The Games of Land Dispossession: Urban Governance and Sports Mega-Events (Marx, Engels, and Marxisms) 9819975352, 9789819975358

Table of contents :
Preface
Acknowledgments
Praise for The Games of Land Dispossession
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Enabling Urban Governance Comparisons
1.1 Sports Mega-events as a Comparison Opportunity
1.2 The Mainstream Urban Governance Literature and Its Critiques
1.3 The Theory of Integral State
1.4 Building a Customized Analytical Framework
Notes
References
2 The Hegemonic Strength of the London Olympic Park Project
2.1 Forefront Tactics: The Powerful Hegemonic Triad
2.1.1 Legacy Promises
2.1.2 Delegitimation
2.1.3 Tokenistic Consultation
2.2 Supporting Tactics: Reinforcing Consensus Manufacturing
2.2.1 Technical Documents
2.2.2 Publicity and Propaganda
2.2.3 Lack of Transparency
2.3 Rearguard Tactics: The Coercive Last Resort
2.3.1 Compensation and Judicial Actions
2.3.2 Legislative Action
2.3.3 Opposition Fragmentation
2.3.4 Intimidation
2.3.5 Conceded Participation
2.4 Conclusion
Notes
References
3 The Hegemonic Weakness of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Project
3.1 Forefront Tactics: The Coercive Triad (Armored by Hegemony)
3.1.1 Lack of Transparency
3.1.2 Compensation Payments
3.1.3 Intimidation
3.1.4 Delegitimation
3.2 Supporting Tactics: The Hegemonic Secondary Role
3.2.1 Legacy Promises
3.2.2 Technical Documents
3.3 Rearguard Tactics: Escalating Coercion
3.3.1 Tokenistic Consultation
3.3.2 Judicial Actions
3.3.3 Co-option
3.3.4 Legislative Action
3.3.5 Police Violence
3.4 Conclusion
Notes
References
4 The Failure of the Ellis Park Development Project in Johannesburg
4.1 Forefront Tactics: The Hegemonic Ambition
4.1.1 Legacy Promises
4.1.2 Tokenistic Consultation
4.1.3 Delegitimation
4.2 Supporting Tactics: The Increasingly Violent “Plan B”
4.2.1 Lack of Transparency
4.2.2 Intimidation
4.2.3 Co-option
4.2.4 Judicial Actions and Police Violence
4.3 Rearguard Tactics: Playing the Last Coercive Card
4.3.1 Economic Constraints
4.3.2 Compensation
4.4 Conclusion
Notes
References
5 The Failure of the Maracanã Project in Rio de Janeiro
5.1 Forefront Tactics: A Mixed Approach
5.1.1 Lack of Transparency
5.1.2 Delegitimation
5.1.3 Technical Documents
5.1.4 Compensation
5.2 Supporting Tactics: Erratically Addressing the Shortcomings of Forefront Tactics
5.2.1 Legacy Promises
5.2.2 Intimidation
5.2.3 Tokenistic Consultation
5.2.4 Conceded Participation
5.3 Rearguard Tactics: The Inevitable Use of Force
5.3.1 Police Violence
5.3.2 Judicial Actions
5.4 Conclusion
Notes
References
6 The Historical Constraints on Hegemonic Construction
6.1 The English Condition
6.1.1 Power Sharing for Legitimacy
6.1.2 The Neoliberal Counter-Reformation
6.1.3 Reviving Consensus…Temporarily
6.2 The Brazilian Condition
6.2.1 Building Hegemony Amidst Political Turbulence
6.2.2 Contradictions in the Renewed Pact of the New Republic
6.2.3 Resurgence of Strong Hegemony in Brazil
6.3 The South African Condition
6.3.1 Segregation Origins
6.3.2 Striding Towards Consent-Seeking
6.3.3 The Resurgence of Dissent
6.4 The World-System Condition
6.4.1 The World-System Hierarchy and Its Consequences
6.4.2 Ruling in the Periphery and Semi-Periphery
6.4.3 The Contemporaneity of Subordinated Rule
6.5 Conclusion
Notes
References
7 The Semi-peripheral Domination Complex
7.1 Cross-National Comparisons
7.1.1 Comparing Core and Semi-periphery Cases
7.1.2 Comparing Two Semi-peripheral Cases
7.2 Comparison Implications
7.3 Addressing Research and Political Questions
References
Correction to: The Hegemonic Weakness of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Project
Correction to: Chapter 3 in: E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_3
Appendix: Methodological Notes
References

Citation preview

MARX, ENGELS, AND MARXISMS

The Games of Land Dispossession Urban Governance and Sports Mega-Events

Erick Omena

Marx, Engels, and Marxisms

Series Editors Marcello Musto, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada Terrell Carver, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

The Marx renaissance is underway on a global scale. Wherever the critique of capitalism re-emerges, there is an intellectual and political demand for new, critical engagements with Marxism. The peer-reviewed series Marx, Engels and Marxisms (edited by Marcello Musto & Terrell Carver, with Babak Amini, Francesca Antonini, Paula Rauhala & Kohei Saito as Assistant Editors) publishes monographs, edited volumes, critical editions, reprints of old texts, as well as translations of books already published in other languages. Our volumes come from a wide range of political perspectives, subject matters, academic disciplines and geographical areas, producing an eclectic and informative collection that appeals to a diverse and international audience. Our main areas of focus include: the oeuvre of Marx and Engels, Marxist authors and traditions of the 19th and 20th centuries, labour and social movements, Marxist analyses of contemporary issues, and reception of Marxism in the world.

Erick Omena

The Games of Land Dispossession Urban Governance and Sports Mega-Events

Erick Omena Institute of Urban and Regional Planning and Research (IPPUR) Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

ISSN 2524-7123 ISSN 2524-7131 (electronic) Marx, Engels, and Marxisms ISBN 978-981-99-7535-8 ISBN 978-981-99-7536-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023, corrected publication 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Contributor: Brian Lawrence/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Paper in this product is recyclable.

Preface

On the February 10, 2010, at 9 o’clock in the morning, the scene was set for what seemed to be just another ordinary day in downtown Rio. The streets were bustling with cars, buses, and trains all converging towards the historic business district. Commuters were swarming in and out of metro stations and bus stops. Yet, an extraordinary event was unfolding at the western end of Avenida Presidente Vargas. A multitude of people, brandishing homemade banners and flags, was noisily congregating in front of a towering mirrored skyscraper. It was a boisterous protest against the looming threat of the most extensive demolition of favelas in Rio’s history. This destruction was part of an ambitious redevelopment plan. And the skyscraper in question was no typical building; it housed the municipal government headquarters and was popularly known as “piranhão” , colloquially translating to the “big whore”. Interestingly, though often overlooked, the nickname carried a subtle allusion to the site’s past as a red-light district, erased during the late 1970s purportedly to make way for the new town hall. This coincidence highlighted not only a recurrent pattern of displacing working-class

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Preface

communities to benefit urban developers but also underscored the financially driven nexus between private investors and local government representatives. More importantly, at that moment, the piranhão was ensconced within a tall iron fence secured by a locked gate. Beyond the fence, leaders from various communities across the city were demanding answers from the mayor regarding a recently disclosed list of 119 informal settlements slated for partial or complete demolition by the municipality. Some of these leaders sported T-shirts bearing the message “The Olympics does not excuse forced evictions”, underscoring the fact that the list had emerged just months after Rio was chosen to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Inside the fence, an engraved outdoor staircase led to armed guards positioned at the top, observing the demonstrators from their vantage point. They were prepared to use force if necessary. Behind them stood the targeted concrete and glass edifice, its enormity dwarfing the protesters and offering shelter to the mayor and most local civil servants. From within the fence, the panoramic view and the perceived safety bolstered by physical barriers and weaponry created the impression of complete control and insignificance of protesters. For those outside, the towering mirrored structure resembled an impenetrable and enigmatic fortress. After all, it was uncertain whether the mayor was even present within its walls. The doubts extended further, as the only certainty was that the mayor had been eagerly awaiting an opportune moment to initiate a large-scale eviction program, thereby freeing up valuable urban land for his business associates—a chance conveniently provided by the impending Olympics. But how would he do this? And when? Some of the local leaders had been long struggling against forced removals but what strategy and tactics would the mayor use in such optimal circumstances, with a ready-made excuse for his undemocratic plans? Addressing these questions was crucial for devising a counter-strategy to safeguard the rights of thousands who had built their lives in these communities, spanning generations. This book’s genesis was fueled by these unanswered questions—a position far from fence-sitting. This wasn’t solely due to my physical location outside the fence on that hot summer morning. Between 2009 and 2016,

Preface

vii

I was an active participant, along with numerous colleagues, in grassroots movements advocating for equitable access to housing and infrastructure in Rio de Janeiro. Thus, looking for an answer to the question of how to successfully resist was initially a practical and political task. It concerned a better understanding of the games of land dispossession then being played by local authorities to execute the announced land clearance plans. However, this ultimately led to theoretical explorations of the broader relations between the state and the working class, as well as strategies of domination in distinct geopolitical contexts. These inquiries form the crux of this book’s concerns. In essence, this research emerged from the practical necessity of organizing political action within an intricate and often volatile environment. This need spurred a theoretical investigation into the interplay of the general and the specific, the universal and the unique, the structural and the circumstantial in the Brazilian context. Subsequently, it became apparent that through comparisons, this research could illuminate the experiences of those “outside the fence” facing analogous challenges in other spatial-temporal scenarios, thus yielding a broader international reach. This endeavor wasn’t driven by an ambition for detached, “value-free” research, nor was it an exercise in creating knowledge for its own sake. Instead, the very positionality adopted here is part of the justification for the investigation, aiming to ensure that the research findings could enhance comprehension of the urban socio-political backdrop in which battles for collective urban land use and infrastructure unfold. Ideally, this understanding would in turn enrich the political strategies of grassroots movements. This stance aligns with Antonio Gramsci’s perspective on the reciprocal relationship between theory and practice, a continuous dialectical motion. Consequently, the episode known as the “Battle of Piranhão” and analogous international experiences explored in this book form vital foundations for the proposed reflections. They provide tangible starting points that lead to theoretical considerations, which then guide us back to their practical manifestations. Hence, the chosen standpoint and the respective sides of the fence serve as guiding lights for the trajectory traced in this book.

