Governing Security at the 2008 Beijing Olympics

As sports mega-events (SMEs) attract growing worldwide attention, the security aspect of these events has assumed greater global importance, especially in the post-9/11 anti-terrorism context. The 2008 Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad set security concern as a top priority. This paper analyses the empirical data derived from fieldwork in Beijing in early 2008 as well as information gathered from official documents and media articles. It presents the types of forces and agencies which shaped the Olympic security plan and explains how the Chinese government integrated its preventive, engaging and repressive strategies. The paper advances a number of preliminary arguments in connection with four main developments at work within the current dynamics of security governance at SMEs: the globalization, technologization, commercialization and standardization of SMEs' securitization.