation. The Beijing Games and Olympiad are likely to remain extra special in that they were a coming-out party not just for the PRC, but also for the world as a whole; for the international community; and for the emerging global community. They were a celebration of the transitions to the new world order in conjunction the current third stage of globalisation, marked by a major advance in the Western-led drive towards a single global social space.