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Preface

With this perspective in mind, I invite the reader to embrace the journey ahead, appreciating its bumps and turns. Hopefully, the text will one day complete its circuit, returning to the very ground from which it took flight. Niterói, Brazil

Erick Omena

Acknowledgments

This book stands as a testament to the invaluable contributions of individuals hailing from diverse corners of the world, spanning across four continents. My heartfelt appreciation goes to Sue Brownill and Ramin Keivani, whose insightful guidance was instrumental during the course of the original research conducted at Oxford Brookes University. Additionally, I wish to extend my gratitude to the Brazilian Ministry of Education for their financial backing of my Ph.D. pursuits. The academic faculty of Witwatersrand University and University of Johannesburg, with special mention to Marie Huchzermeyer and Chris Fortuin, deserve my sincere thanks for their exceptional hospitality and unwavering support during the fieldwork conducted in South Africa. I am especially indebted to Christopher Gaffney for his meticulous review and thoughtful feedback on the manuscript, which greatly enriched the final work. I extend my heartfelt thanks to all the individuals who participated in interviews, enriching my research in the UK, Brazil, and South Africa. Palgrave’s editorial team has my gratitude for their support throughout the publishing process. Last but certainly not least, I am profoundly thankful to my family whose unwavering support has been a cornerstone throughout this writing journey. ix

Praise for The Games of Land Dispossession

“The Games of Land Dispossession is an example of critically engaged social scientific research at its very best. Erick Omena’s book shows how theoretically sophisticated comparative empirical research should be done. The book offers readers – through thoroughly documented and well-illustrated examples of the urban politics involved in the staging of sports mega-events held in London, Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg – accounts of the dispossession games behind the games.” —John Horne, Formerly Chair of the British Sociological Association (BSA) and Professor, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan “The Games of Land Dispossession is a brilliant and timely analysis of the workings of domination through coercion and consent in the hosting of global sporting events. Erick Omena has constructed a powerful north-south and south-south comparison through a Gramscian lens. The deeply grounded narrative unfolds in a clear and gripping manner, rendering this a highly readable contribution to Marxist and critical urban studies and an immensely accessible political project.” —Marie Huchzermeyer, Professor and Director of the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa xi

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Praise for The Games of Land Dispossession

“Erick Omena has written an original and indispensable Marxist analysis of the sporting mega-event in its urban context. In doing so, he also casts new light on the centrality of sport to the 21st century capitalist state. A must read for scholars and activists everywhere.” —Jonathan S. Davies, Director of the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

Contents

1

Enabling Urban Governance Comparisons 1.1 Sports Mega-events as a Comparison Opportunity 1.2 The Mainstream Urban Governance Literature and Its Critiques 1.3 The Theory of Integral State 1.4 Building a Customized Analytical Framework References

2 The Hegemonic Strength of the London Olympic Park Project 2.1 Forefront Tactics: The Powerful Hegemonic Triad 2.1.1 Legacy Promises 2.1.2 Delegitimation 2.1.3 Tokenistic Consultation 2.2 Supporting Tactics: Reinforcing Consensus Manufacturing 2.2.1 Technical Documents 2.2.2 Publicity and Propaganda 2.2.3 Lack of Transparency

1 2 7 10 13 20 25 30 30 31 34 36 36 37 38

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Contents

2.3 Rearguard Tactics: The Coercive Last Resort 2.3.1 Compensation and Judicial Actions 2.3.2 Legislative Action 2.3.3 Opposition Fragmentation 2.3.4 Intimidation 2.3.5 Conceded Participation 2.4 Conclusion References 3 The Hegemonic Weakness of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Project 3.1 Forefront Tactics: The Coercive Triad (Armored by Hegemony) 3.1.1 Lack of Transparency 3.1.2 Compensation Payments 3.1.3 Intimidation 3.1.4 Delegitimation 3.2 Supporting Tactics: The Hegemonic Secondary Role 3.2.1 Legacy Promises 3.2.2 Technical Documents 3.3 Rearguard Tactics: Escalating Coercion 3.3.1 Tokenistic Consultation 3.3.2 Judicial Actions 3.3.3 Co-option 3.3.4 Legislative Action 3.3.5 Police Violence 3.4 Conclusion References 4 The Failure of the Ellis Park Development Project in Johannesburg 4.1 Forefront Tactics: The Hegemonic Ambition 4.1.1 Legacy Promises 4.1.2 Tokenistic Consultation 4.1.3 Delegitimation 4.2 Supporting Tactics: The Increasingly Violent “Plan B” 4.2.1 Lack of Transparency

41 41 42 43 44 45 47 52 55 58 59 61 62 66 68 69 70 72 72 74 74 76 76 77 81 85 89 89 91 93 95 96

Contents

4.2.2 Intimidation 4.2.3 Co-option 4.2.4 Judicial Actions and Police Violence 4.3 Rearguard Tactics: Playing the Last Coercive Card 4.3.1 Economic Constraints 4.3.2 Compensation 4.4 Conclusion References

xv

97 100 102 104 104 106 107 110

5 The Failure of the Maracanã Project in Rio de Janeiro 5.1 Forefront Tactics: A Mixed Approach 5.1.1 Lack of Transparency 5.1.2 Delegitimation 5.1.3 Technical Documents 5.1.4 Compensation 5.2 Supporting Tactics: Erratically Addressing the Shortcomings of Forefront Tactics 5.2.1 Legacy Promises 5.2.2 Intimidation 5.2.3 Tokenistic Consultation 5.2.4 Conceded Participation 5.3 Rearguard Tactics: The Inevitable Use of Force 5.3.1 Police Violence 5.3.2 Judicial Actions 5.4 Conclusion References

113 118 118 120 122 124

6 The Historical Constraints on Hegemonic Construction 6.1 The English Condition 6.1.1 Power Sharing for Legitimacy 6.1.2 The Neoliberal Counter-Reformation 6.1.3 Reviving Consensus…Temporarily 6.2 The Brazilian Condition 6.2.1 Building Hegemony Amidst Political Turbulence 6.2.2 Contradictions in the Renewed Pact of the New Republic

143 144 144 146 147 149

127 127 128 130 131 133 134 135 137 139

149 151

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Contents

6.2.3 Resurgence of Strong Hegemony in Brazil 6.3 The South African Condition 6.3.1 Segregation Origins 6.3.2 Striding Towards Consent-Seeking 6.3.3 The Resurgence of Dissent 6.4 The World-System Condition 6.4.1 The World-System Hierarchy and Its Consequences 6.4.2 Ruling in the Periphery and Semi-Periphery 6.4.3 The Contemporaneity of Subordinated Rule 6.5 Conclusion References

153 155 155 156 158 161

7 The Semi-peripheral Domination Complex 7.1 Cross-National Comparisons 7.1.1 Comparing Core and Semi-periphery Cases 7.1.2 Comparing Two Semi-peripheral Cases 7.2 Comparison Implications 7.3 Addressing Research and Political Questions References

175 176 176 180 184 187 193

Correction to: The Hegemonic Weakness of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Project Appendix: Methodological Notes

161 162 165 168 169

C1 195

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1

Fig. 2.2

Fig. 2.3

Fig. 2.4

Fig. 2.5

Fig. 2.6 Fig. 2.7 Fig. 2.8

Clays Lane Estate (on the left) and Travellers site (on the right), 2006 (Credit ©Museum of London/ Mike Seaborne) Eastway Cycle Circuit, with the UEL student housing and Clays Lane Estate in the backdrop, 2005 (Credit ©Museum of London/Mike Seaborne) Marshgate Trading Estate, with some of the local businesses, 2006 (Credit ©Museum of London/Mike Seaborne) One of the many plots at Manor Garden Allotments in Hackney Wick, 2007 (Credit ©Museum of London/Mike Seaborne) Plan of Olympic Park Venues without any of the original local communities, 2006 (Credit Ordnance Survey/Olympic Delivery Authority) “From Brown to Green—transforming the Olympic Park”. Booklet’s front cover (ODA, 2010) “From Brown to Green—transforming the Olympic Park”. Booklet’s first page (ODA, 2010) “Park life” Booklet (ODA, 2009, January, p. 5)

26

26

27

28

29 33 34 39

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Fig. 2.9 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4 Fig. 3.5 Fig. 3.6

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 4.5 Fig. 5.1

Fig. 5.2

Fig. 5.3

Fig. 5.4

List of Figures

“Park life” Booklet (ODA, 2009, January, p. 5) Vila Autódromo and the car racing track—Aerial view, 2009 (Credit Luiz Claudio da Silva) The Olympic Park Masterplan for 2016 (AECOM, 2011) The slow demolition of Vila Autódromo, 2016 (Credit Luiz Claudio da Silva) Rubble left on site after house demolition, 2016 (Credit Luiz Claudio da Silva) Disfigured house, 2015 (Credit Luiz Claudio da Silva) The AECOM’s Masterplan for 2030, preserving most of Vila Autódromo on the top left corner (AECOM, 2011) The Inner City of Johannesburg, with the Ellis Park and Johannesburg stadiums on the right edge, 2010 (Credit Jorge Láscar) GEPD interventions map by JDA, 2009 (JDA, 2009) Some properties at the Bertrams Priority Block, 2015 (Credit Erick Omena) The Josana Court building, located at the Bertrams Priority Block, 2015 (Credit Erick Omena) One of the priority block properties with bricked up doors, 2015 (Credit Erick Omena) Aerial view of the Maracanã Sports Complex before refurbishment, with the Old Indigenous Museum and Julio Delamare Aquatics Park in the bottom-left corner, the Celio de Barros Running Track on the right edge, and the Maracanã stadium at the center, 2009 (Credit Pedro Lopez) The Celio de Barros Running Track marked for demolition in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013) The Julio Delamare Aquatics Park marked for demolition in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013) The Friedenreich Primary Municipal School marked for demolition in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013)

