Urban spectacles as a pretext: the hidden political economy in the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since the mid-1990s, major cities in China have generated a boom in the production of urban spectacles. But existing literature cannot fully explain why these cities are willing and able to participate in these events. This paper documents this boom and argues that the enthusiasm for producing urban spectacles is driven by a strong developmental imperative and sustained by the soft budget constraints of the spectacle organizers – urban governments. These two factors are embedded in the transitional institutional environment of China in relation to power decentralization, central-local fiscal rearrangement and the top-down systems of official evaluation. Embedded in in such a political-economic environment, urban governments generally become ambitious and adventurous in launching pro-growth urban projects. Urban spectacles become one of the pretexts for achieving extraordinary development. This paper reveals this hidden political economy through the case of the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou.