Manchester Plays Games: Exploring the Local Politics of Globalisation

Using the example of Manchester's Olympic bidding process, the paper examines some of the links between globalisation and what has become known as the 'new urban politics'. The politics of the city's Olympic bids powerfully symbolise many of the supposedly transformative features of the new urban politics, British-style, as the old images of municipal welfarist (bureaucratic) politics have apparently been superseded by those of a dynamic and charismatic (entrepreneurial) business leadership. But while there are superficial similarities between these developments and those highlighted by analysts of US 'growth coalitions', the Manchester case reveals how they are as much about struggles over the role, meaning and structure of the state, as they are about urban growth. Manchester's Olympic bid committee resembles not so much a growth coalition as a grant coalition. This said, it is important not to underestimate the significance of the new urban imperative to talk about growth in order to get grants.