39 57 58 63 64 65

71

87 88 88 98 99

114

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List of Figures

Fig. 5.5

Fig. 5.6

Fig. 5.7

Fig. 7.1

Fig. 7.2

Fig. 7.3

Fig. 7.4

Fig. 7.5

Fig. 7.6

Fig. 7.7

Fig. 7.8

Fig. A.1 Fig. A.2

The Old Indigenous Museum first marked for demolition and later for renovation in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013) Architectural project of the new Celio de Barros Running Track, published in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013) Architectural project of the new Julio Delamare Aquatics Park, published in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013) London Olympic Park Site (2005)—7 years before the Olympics (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021) London Olympic Park Site (2019)—7 years after the Olympics (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021) Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Site (2009)—7 years before the Olympics (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021) Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Site (2021)—5 years after the Olympics (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021) Maracanã Refurbishment Site (2007)—7 years before the World Cup (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021) Maracanã Refurbishment Site (2021)—7 years after the World Cup (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021) Greater Ellis Park Development Site (2003)—7 years before the World Cup (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021) Greater Ellis Park Development Site (2017)—7 years after the World Cup (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021) The distribution of all the codes from the interviews of the London Olympic Park case The distribution of all the codes from the interviews of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park case

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125

126

178

178

179

179

181

182

182

183 206 207

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List of Figures

Fig. A.3 Fig. A.4 Fig. A.5

Fig. A.6

Fig. A.7

Fig. A.8

Fig. A.9

Graph 6.1 Graph 6.2

The distribution of all the codes from the interviews of the Johannesburg Ellis Park case The distribution of all the codes from the interviews of the Rio de Janeiro Maracanã case The 150 most frequent utterances found in the institutional files and media archives of the London case The 150 most frequent utterances found in the institutional files and media archives of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park case—in English language The 150 most frequent utterances found in the institutional files and media archives of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park case—in Portuguese language The 150 most frequent utterances found in the institutional files and media archives of the Johannesburg Ellis Park case The 150 most frequent utterances found in the institutional files and media archives of the Rio de Janeiro Maracanã case—in Portuguese language FDI outflows X inflows (US$ billions) (World Bank 2023) Primary income receipts X payments (US$ billions) (World Bank 2023)

208 209

214

215

216

217

218

165 166

List of Tables

Table 1.1

Table Table Table Table

1.2 1.3 7.1 7.2

Table Table Table Table Table

A.1 A.2 A.3 A.4 A.5

Forced evictions and rights violations associated with the summer Olympics (COHRE, 2007; CPCMO, 2015; Gaffney and Boykoff, 2020). Elaboration by the author. (nd = no data) The general Gramscian framework The customized Gramscian framework Comparative tactical mapping—Core X Semi-periphery Comparative tactical mapping—Semi-periphery X Semi-periphery Distribution of interviewees by case and group Semi-structured interview model Building the customized Gramscian framework Number of institutional documents by type and case Searches in the Factiva news database by case

4 15 16 177 180 198 200 202 211 212

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1 Enabling Urban Governance Comparisons

Urban planning practices can be a means to reinforce class domination and benefit those with control over societal resources to the disadvantage of the less powerful city residents. Those negatively impacted by such practices may contest these decisions executed by the local state. However, how do state representatives handle actual or potential contestation of planning decisions, and how do these official responses vary between different societies? Addressing this issue means making comparisons between cities in different countries, which can be challenging due to variations in the socio-political conditions and circumstances of each intervention. This introduction firstly argues that sports mega-events and their itinerant nature provide an optimal starting point to examine these responses across a broad range of space and time. Then it makes some key theoretical considerations on the nature of contemporary urban governance and the capitalist state to later present an appropriate theoretical framework designed to enable sports mega-events-based comparisons, which are explored over the following chapters.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_1

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E. Omena

1.1

Sports Mega-events as a Comparison Opportunity

Over 120 years since their inception, modern sports mega-events have become an important economic, cultural, and political factor for countries and cities worldwide. In the early 1900s, the modern Olympics involved a few hundred amateur athletes representing a few dozen nations, held either within or in support of the World’s Fairs. Similarly, the first FIFA World Cups featured only a dozen or so competing nations. A few decades later, these events grew in scope, becoming vehicles for the propagation of nationalistic and ideological messages. Then, advancements in technology, such as radio and TV broadcasting, expanded international audiences. Between 1960 and 1980, Olympic broadcasting revenues multiplied nearly a hundred times (Roche, 2006; Chatziefstathiou and Henry, 2012; Baade and Sanderson, 2012). Greater economic flows eventually led to political disputes over the distribution of revenues between organizing entities, such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the National Organizing Committees, and host cities. The resulting political-economic crisis, exemplified by the collapse of Montreal’s public finances after hosting the 1976 Summer Olympics, caused a complete restructuring of the Olympic business model. The 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics pioneered this reformulation, deepening the corporatization and professionalization of the event while consolidating its globalized character. Additionally, the 1992 Barcelona Olympics contributed to a new paradigm where related urban renewal projects became a significant justification for staging sports mega-events. These reformulations also influenced the politicalfinancial management of the FIFA World Cup, which introduced a new marketing program in the 1990s to maximize revenues (Andranovich et al. , 2001; Pound, 2004; Gold and Gold, 2008; Horne and Whannel, 2016). However, this acceleration of corporatization and urban improvements justification provided unprecedented political powers to the FIFA and IOC over host cities and their representatives (Oliveira, 2020). This also led to an escalation of costs to stratospheric levels, covered by local and national governments, with modest economic returns to

1 Enabling Urban Governance Comparisons

3

host cities (Zimbalist, 2015). Notably, social costs associated with sports mega-event projects have escalated, raising questions about the urban improvement claims. These social costs include the violation of human rights, such as forced mass evictions, undemocratic decision-making, violent repression of demonstrations, and exceptional laws that facilitate large urban interventions (Rolnik, 2016; COHRE, 2007). After analyzing data regarding evictions and negative impacts associated with each of the last nine summer Olympic Games—summarized in Table 1.1, some quantitative and qualitative differences stand out. The most significant difference is the scale of forced evictions found in different countries. While around a million people faced relocation in China and South Korea and nearly 100,000 in Brazil, much lower numbers were reported for the Spanish, North American, British, and Japanese cases. Furthermore, although there is a general convergence towards indirect relocation due to housing cost hikes and a lack of transparency in the respective decision-making processes, harsher impacts, such as violent repression against demonstrations, have mostly been associated with the Seoul, Beijing, and Rio de Janeiro cases. These observations raise an essential question: what distinguishes 1980s South Korea, 2000s China, and 2000/2010s Brazil from 1980/ 1990s Spain, 1990s United States, 2000/2010s United Kingdom, and 2010s Japan to justify such enormous gaps in the scale of evictions and in the use of violence against civil discontent? The differences between countries in their handling of these issues suggest a correlation between “levels of development” and the scale of mass evictions and repression intensity. To explore this issue, this book is led by three general questions: (1) how is power exerted by the state to prevent and confront dissent? (2) what are the differences found between countries supposedly at different levels of development when considering this issue? and (3) what are the main socio-economic underpinnings of such differences? The research aims to provide insights into these questions by analyzing international cases of urban redevelopment projects related to sports mega-events, especially the strategies used by governments to minimize the action of dissenting groups against land clearance plans1 associated with the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. It compares the results

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E. Omena

Table 1.1 Forced evictions and rights violations associated with the summer Olympics (COHRE, 2007; CPCMO, 2015; Gaffney and Boykoff, 2020). Elaboration by the author. (nd = no data) Olympic Host City

Directly evicted population

% of resident population

Seoul (1988)

720,000

9%

Barcelona (1992)

2,500

0.15%

Atlanta (1996)

6,000

1.50%

Other impacts •Housing cost rise in targetted areas ●Lack of transparency in the decision making ●Strong repression against demonstrations ●Law amendments to facilitate urban interventions ●Housing costs rise close to 150% causing displacements of thousands of inhabitants ●Lack of transparency in the decision making ●Limited participation of local communities ● Law amendments to facilitate urban interventions ●Around 25,000 families affected by housing price rise (continued)

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Table 1.1 (continued) Olympic Host City

Directly evicted population

% of resident population

Sydney (2000)

nd

nd

Athens (2004)

nd

nd

Beijing (2008)

1,250,000

9.60%

London (2012)

1,000

0.01%

Other impacts ●Homeless criminalization ●Lack of transparency in the decision making ●Resident families expelled ●Low-income population penalized ●Hundreds of families indirectly evicted ●Lack of transparency in the decision making ●Limited participation of local communities ●Lack of transparency in the decision making ●Violent repression against demonstrations ●No relocation plans for 20% of the evictees ●Housing cost rise in targetted areas (continued)

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E. Omena

Table 1.1 (continued) Olympic Host City

Directly evicted population

% of resident population

Rio de Janeiro (2016)

77,000

1.2%

Tokyo (2021)

320

< 0.01%

Other impacts ●Law amendments to facilitate urban interventions ●Loss of 5000 local jobs due to small businesses relocation ●Housing cost rise in targetted areas ●Law amendments to facilitate urban interventions ●Lack of transparency in the decision making ●Violent repression against demonstrations ●Law amendments to facilitate urban interventions ●Homeless criminalization

of that analysis for different host cities in different countries, with a focus on the peculiarities of the so-called developing countries and their drivers in contrast to the so-called developed countries. Achieving these more immediate objectives will feed the investigation about the broader issue of relations of domination in different countries, particularly in the urban environment where disputes over land occur, which means the research is not solely focused on the issues of sports mega-events.2

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To achieve both the immediate and general objectives, an empirical investigation was conducted using two axes of comparison: first, between the construction of Olympic Parks for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 and London 2012 games, and, second, between the urban renewal projects related to the refurbishment of the Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. This involved analyzing primary data, such as interviews with the agents participating in the land clearance disputes3 and related policy-making documents,4 as well as secondary data, such as specialized literature and socio-economic statistics.5 The focus on the planning of the same type of projects—i.e., the construction of Olympic Parks for the first axis and the refurbishment of a stadium for the second axis—allows for clearer contrasts. This provides a good opportunity to compare different realities of state–civil society relations, given the similar demands of the planning process (time scale, spatial characteristics of the new infrastructure to be implemented, necessary urban area, etc.). However, these optimal empirical conditions are not enough, as they also need to be analyzed through appropriate comparative lens. Thus, a general theoretical framework is developed to properly assess state–civil society relations in distinct contexts. Based on recent debates about the state-of-the-art of urban governance literature, this is done in the next sections.

