Insurgent Citizenship in Brazil: the Role of Mega Sports Events.

Rio de Janeiro was the host city for both the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, the world's largest sporting events. Hosting mega-events of this scale has high financial costs and a major impact on host cities. Since the turn of the millennium, host cities have therefore emphasized leaving a positive legacy after such events. Rio de Janeiro is a city characterized by great social inequalities, socio-spatial segregation between "formal" and "informal" neighbourhoods (so-called favelas), and major public security challenges. A quarter of the population lives in favelas, characterized by decades of underinvestment in urban infrastructure, health, education and security. The Rio bid for the 2016 Olympic Games emphasized that the event would leave a "positive social Balance" for the city population. This was linked to the governing labour party government. The election of Inácio Lula da Silva (Labour Party, PT) as President in 2002 had placed the profound social inequalities of Brazil on the agenda. In his second presidential term (2007-2010), Lula launched an ambitious development agenda for industry, infrastructure and welfare. In Rio, these programs were linked to the preparations of the city for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. The high expectations to these programs were however gradually replaced with increasing disillusionment among social movements and favela residents. Massive forced removals of poor urban dwellers, increasing costs of living without significant improvements to public services such as transportation, health and education, as well as an increasing militarization of security policies, are some of the issues that have been raised. In response, millions of people took to the streets in June 2013 during the Confederation Cup. A main parole was the requirement of "FIFA standard" public services, which clearly juxtaposed the spending on the sports events and the actual needs of the population. This project has addressed the relationship between sport mega-events, citizenship, and social mobilizations. The project has sought to address the following questions: To what extent, and how, do international sports events affect the social and political mobilization of citizens? How do these mobilizations put the quality of citizenship on the public agenda? The findings can be summarized as follows: (i) The tangible results of the sports mega-events have not lived up to the expectations of the people, especially when it comes to slum upgrading and public security. (ii) On the contrary, the most tangible results of the mega-events - the new sports arenas - left a lot to desire. The most important arenas have not been maintained and are closed for further public use. (iii) Many of these results have been caused by mismanagement and lavish abuse of public means (corruption). The governor in Rio de Janeiro from 2008 to 2013 and the entrepreneurs with the main building contracts for the mega-events were put in jail and given long prison sentences. (iv) The economic crisis that hit Brazil as well as the important oil industry in Rio de Janeiro, in 2014, is a part of the explanation why all the betterments, promised to follow the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics 2016, did not materialize. (iv) However, less tangible but important results can be traced in the form of increased conscientiousness and debate on the rights of urban citizens. The radical black feminist Marielle Franco, from one of the largest favelas in Rio, expressed this new consciousness. She was assassinated in March 2018, but the murder did not stop the growth of the social movements. (v) Nevertheless, the most significant effects of the mega-events, on top of the economic and other crises, was that people lost any sense of trust in the traditional politicians whether on the left, in the centre or on the right. During the elections of a new mayor in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the choice in the second ballot was between a religious candidate from the neo pentecostal church and a human rights advocate from the extreme left. Both of them were critical to the way the sports mega-events had been planned and carried through. The religious candidate won the ballot. In the elections in 2018 an extremely conservative law-and-order candidate from an insignificant small party was elected governor, and the extreme right wing politician Jair Bolsonaro defeated the other president candidates in a particularly crushing way in Rio de Janeiro. (vi)This shows that the mega sports events brought tightly together populist and corrupt politicians, greedy entrepreneurs and international sports organizations that did not take proper responsibility. The democracy was too weak to prevent tragic decisions with negative consequences for ordinary people. Still, the democracy in Brazil was strong enough to provide a certain space for popular resistance and protests.

«To reach a deeper understanding of the encounters between citizens (communities) and mega sports events in Brazil» (primary objective): 3 books, 7 scientific articles in books, and 6 scientific journal articles. In addition, 6 draft articles submitted to international journals. Celina M.Sørbøe to defend her PhD dissertation by the end of 2020. «To enhance knowledge in Norway about Brazil and certain cultural, social and political processes surrounding the mega sport events hosted by that country» (secondary objectives): 19 popular science publications; 62 publications and appearances (interviews) in the media 60 meetings/conferences attended with target groups (e.g. sports organisations, journalists and media student, and schools). A main outcome was the documentary film «The Olympic Dream» with versions in Norwegian, English and Portuguese In addition, an extensive network for further international research collaboration has been created.

The quality of democracy ?the capacity of a liberal democracy to treat all its citizens equally and to secure their civilian, social, economic and cultural rights ? is today challenged from above by neo-liberal economic globalization. The quality of democracy is also challenged from below, by citizens creating their own terms of engagement in the face of deteriorating social and political rights. This phenomenon of insurgent citizenship is assumed to be unfolding in Brazil today. The last decades Brazil has made significant progress towards enabling greater citizen participation through a myriad of participatory processes consolidated on a federal, state, and municipal level. At the same time, the urban governance in Rio has taken a neoliberal turn, using global mega sports events as a strategy to enhance private economic development in the city. Modern mega sports events ? such as FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games ? represent new global coalitions of international organizations and multinational corporations and juxtapose the competition between large cities to attract international investors to promote post-fordist and service-sector based growth. This project seeks to reach a deeper understanding of the encounters between citizens (communities) and mega sports events in Brazil. The main research question is: To what extent, and how, do international mega sports events spur citizens? social and political mobilizations? The additional question is: How do these mobilizations consequently set the quality of citizenship on the public agenda in the host city/country? Empirically this will be done by studying the preparations for mega sports events and their impacts on people in three selected communities, in addition to wider political spaces addressing city-wide issues.