Is It Time to Cancel the Olympics?: Jules Boykoff for Opinion Has It

Jules Boykoff discusses the good, the bad, and the ugly of one of the world’s longest-standing shared traditions. The PS Say More Newsletter | [View this message in a web browser]( In this week's newsletter, we present the newest episode of our podcast, Opinion Has It. Every other week in Opinion Has It, host Elmira Bayrasli is joined by a leading expert to examine a critical and timely issue. Is It Time to Cancel the Olympics? [Jules Boykoff]( In this episode, Elmira talks with Jules Boykoff, an associate professor of political science at Pacific University in Oregon, and a former member of the US Olympic soccer team. Listen now on [PS]( [Apple]( [Google]( [Soundcloud]( or [Spotify](. [Is It Time to Cancel the Olympics?]( Even when the world isn’t gripped by a pandemic, staging the Olympic Games can create serious problems for local populations. So, why do cities and countries keep seeking to host them? This week on the podcast, [Jules Boykoff]( discusses the good, the bad, and the ugly of one of the world’s longest-standing shared traditions. [Listen now]( Opinion Has It is also available on your favorite listening app. Listen now on [Apple]( [Google]( [Soundcloud]( or [Spotify](. PS. For more analysis of the Olympics, check out our latest Big Picture collection, [Tokyo’s COVID Games]( featuring Yuriko Koike, Takatoshi Ito, Ian Buruma, and more. [Read more](. In this episode... Elmira Bayrasli: This connects to a broader argument that you’ve made about how democracy and the Olympics don’t really mix. And you say that staging the Games not only fails to strengthen democracy and human rights; it actually makes democratic states more autocratic. Why do you think that? Jules Boykoff: I’m glad you raised that point, especially with Beijing on the horizon. Beijing is hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics only some six months after the Tokyo Games conclude. And so, a lot of people – we’ll see it in the news left and right – will be talking about how can Beijing possibly host the Olympic Games when there are egregious and open human-rights violations happening against the Muslim ethnic Uyghur population, Tibetans, what’s happening in Hong Kong. And yet, there are these wonderful principles around human rights in the Olympic Charter. This doesn’t seem to mesh. Those people are exactly right. But I think while we also a waggle a finger at Beijing, we’d do well to look at how the Olympics plays out in putative democracies, like in Los Angeles, for example, where it actually makes democracies much more authoritarian, like you say. That’s one of the major legacies of the Games, in part because of the securitization that... [Read the transcript]( Listen now on [PS]( [Apple]( [Google]( [Soundcloud]( or [Spotify](. [PS. The latest on politics for less than $9 a month.]( Previously in Opinion Has It [The Communist Party of China at 100]( [The Communist Party of China at 100]( with [Rana Mitter]( the director of the China Centre at the University of Oxford The Communist Party of China, founded a century ago, has been in power for more than seven decades – and it has big plans for the future. What do those plans entail, and is the Party still strong enough to implement them? Listen now on [PS]( [Apple]( [Google]( [Soundcloud]( or [Spotify](. Or [read the transcript](. [Check out the Opinion Has It archive]( Previously in Say More [An Interview with Bernard Haykel]( [An Interview with Bernard Haykel]( [Bernard Haykel]( considers the implications of Ebrahim Raisi’s election as Iran’s president, proposes a plan for ending the war in Yemen, and assesses Joe Biden’s Saudi Arabia strategy. Haykel is Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Director of the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia at Princeton University. [Check out the Say More archive]( [Special-Edition Magazine: Back to Health]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. This newsletter is a service of [Project Syndicate](. [Change your newsletter preferences](. Follow us on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [YouTube](. © Project Syndicate, all rights reserved. [Unsubscribe from all newsletters](.