1.2

The Mainstream Urban Governance Literature and Its Critiques

Since the 1990s, there has been a proliferation of studies on urban governance, fueled by the emerging idea of governance networks as a new way of political decision-making (Borzel, 1998). Governance networks are allegedly based on horizontality rather than hierarchy or market, with planning and power relations increasingly marked by interdependence between several actors. Government and market forces increasingly

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E. Omena

become only some of the components, while trust, cooperation, diplomacy, and reciprocity prevail instead of conflicts (Frances et al., 1991; Stoker, 1998; Rhodes, 2000; Klijn, 2008). This conception is rooted in the pluralist tradition (Smith, 2006). Pluralism, an influential current of political thought, originated from the intention to limit state power in England and North America since the eighteenth century, later becoming an important theoretical stream underpinning the analysis of mostly North American political scientists, particularly in the early and mid-twentieth century. For them, power is dispersed through several different interest groups in society and it should not be allowed to accumulate in the state (Dahl, 1963; Galbraith, 1963). Given all the potential disagreements with the networks theory assumptions and its pluralist roots, some reactions began to emerge. One set of authors, representing a more nuanced point of view, intended to take into consideration some of the networks advocates’ claims, while recognizing more hybrid forms of governance structures found on empirical verifications that are not simply horizontal nor vertical (Pierre, 1999; Brownill and Carpenter, 2009; Jessop, 2000, 2003). Whilst Brenner (2004), for instance, demonstrates that the focus on local government and horizontality is part of a greater restructuring of statehood that keeps hierarchy in place, Jessop (2000) points to the need for considering another level called metagovernance, which would be “the higher-order governance transcending the concrete forms of governance” (Sorensen and Torfing, 2009, p. 245). This involves “the shaping of the context within which these governance arrangements can be forged rather than the development of specific strategies and initiatives for them” (Jessop, 2000, p. 23). Jessop argues for the state’s special role as a primary articulator of metagovernance, with governance working “in the shadows of hierarchy” (Whitehead, 2003), given the state’s privilege of providing the ground rules for governance and the regulatory order. However, there have been increasingly harsher critical works on the “naïve” horizontalist view put forward by network approaches and their explanatory flaws, with some scholars specifically highlighting the particular and grave problem of ignoring the asymmetries of power within network relations (Dowding, 1995, 2001; Marsh et al., 2003). Using a

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Gramscian perspective, Davies (2011, 2013) develops a sharper critique, arguing that networks and metagovernance theories have a very limited explanatory potential, especially when confronted by contexts such as South Europe and the Middle East. He intends to bring back the greater role played by hierarchy and coercion to the debate, as other authors seemingly have been underestimating power geometries in which governance arrangements are embedded. Importantly, Davies accepts the fact that Jessop’s metagovernance theory presents advances concerning the analysis of power relations. However they are still not sufficient, as it is necessary to overcome the simple “shadows of hierarchy” considerations. Despite Jessop’s inspiration from the Gramscian hegemony concept, metagovernance fails to consider its essential counterpart, i.e., coercion, as another fundamental element to be considered in analyses regarding the capitalist state. Indeed, Gramsci’s concepts of hegemony and dictatorship are dialectically connected modes of domination that cannot be thought of separately. Dominance through coercion is mainly exerted through the usage of the repressive state apparatus, whereas hegemony means one class’s domination over others with the consent of the dominated, which is obtained through the universalization of the dominant class values via the work of private apparatuses, such as the church, unions, schools, etc. (Gramsci, 2003; Thomas, 2010). In this sense, for Davies, the disseminated idea of a supposed prevalence of networks as a cooperative and consensual way of governing would correspond to hegemony, as it would be an ideological construct. He acknowledges the existence of networks based on trust and cooperation but also argues that several forms of hierarchy “may subsist with trust and contract relations in any institution, complex of institutions, or practices in many different spatio-temporal configurations across place, territory, and scales. The nature of these configurations and their relationship with counter-hegemonic politics is a matter for empirical inquiry” (Davies, 2013, p. 27). Davies’ critique of network and metagovernance and his call for an empirical inquiry on different sorts of combinations between hierarchical rule and consent have the potential to nurture more holistic analyses of urban governance relationships and inspire the present work. However,

10

E. Omena

it is still not clear how this can lead to an actual alternative analytical framework that can be empirically articulated. Further below, a more detailed discussion of the Gramscian theory of the integral state will help create a customized framework for the comparative purposes of the present research.

1.3

The Theory of Integral State

The theory of the integral state and its comparative potential is often associated with Gramsci, but discussions on the hegemonic strength of the ruling classes were originally sparked by the 1917 Russian Revolution and its aftermath (Anderson, 1976; Thomas, 2010). Revolutionary theoreticians, such as Lenin and Trotsky, argued that it would be impossible to replicate the revolution planned and developed for Tsarist Russia in Western Europe. They suggested that the bourgeoisie in advanced capitalist countries were culturally and politically stronger, making it necessary to gain greater mass proletarian support before acting militarily (Trotsky, 1974; Lenin, 1967). In Italy, Gramsci decided to build on those Russian remarks, conducting a deep historical investigation into the specificities of the Western social formations and the relationship between state and civil society (Anderson, 1976; Buci-Glucksman, 1980). Gramsci’s work led him to recognize the formation of an “integral state” as “dictatorship + hegemony” (Gramsci, 2003, p. 239). He argued that the state’s repressive apparatus—represented by the police, the army, institutional authority, and the laws—and civil society—represented by organizations that elaborate and spread ideologies such as the media, schools, political parties, unions, churches, etc.—were interrelated and reinforced each other within a unified (and indivisible) state-form. For Gramsci, hegemony and coercion are dialectically interrelated, with no clear organic differentiation between political society and civil society (Gramsci, 2003, p. 160). The dialectical tension between the two constitutes an “unstable equilibrium”. The level of preponderance of “hegemony” over “dictatorship” and vice-versa can vary depending on the space–time conjuncture, which depends on unique correlations

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of forces between social classes and groups that struggle for hegemony (Coutinho, 2012). Gramsci argued that “the ‘normal’ exercise of hegemony” in “classic” parliamentary regimes is usually “characterized by a combination of force and consent which balance each other so that force does not overwhelm consent but rather appears to be backed by the consent of the majority, expressed by the so-called organs of public opinion” (Gramsci, 2011, vol. 01, p. 156). However, this equilibrium can be significantly disrupted, triggering a “crisis of authority”, where the ruling class loses consensus. This means that the great masses have become detached from traditional ideologies, they no longer believe what they are being told and the ruling class no longer leads but only rules—it possesses sheer coercive power. There are some ways of avoiding a “crisis of authority”. Gramsci sees minor material concessions from the ruling class to subordinate groups as a common hegemonic tactic: undoubtedly, the fact of hegemony presupposes that account be taken of the interests and the tendencies of the groups over which hegemony is to be exercised, and that a certain compromise equilibrium should be formed – in other words, that the leading group should make sacrifices of an economic-corporate kind. But there is also no doubt that such sacrifices and such a compromise cannot touch the essential; for though hegemony is ethical-political, it must also be economic, must necessarily be based on the decisive function exercised by the leading group in the decisive nucleus of economic activity. (Gramsci, 2003, p. 161)

However, in more unstable times, other harsher measures are utilized. Gramsci recognizes “corruption-fraud” as an artifice that stands “between consent and force”. By that he precisely means the “procurement of the antagonist’s debilitation and paralysis by buying – covertly under normal circumstances, openly in the case of anticipated danger – their leaders in order to create confusion and disorder among the antagonist ranks” (Gramsci, 2011, vol. 01, p. 156). What differentiates “normal circumstances” from “anticipated danger” is the degree of consensus achieved by the ruling class from the subordinate groups, more prominent in the former than in the latter.

12

E. Omena

“Anticipated danger” may be a revolutionary threat, usually responded with a “passive revolution”, which is made of two sequential moments. First, there is coercive “restoration” of power as a reaction to the possibility of a radical challenge to the established order. Second, there is “renewal from above” by means of compromises made by the ruling classes to accommodate some of the popular demands in the newly re-established order. More generally, though, a “passive revolution” is a major reform of the status quo aimed at re-establishing domination through greater compromises than those usually made, which may also involve the absorption of popular leaders into the structures of power—a co-option form also known as “transformism” (Gramsci, 2003). Changes from above are not always a “passive revolution” but could also sometimes be denominated as “counter-reformation” (Coutinho, 2012). Counter-reformation tends to have a very preponderant coercive restoration and little change whereas passive revolution tends to present relatively more prominent renewal measures in the form of greater concessions to the popular demands. As can be seen above, the multiple possible variations in the fundamental force–consent balance of domination can lead to several different specific situations. Importantly, these are not mere abstractions created through lucubration detached from space and time. On the contrary, Gramsci developed such concepts based on an extensive analysis of particular political conjunctures in several countries and some previous political-philosophical reflections by other authors such as Machiavelli, Croce, and Lenin (Bianchi, 2019, 2020). He foremost intended to provide theoretical responses to the practical challenges posed by new capitalist phenomena such as fascism and “americanism”—i.e., the rise of the Fordist system of production in the U.S.A. and its social consequences—to revolutionary purposes in the “West”. This extensive research eventually led him to his crucial reformulation of Lenin’s and Trotsky’s original remarks about the differences between the “Western” and Russian conditions, where Gramsci says that: In the East the State was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West, there was a proper relation between State and civil society, and when the State trembled a sturdy structure of civil

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society was at once revealed. The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks: more or less numerous from one State to the next, it goes without saying—but this precisely necessitated an accurate reconnaissance of each individual country. (Gramsci, 2003, p. 238)

Rather than simply creating “juxtapositions between East and West”, Gramsci “comprehended the difference between these social formations as one of degree, not of type” (Thomas, 2010, p. 212). Such degree variations were explored—via the “reconnaissance of each individual country”—in order to also understand the specificities within the general “Western” specificity. Overall, Gramsci’s contributions represent a major advance in the Marxist theory of the capitalist state. While Marx and Lenin focused on the coercive character of the state, Gramsci recognized the importance of bourgeois hegemony in Western countries (Coutinho, 2012). This recognition was only made possible by the escalating socialization of political participation via the formation of large-scale unions and mass parties and the establishment of universal suffrage in the twentieth century. Gramsci’s work shows that domination is a concrete historical relation informed by both force and consent.

1.4

Building a Customized Analytical Framework

Gramsci’s theoretical considerations can play a crucial role in the ongoing debates around urban governance theory, given its international comparative perspective and historical scrutiny. This approach is in line with the demands of urban theorists for a “reformulated comparative imagination” (Robinson, 2014, p. 68) and a “dialogical process” that combines the pluralization of perspectives rooted in particular contexts and the search for “universality” (Vainer, 2014, p. 53). The dialectical perspective on the “unstable equilibrium” between force and consent of the integral state and its various forms opens

14

E. Omena

up a field of multiple possible combinations, which can help characterize different situations through common parameters. This approach allows for comparisons between different contexts, without neglecting their respective specificities and historicity, and reinserts an investigation into the role of coercion and its relationship with more “cooperative” hegemonic environments. However, to enable a more concrete approach, Gramsci’s concepts need to be coherently articulated. The first step in this direction is to provide a summary of the logics of domination, which will later support the analysis of specific local correlations of forces found around redevelopment projects. This general framework, presented in Table 1.2, portrays a continuum, where the extremes represent the highest levels of preponderance of consent and force, respectively. The gradation of combinations between hegemony and coercion varies as the reader moves from one extreme to the other. However, these situations are not precisely delimited and may partially overlap with other categories. To translate these categories into the specific context of struggles over redevelopment projects at the local level, the same principle of possible variations in the force–consent balance is applied to the particular urban circumstances studied. The resulting customized framework, seen in Table 1.3, must be read in the same way as the general framework, i.e. as a continuum with the extremes “Police Violence” and “Legacy Promise” respectively representing the highest levels of coercion and consent. There are a number of intermediary situations between these two extremes, and there may be some overlapping as well. The more equidistant a given category is from both extremes, the less clear is the prevalence of hegemony or dictatorship. This is specially the case of “Lack of Transparency” and “Conceded Participation”, as they are closer to the center of the diagram. At the local level, each category is considered a tactic aimed at achieving full land clearance for a given redevelopment project. Different tactics can be used over time according to the specific needs of the conjuncture, but they cannot be equally deployed because some are naturally more in demand than others. This means that at the end of the process of land clearance attempts, some tactics will have been more prominent, indicating a hierarchy in the use of tactics. Thus,

Weaker hegemony Open “military” Counterconfrontation reformation Both Coercion against contestation dissenters is and coercion much more reach the prominent highest whilst possible level. concessions The dispute and for political compromises power are more becomes an restricted open “military” confrontation

The force-consent unstable equilibrium

There is a crisis of authority and passive revolution is used to re-establish the hegemonic status quo. Renewal in the form of substantial conces-sions to the popular demands is combined with a coercive restoration of domination

Passive revolution

Table 1.2 The general Gramscian framework

Covert transformism “Corruption-fraud” and “Corruption“transformism” in its more fraud” and comprehensive and “open” “transshape is utilised to absorb formism” in whole groups of opponents its molecular into the structures of “covert” power and ‘liquidate’ shape is opposition utilised to nullify a few leaders of the antagonistic groups and disorganise an emerging opposition

Open transformism A few marginal “sacrifices of an economiccorporate kind” are made in favour of the subaltern classes in order to minimally accommodate their more immediate demands. The moral and political leadership of the ruling class is not substantively contested

Relatively low level of contestation counter-acted through a more sporadic use of the coercive apparatuses. Whilst this ephemeral use is not substantively questioned, it also helps to avoid the spreading of contestation

Stronger hegemony ‘Normal’ exercise of hegemony

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Intimidation

The The statement of deployan intention to ment deteriorate or of the actual institudeliberate tional deterioration violence. of the physical It is and usually psychological done conditions through underpinning arrests the resistance and of a group physagainst the ical redevelopment attacks project. It can on be done via dissenters the imposition of hostile spatial changes, such as the denial of basic services to opposition groups or the threat of police action against them

Police Violence

More Coercive Strategy

LAND CLEARANCE TACTICS

The use of judicial courts to impose the development project and its impacts on local people despite their objections

Judicial Action As a manifestation of “covert transformism”, it consists of providing material benefits to the leaders of potential and actual opposition groups turning them into allies. As a consequence, those leaders are expected to make their groups refrain from raising further challenges

Co-option This is the lawful provision of material benefits to specific groups in order to compensate them for any disadvantaged caused by the development of the project. The bigger the compensation, the less likely the challenges are

Economic barriers that can be created to hinder the action of opposition groups, such as fees and taxes charged on those who want to access public information, public hearings or judicial courts, for instance, or the imposition of other conditions that require the use of material resources to access means of objection

Economic Compensation constraint

Table 1.3 The customized Gramscian framework

Often done through surveys, said tactic intends to gather specific information about places and people, who forcefully provide essential data used for the future enforcement of the project on them

Data collection for future law enforcement The induced division of an opposition group to weaken their collective power. Forcing individual negotiations between project promoters and dissenters and fostering internal conflicts within the targeted group are some examples of such tactical actions

The creation or alteration of laws in order to hinder any potential challenge against the development plans

Legislative Fragmentation Action The use of monitoring instruments that allows public and private agencies to explicitly or implicitly follow the mobilisation of opposition groups so that their actions can be more easily neutralized

The deliberate denial of significant information about the development project to undermine the organization of potential opposition. More subtle actions of this type are represented by the imposition of barriers that difficult the access to public data, though not explicitly denying it

Lack of Surveillance Transparency

16 E. Omena

Tokenistic Consultation

The deployment of consultation procedures usually seen by those consulted as merely “theatrical” and that foremost do not produce any actual change in the plans. Using public hearings, surveys and other similar instruments, such procedures are structured in a way that they simultaneously open spaces for contestation and tightly control them. It is usually associated with what Arnstein called tokenism and its variations (Arnstein, 1969)

Conceded Participation

Used either as a routine tool to keep in check subaltern groups, which can be a sort of “open transformism”, or as a last resource to preserve hegemony whenever there is inevitable opposition growth, thus resembling the passive revolution principle. It is most usually supposed to relieve the pressure on decision makers and maintain the project without major transformations

More Hegemonic Strategy

LAND CLEARANCE TACTICS

The production and utilisation of technical documents as truth-makers. Experts’ reports are usually used to justify specific pro-redevelopment claims and elevate them to the status of unquestionable “scientific” facts

Technical documents Delegitimation of any opposition to the project via symbolic attacks, which intend to either demoralize sources of dissent or to even symbolically obliterate them from the public sphere, turning opponents into virtually non-existent agents

Delegitimation Narrowly linked to legacy promises, it requires the utilisation of different types of media to disseminate pro-redevelopment messages in a wide scale

Publicity and propaganda

The epitome of hegemony, these are promises of positive consequences from the redevelopment project as a justification for its implementation and any inconvenient impacts caused to specific agents. The project becomes attached to an ideologically constructed collective will, which trumps any opposition effort

Legacy Promise

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18

E. Omena

the customized framework can be applied to the analysis of information on the land clearance process to identify the tactical hierarchy for each case and enable intercase comparisons of land clearance strategies. This tactical mapping allows the recognition of relatively more or less coercive/consensual eviction procedures, as seen later in this book. In conclusion, as seen above, the narrow focus of networks and metagovernance theories on cooperation and horizontality as tools to understand governance issues is insufficient, particularly outside Europe and North America. The development of a conceptual framework more based on Gramscian concepts allows for the assessment of variations in the force–consent balance of domination over a broader range, which has unique potential as a comparative investigation tool. In the following chapters, the customized version of the Gramscian framework is used to directly assess the force–consent balance found in land clearance strategies applied by local governments in London, Rio de Janeiro, and Johannesburg to implement the respective redevelopment projects of Olympic Parks and World Cup stadiums refurbishments. Then, the more general force–consent balance framework is also used to analyze possible historical-contextual influences from the national and international levels over urban governance relations in the local contexts, thereby providing both a more specific embedded analysis for each case and a general contextual view. Lastly, after these considerations, the last chapter brings it all together to make cross-national intercase comparisons and deliver some theoretical and practical conclusions.

Notes 1. Although the planning of sports mega-events involves much more than land clearance, this has been a particular contentious issue over the years. Thus, it is of special interest to the general and specific research questions posed by the present work. And that is why the focus is on this particular characteristic, rather than on every aspect of a mega-event.

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2. This raises questions regarding the supposed “exceptionality” of mega-events arrangements and their validity to assert more general issues related to host cities and countries. Some Brazilian authors have argued that mega-events create a “city of exception”, where a “state of exception” (Agamben, 2005) is established to bypass local legislation and implement urban development projects demanded by particular powerful groups (Vainer, 2014). The present study assumes that this is only partially true, as such processes are still inevitably embedded in the particular space–time configuration provided by host cities and therefore they are never totally exogenous and exceptional. The differences in scale and sorts of impacts shown in Table 1.1 indicate that local and national characteristics still play an important role. As stated by Richmond and Garmany (2016), despite some valuable insights the “city of exception” thesis “struggles to account for similar processes of urban exclusion and state aggression prior to both processes of neoliberalization and to the ‘state of exception’ provided by the mega-events” (Richmond and Garmany, 2016, p. 636). Although this is not the objective of the study, it is hoped that the analysis undertaken here will actually confirm such an assertion. 3. Initially, literature accounts enabled the identification of state, civil society and private agents involved in the land disputes associated with each redevelopment project. Most of these agents were contacted and interviewed in 2015. The same semi-structured interview model was applied to 54 different agents in person by the author. For more information, check the appendix and Omena, 2017. 4. Interviewees were also asked to provide institutional documents related to their participation in the redevelopment projects, whenever such documents could not be found in public domain. These included 444 official plans, tender documents, reports, manifestos, leaflets, open letters, etc. Additionally, 1747 media files reporting their participation in the respective projects and the associated disputes were collected via the Factiva news international database, which covers daily newspapers all over the world, and

20

E. Omena

then processed via the Nvivo software with coding techniques. For more information on the methodological options of the original research, please check the appendix. 5. Excerpts from interviews and documents in Portuguese cited in the following chapters were translated by the author.

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Thomas, P. (2010). The Gramscian moment: philosophy, hegemony and marxism. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Trotsky, L. (1974). The first five years of the communist international, Vol. 2. London: new Park Publications. Vainer, C. (2014): “Disseminating ‘Best Practice’? The coloniality of urban knowledge and city models”, in: Parnell, S. and Oldfield, S (eds.) The Routledge handbook on cities of the global South. Abingdon: Routledge, 48–56. Whitehead, M. (2003). ‘In the shadow of hierarchy’: Meta-governance, policy reform and urban regeneration in the West Midlands Area, 35 (1), 6–14. Zimbalist, A. (2015). Circus maximus. The economic gamble behind hosting the Olympics and the world cup. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

2 The Hegemonic Strength of the London Olympic Park Project

The London Olympic bid was launched in 2004. It was built on the old government’s intention to promote redevelopment schemes in the East End of London, which is historically associated with deprivation and ethnic minorities. The Olympic Park Project was centered in Stratford, an area usually portrayed as abandoned and in need of redevelopment.1 However, by the time London presented its Olympic bid in 2003, more than 550 local businesses still employed around 5000 people in the area (Raco and Tunney, 2010). Also, the University of East London (UEL) student village accommodated at least 550 mostly foreign students (COHRE, 2007), the Clays Lane Estate provided cheap accommodation for 425 low-income single-people, and the Clays Lane and Hackney Wick Travellers sites together housed at least 35 families (Bernstock, 2014). Besides, the Manor Garden Allotments represented a gardening option for dozens of local workers while the Eastway Cycle Circuit was used by people from all over London. Other preserved green spaces such as the Bully Point Nature Reserve and the Hackney Marshes were commonly used by the population too (Figs. 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_2

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Fig. 2.1 Clays Lane Estate (on the left) and Travellers site (on the right), 2006 (Credit ©Museum of London/Mike Seaborne)

Fig. 2.2 Eastway Cycle Circuit, with the UEL student housing and Clays Lane Estate in the backdrop, 2005 (Credit ©Museum of London/Mike Seaborne)

Regardless of this active land use, a series of redevelopment projects were already planned for the region before the launch of the Olympic bid, and the bid ended up functioning as a booster to the original plans.2 Based on a total budget of £ 6 billion3 (Evans, 2012), the area to be redeveloped increased from 0.73 to 2.2 square kilometers, with a pledge to build 10,000 new homes, 50% of which would be “affordable”,4 and create 33,500 new jobs by 2020 (BOA, 2004; LBH, 2011). The further extension of the targeted area demanded a

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Fig. 2.3 Marshgate Trading Estate, with some of the local businesses, 2006 (Credit ©Museum of London/Mike Seaborne)

complete reconstruction effort, this time involving the total replacement of the hundreds of local businesses, houses, and recreational facilities mentioned above. This reconstruction project also meant a coordination challenge, as several public agencies, private investors, and civil society groups had to be involved in the project, especially because the site was located at the intersection of four different London boroughs— Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, and Waltham Forest—with planning permissions required from each local authority. The London Development Agency (LDA) was initially in charge of planning and land acquisition tasks. Later, in 2006, the Olympic Development Authority (ODA) took control of the construction process with a greater concentration of development and planning powers. The responsibility to plan the “legacy”, i.e., the use to be given to the facilities and venues after the games, was transferred from the LDA to the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), whose shareholders were the Mayor of London and the UK government5 . National agencies such as the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and the Department for Culture Media and Sports (DCMS) also took part in the planning and implementation of the Olympic infrastructure. These public agencies had constant interactions with private entities, especially with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG). Major private developers, including Westfield, Qatari Diar,

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Fig. 2.4 One of the many plots at Manor Garden Allotments in Hackney Wick, 2007 (Credit ©Museum of London/Mike Seaborne)

Delancey, Manhattan Loft Company, Balfour Beatty, Carillion, and ISG, have also been at the center of proposals while planning consultants such as ARUP, EDAW, and AECOM developed feasibility studies and the masterplan for the area (Raco, 2012; Horne and Whannel, 2016). Importantly, the institutional missions of governmental bodies and the business plans of investors, contractors, and consultants depended on the achievement of the Olympic Park Project. Due to the fact that they all had to unite around this project, they are here characterized as a common interest group called the redevelopment coalition, while the groups who

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Fig. 2.5 Plan of Olympic Park Venues without any of the original local communities, 2006 (Credit Ordnance Survey/Olympic Delivery Authority)

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lived in the chosen site and did not want to leave their land are here called the anti-eviction alliances.6 Eventually, by mid-2007, the redevelopment coalition managed to clear the site completely. But how did they achieve this goal so early in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics? This chapter analyzes the strategies used by the redevelopment coalition to dominate and implement the London Olympic Park Project despite the anti-eviction alliances. The customized Gramscian framework and its categories, explained in Chapter 1, were used as a cognitive structure to run three different types of content analysis techniques, i.e., word count, coding, and qualitative analysis. The study analyzed 228 institutional documents, 185 media files, and 12 semi-structured interviews conducted by the author.7 The results of this methodological procedure provided a tactical hierarchy divided into forefront, supporting, and rearguard tactics, based on their frequency and importance,8 which is presented below.

2.1

Forefront Tactics: The Powerful Hegemonic Triad

2.1.1 Legacy Promises “Legacy” was a key term used by the IOC to promote the 2012 Olympics and its associated projects since the bidding stage (IOC, 2003). The word was heavily used throughout official documentation and media files of the London Olympic games, ranking as the fourth most cited term overall. Other legacy-related themes, such as “housing” (25th), “employment” (106th) and “benefits” (112th), are also among the 150 most frequent utterances. The symbolic importance of legacy promises was first highlighted in the 2002 ARUP report, a document that provided a blueprint for the London candidacy. It suggested that mentioning and emphasizing legacy benefits could help overcome any potential opposition to the Games (ARUP, 2002). Then, the candidacy files published in 2004 followed the suggestion and promised significant improvements in health, education, job opportunities, and the environment for residents (BOA, 2004).

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Later, the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) Inquiry report submitted in 2006 provided more explicit justification for the use of legacy promises to justify land acquisition.9 The London Development Agency (LDA) argued that the confirmation of the CPO was necessary to ensure the “catalyst effects” of the Games, and used legacy benefits as a trump card to counter the nearly 400 objections (Rose, 2006). The majority of objections were met with nearly the same response shown in the following sample, extracted from the report: “the plots 496 and 497 are required for the creation of the facilities for the Olympic Games and the subsequent Legacy development; and any resultant disruption to the Objector’s business will be far outweighed by the huge benefits that will be achieved by the Order” (Rose, 2006, p. 196). This trump card character of the use of legacy has been recognized by both members of the redevelopment coalition and anti-eviction alliances. One Clays Lane resident has described legacy promises as a “confidence trick” (Interview, 27/05/2015), while one representative of the DCLG saw it as a tactic to create an uncontroversial image of the post-Olympics “that would shut everybody up” (Interview, 15/06/2015). Considering the word recurrence in institutional documents and the testimonies of interviewees, it is clear that legacy discourse was crucial for the redevelopment coalition plans. It was based on the prediction of future benefits associated with the construction of the London Olympic Park to legitimate the destruction caused by it, an idea encapsulated in the legacy promises but also connected to another tactic: delegitimation.

2.1.2 Delegitimation Delegitimation tactics were employed on three different levels. The first level relied on emphasizing the benefits of bringing regeneration policies to the area of East London, with the implicit promise to bring back to life a place seen as “ill” or “dead”. This implicit “return to life” discourse has been central to the Olympic Park Project, with the word “regeneration” being the 64th most cited in institutional documents and media files.10 The bid files, for instance, announced that “the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games will be the key catalyst to the most significant urban

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regeneration program ever seen in London” (BOA, 2004, Vol. 03, p. 23). Accordingly, the LDA described regeneration as the main driver for the Olympic Park CPO (Rose, 2006). However, whenever necessary, the Olympic Park promoters pushed the delegitimation tactics to their second level by providing an explicit negative depiction of the site as a justification for regeneration. For example, one senior DCLG director described the Olympic Park as “essentially an urban regeneration project, based around a series of sporting venues, in an old derelict disused contaminated site in the eastern side of London” (Interview on 17/06/2015). Likewise, a local councilor highlighted that “it was still a fringe area. And so you ended up with most of that section—the Lower Lee Valley—that became the Olympic Park being used over the course of 100 years or so as a rubbish tip” (Interview on 9/9/2015). Such a symbolic deterioration was frequently extended to other discursive formats. A good example is the document “From brown to green: transforming the Olympic Park”, published by the ODA in 2010. As seen below, the photographs are arranged to show the contrast between a dirty abandoned site (bottom-left of Figs. 2.6 and 2.7) and the prediction of a populated and clean park (bottom-right of Fig. 2.6). However, by the time the photographs were taken, i.e., July 2007, most of the site had already been vacated, and so it would not be possible to see people in the images anyway. The third level of delegitimation tactics was actuated when the redevelopment coalition members were either publicly reminded of the existence of the former land users or challenged. This was meant to delegitimize not only the place but also the people living there who were trying to question the redevelopment project. This approach was in line with the policy orientation defended by the then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and the then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone. Both publicly suggested that ignoring and demoralizing the opposition to the Olympic projects was an effective policy orientation (Blair, 2007, Livingstone, 2007). Such an orientation was widely recognized by the people affected by it. One local business leader described a similar approach from the key public figures in charge of the project, such as the Minister of

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Fig. 2.6 “From Brown to Green—transforming the Olympic Park”. Booklet’s front cover (ODA, 2010)

the Olympics Tessa Jowell (Interview on 2/6/2015). In an attempt to demoralize local businesses reluctant to leave, a senior official from the LDA said that “many of those businesses were in the grey economy, so, not necessarily keeping full records of accounts, maybe not necessarily knowing who their employees were. Cash in hand. That sort of scrapyard. Slightly alternative, in the traditional sense of the East End of London” (Interview on 22/6/2015). Even more explicitly, a local councilor explained what he saw as the right way to deal with the Olympic Park Project and its detractors: “if you try to stand in its way because you just think that it is all wrong, it will squash you. You’re going to be crushed. It will leave you lying in the dust. So my advice to colleagues was ‘you get on it now’” (Interview on 9/9/2015). However, despite its efficiency, delegitimation in itself was not enough. Tokenistic consultation was another crucial element since it created a cushion that absorbed most of the opposition pressure without affecting the project.

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Fig. 2.7 “From Brown to Green—transforming the Olympic Park”. Booklet’s first page (ODA, 2010)

2.1.3 Tokenistic Consultation The implementation of the Olympic Park Project relied heavily on formal consultation procedures, as the high recurrence rate of the words consultation (67th) and objector (71st) in the documents analyzed suggest. These were designed to channel dissent into a controllable terrain. The use of consultation was highlighted by many interviewees from both sides as a means of manufacturing consent from the earliest planning stages. Despite the extensive consultation procedures that were undertaken, the evidence suggests that they were merely tokenistic, and the decisions had already been made. One DCLG representative was particularly frank about the issue saying “I don’t think the consultation changed anything at all. Things were changed through commercial, market, financial concerns”. He went further explaining that:

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The key to this was to bring the local authorities and the community into the process in a sort of sufficient way to make them feel they knew what was going on and they would support it. And as when they were required to do things or not to do things – “don’t demonstrate, you know. Don’t try to break into the site” - they were very obedient (…) So I think it was quite cleverly managed to allow the community and local authorities a degree of participation without enough to keep them on board. But they had no real power. They never interfered with the process. They could have never really sought to interfere with the process (…) And although Compulsory Purchase had a public hearing the Olympics were a trump card. No one was going to say: “sorry you can’t buy that plot of old factory to hold the Olympics, sorry mate.” (Interview on 15/6/2015)

In particular, the public inquiry into the Olympic Park Compulsory Purchase Order left the LDA proposals virtually untouched. In his report, the inspector recommends “that the Compulsory Purchase Order be confirmed, with modifications, subject to the fulfilment of certain pre-conditions” (Rose, 2006, p. 01). Whereas those modifications had been requested by the LDA, the said pre-conditions were solely restricted to guaranteeing the relocation of Gipsies and Travellers and bus depots before the Order was confirmed. In practical terms, it meant that the hundreds of objections and public hearings had been ignored. And even if the inspector’s recommendations had favored some objectors, they could have still been dismissed by the Secretary of State. Thus, the legacy promises, the delegitimation, and the tokenistic consultation complement each other, forming a hegemonic triad of forefront tactics designed to prevent and combat dissent. The prediction of benefits as a result of the Olympic Park construction was crucial to overrule any drawbacks. The depiction of the site as a damaged and problematic part of the city strengthened the legacy appeal via the promotion of regeneration proposals. And the consultation proceedings absorbed and nullified anyone aiming to challenge that rationale. Once opposition groups were led to recognize the institutional spaces designed for their consultation as something worth using and disputing, they were automatically worn out as their efforts produced no significant result.

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Supporting Tactics: Reinforcing Consensus Manufacturing

In addition to the forefront tactics, the redevelopment coalition utilized supporting tactics that further amplified their message. These tactics were primarily hegemonic in nature and aimed to intensify the original messages through their dissemination via publicity, technical documents, and a lack of transparency. This brief exploration will focus solely on their connections with the leading tactics.

2.2.1 Technical Documents One of the most significant supporting tactics was the use of technical documents, which are official documents created with the assistance of experts. The positive assessment of the Olympic Park Project by these experts supposedly provided an objective and impartial endorsement of the redevelopment coalition’s plans. There were several technical documents used, including the 2002 Arup report, the 2003 London bid files, London Assembly reports, parliamentary reports, the 2004 and 2007 Olympic Park planning applications, the 2006 Olympic Park CPO inquiry report and its supporting files, the Olympic Park masterplan and its revisions, the 2007 Legacy Masterplan Framework and its supporting documents, and the 2009 Strategic Regeneration Framework and its 2011 revision. The quantity, variety, and dates of publication suggest that a constant flow of technical documents was seen as a relevant option to build the legitimacy of the Games and the Olympic Park construction. This is supported by the frequent use of the words “report” (65th) and “plans” (93rd) throughout the analyzed data, as well as the testimonies of interviewees. Even those responsible for creating such documents acknowledge their role in the promotion of consent for the project among civil society. Talking about the Legacy Masterplan Framework, one DCLG senior civil servant reveals the motives behind its creation:

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The LMF was drawn up by the ODA, theoretically, to steer what was going to happen afterwards. As if you could predict what was going to happen afterwards... So you have these all wonderful computer graphics of kids running around on bicycles, swimming in these polluted rivers, one of the dirtiest rivers in the country! And there are lots of houses. Housing, housing, housing! Local people want housing … But I think they believed it. The ODA believed it. But it served a very useful political purpose. It gave people something to think about. (Interview on 15/6/ 2015)

This rationale was not solely targeting the local communities, but also other redevelopment coalition partners in the pre-bid period such as the IOC, as suggested by one LDA manager: I was directly involved in the environmental assessment of the original 2004 planning permission for the Olympic Park and the legacy park. So this was in advance of the games, advance of knowing whether we won the games. And that particular set of permissions, which I am very glad and heartened to reference, was used in the book which is called the candidature file that London officially submitted to the IOC. So I think the only time a candidate city submitted a candidacy with a consent, a planning permission, and this was fully environmentally assessed. (Interview on 22/6/2015)

In summary, the use of technical documents was an important supporting tactic for the redevelopment coalition, as it provided a sense of legitimacy to the Olympic Park Project and helped to manufacture consent. Despite their alleged technical nature, these documents were openly biased towards promoting positive outcomes and downplaying or offsetting any negative effects.

2.2.2 Publicity and Propaganda Consent-seekers also utilized a secondary tactic of publicity and propaganda to garner support for the Olympic Park Project. Prior to the site’s vacating in mid-2007, this tactic involved selectively distributing supportive publicity material and launching public campaigns through

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mainstream media to reassure civil society of the project’s seamless planning. High-ranking politicians like Prime Minister Tony Blair and London Mayor Ken Livingstone leveraged their media access to disseminate messages opposing dissenters. Blair and Livingstone together published four advocacy articles in the Guardian, between 2003 and 2007 (Blair, 2007; Livingstone, 2003, 2006, 2007). After land clearance, a considerable amount of propaganda was released. The ODA and LOCOG published temporary themed publications like “Your Park” and “Parklife”, targeted at communities living around the site and workers constructing the Olympic Park (ODA, 2007; ODA, 2009). In total, around 200 different publications of this type were printed and distributed all over London during the pre-Games period. Also, The Changing Places Programme, another PR initiative, focused on local primary school pupils to promote the benefits provided by the new infrastructure among the communities living around the cleared site (Interview on 12/6/2015). All propaganda aimed to emphasize the changes brought by the Olympic Park development, named after “legacy” and “regeneration”, and delegitimize previous facilities and users. The communications program created selective graphic comparisons between old photographs and idealized architectural images of the future site, as seen in the figure below. This was achieved by utilizing the services of the PR firm London Communications Agency, which played a crucial role in completing the physical removal and symbolic erasure of previous users and inhabitants from a newly reinvented local history. None of the leaflets or booklets acknowledged the existence of Gypsies and Travellers families, the Clays Lane estate, or the nature reserves, which is a significant oversight (Figs. 2.8 and 2.9).

2.2.3 Lack of Transparency Despite tokenistic attempts at consultation with those affected by the Olympic Park, information provision was often restricted and meticulously controlled. Public relations efforts were designed to selectively release information while keeping certain details secret, leading to deliberate opacity in the actions of the redevelopment coalition.

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Fig. 2.8 “Park life” Booklet (ODA, 2009, January, p. 5)

Fig. 2.9 “Park life” Booklet (ODA, 2009, January, p. 5)

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This lack of transparency was felt and acknowledged by previous users of the Olympic Park site in three distinct ways. Firstly, there was strict control over what was published in the local and national press, which aimed to omit any unwanted information related to local conflicts from the public eye. For example, a meeting with representatives from the LDA and plot holders of the Manor Garden allotments was boycotted as the representatives feared uncontrolled press attendance, as mentioned by one local leader: we were supposed to have a meeting with them, which was all the plotholders with the representatives from the LDA. And they didn’t turn up. Because they thought we would have press there. So they just boycotted it. Because they’ve controlled all the press access. So they were very controlling of any press. If the press were there it would be their press officer who would then talk to them and brief them about what they were going to say. (Interview on 12/6/2015)

Secondly, those directly impacted by the project were denied information, rendering the decision-makers unaccountable. The strategy was to remain distant and difficult to reach, making it challenging to get any meaningful information, as attested by the testimony of one local business owner who voiced his frustrations saying: “We desperately tried to get meetings. The problem is that the authorities refused to meet with us” (Interview on 2/6/2015). Thirdly, when contacts and meetings were arranged, they tended to produce little meaningful information, creating confusion among local communities about what was happening and what their limits of action were. A representative of the Travellers and Gipsies communities mentions the disorientation resulting from such fuzziness: “it felt like a continual moving, like shifting the ground underneath you. So the whole thing moved so fast that you didn’t know what they were doing” (Interview on 10/6/2015). Some residents felt betrayed by the redevelopment coalition, leading to a lack of trust, as made clear by one Clays Lane leader:

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the masterplanner actually revealed that a plan for a non-Olympic scenario was only commissioned in the summer of 2004. Six months after they told us the plan already existed. And then he said "actually, we did abandon this plan as being unviable". So it never actually existed. You see, the problem here is you are looking at systematic lying. Systematic. They know perfectly well they are lying. (Interview on 27/5/2015)

Although the lack of transparency was an issue for several groups, it was relatively circumscribed to specific situations, often employed in conjunction with tokenistic consultation tactics. Together, they formed an information filter operated by the PR program that mainly resulted in the publication of marginal information while denying key data that could inform and trigger further opposition from affected groups.

2.3

Rearguard Tactics: The Coercive Last Resort

Apart from the major tactics used by the redevelopment coalition, there were several minor ones that played a rearguard role. These tactics acted as reserves of power and were used in special circumstances. They were typically coercive in nature and included judicial actions, compensation payments, legislative actions, opposition fragmentation and intimidation, and the restricted concession of participation to groups affected by the Olympic Park Project.

2.3.1 Compensation and Judicial Actions The payment of compensation and the use of judicial courts were encapsulated in the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO), which was the foundation of the entire land clearance process. Since the English compulsory purchase legislation severely restricts the possibility of contesting the CPO, the redevelopment coalition did not need to substantially use its economic and judicial bargaining powers after the CPO was issued.

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These constraints created a sense of invincibility among members of the redevelopment coalition and disbelief among those who intended to challenge the Olympic Park Project. As stated by one LOCOG director: there was always, at a much lower level, stakeholders or parties out there who have tried to derail the process, during the CPO process for the acquisition of the park. There were certain parties who held out and negotiated to the end and slowed down progress in the park and made it more difficult to plan, but nothing of any significance that could create us real problems. (Interview on 6/7/2015)

People affected by the project spoke about the unfairness of the CPO process and their helplessness in the face of it. The situation is portrayed with desolation by one business leader, who said that “the law of compulsory purchase is a very unfair law. So there is no point in working within the law, because the outcome, even if you succeeded, would not be a good outcome” (Interview on 2/6/2015). The redevelopment coalition considered the use of judicial actions and higher compensations as a last resort if the challenges escalated to a significant level. However, these tactics were rarely used since forefront tactics such as tokenistic consultation and delegitimation were mostly effective. The compulsory purchase legislation in favor of government agencies, combined with the effectiveness of forefront tactics, largely restricted the prospects of action for those opposing the Olympic Park development. The imbalance caused by the legislation meant that the dispute was already won in the eyes of the redevelopment coalition before it began.

2.3.2 Legislative Action Legislative action was a crucial rearguard tactic, with the 2006 Olympic Act being its most significant example. Although this act was passed after the land clearance process had already begun, it concentrated planning powers in a new organization, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). According to the act, the ODA’s role was to “apply for, or undertake work in connection with applications for, planning permission” (OPSI, 2006,

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p. 03). Additionally, the act allowed the ODA to act as a local planning authority in exceptional circumstances. In practice, this legislation further restricted opportunities for contestation by making the ODA responsible for both elaborating and judging Olympic Park planning applications. As a result, the ODA submitted and decided upon a second Olympic Park planning permission in 2007– 2008, making the consultation process even more shielded from external influence than the CPO inquiry. The ODA also temporarily took over some planning powers from the local elected authorities, including Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, and Waltham Forest councils, thus promoting centralization and unaccountability. A senior LDA and ODA director explained the rationale behind the legislation and its functions, stating that town planning was seen as a risk that needed to be mitigated. Therefore, a new planning authority was created through the Olympic Act, which established a single planning authority over the park, while the local authorities retained their powers in other areas (Interview on 22/6/2015). The Olympic Act was a law of exception that temporarily overruled local authorities to reduce the possibilities of stakeholder participation in planning decisions. Such participation, which had been guaranteed by established planning laws, was perceived as a risk to the Olympic business because it could create room for oppositional challenges. Only a parliamentary act could prevent this and secure the stability demanded by the International Olympic Committee and the central government.

2.3.3 Opposition Fragmentation Fragmentation was a commonly used tactic by authorities to undermine resistance groups instead of resorting to judicial action. The authorities approached local communities individually using various forms of written communication and meetings from the pre-bid stage. As a result, relationships became more personalized, leading to a fragmented community (Interviews on 27/5/2015 and 10/6/2015). Different processes resulted from this customized approach, and their outcomes largely depended on the internal connections and political

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clout of each group and individual, which were generally weak (Davis, 2012; Pohlisch, 2016). Furthermore, this individualized approach by government agencies created animosity among those removed and between them and those living in the nearby areas where they were relocated. For instance, by promising two conflicting forms of compensation to allotments plotholders and cyclists, the LDA/ODA created a zero-sum situation between them and made it more difficult for the two groups to unite (Williams, 2007). Other conflicting relocation issues also caused grievances between both groups and Marsh Lane Fields users, who lived on the relocation site (Games Monitor, 2007c). Gypsies and travelers also faced similar problems as their relocation plans were not welcomed by their new neighbors (Games monitor, 2007d). These conflicts were a result of the divide-and-rule approach taken by authorities to deal with people separately, as acknowledged by a London Gypsy and Traveller Unit (LGTU) director, who said that: “that was quite effective from the LDA’s point of view. Because they didn’t want people coming together. So if they could kind of deal with people separately… then that was a bit of a divide and rule approach” (Interview on 10/6/ 2015).

2.3.4 Intimidation Intimidation was a rearguard tactic employed to expedite the removal of local communities from the Olympic Park site, allowing for land clearance before the deadline. Although it was not a decisive factor, it was used primarily between the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) approval and the actual evacuation of the area, which occurred in the first three quarters of 2007. Examples of this tactic included pressuring residents to accept compensation offers, demolishing buildings next to the Clays Lane travelers site such as the UEL student Village and Clays Lane estate, and partially and episodically destroying the allotments before relocation, which was one of the last groups to leave the site. One Clays Lane resident described the psychological pressure put on residents by the London Development Agency (LDA) and Olympic

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Delivery Authority (ODA) to force a quick evacuation, stating that people were being threatened with a reduction in compensation if they did not move. This created a sense of fear and anxiety among residents, leading some to leave voluntarily despite feeling depressed and overwhelmed (Interview on 27/5/2015). The demolition of vacated buildings caused disturbances for the communities still living on the site, particularly for the traveler’s families who suffered from serious health problems due to the noise and pollution caused by the demolition. This was highlighted by a Clays Lane estate resident in a letter written to the ODA (Games Monitor, 2007a, 2007b). The intimidation tactics used against the Manor Garden allotments community included driving bulldozers at night through the plots and demolishing them, even though they were not supposed to be on the plots at that point. These actions created a sense of fear and apprehension among community members (Interview on 12/6/2015). Overall, while threats and intimidation were considerably used, their frequency was limited to the last few months before the local communities were entirely evicted. It did not change the course of action that had already been set previously by other means, but it did accelerate the process.

2.3.5 Conceded Participation The concession of participation was a tactic used by leading authorities to allow minor influence from civil society groups on policy issues, which served to increase the legitimacy of Olympic projects. However, it was a response to contested plans, and therefore restricted to specific moments, and limited to non-crucial components of policies and programs. In 2004, the London Citizens, one of the biggest NGOs in the UK, demanded training and payment of living wages 11 to local people employed by the Olympics, and the delivery of low-cost homes through community land trust schemes. This demand was made in exchange for their public support of the bid (Wills, 2009). The deal was sealed with

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an open letter from the Mayor of London, the LDA, and the bid team representative welcoming the NGO’s demands (Interview on 8/6/2015). The objective was to diminish potential contestation and increase the legitimacy of the Olympic Park Project and the Olympics. It aimed to show LDA’s and LOCOG’s future coalition partners, particularly the IOC, that the projects were backed by civil society, and that the political risks to their venture would be minimal. This is evidenced by the bid files, which emphasize the “political and public support from every sector of society” to the Olympic project, since “opinion leaders from politics, business, the community, religion, trade unions and environmental and voluntary groups have declared their enthusiasm for hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London in 2012” and “no important political or public figures oppose the London 2012 bid” (BOA, 2004, Vol. 01, pp. 37–38). The testimony of the London Citizens director also corroborates this rationale. According to him, “We said: ‘you do that and we will welcome the IOC to London. We will wave flags, we will clap and we will not disrupt anything’” (Interview on 8/6/2015). However, despite their full support for the Games, London Citizens did not have all their demands met. “Once they won, they delivered on all of these commitments…apart from housing (…)What we feared that would happen is happening, which is this cleaned up land paid for by us is now selling at an amazing rate”, said the NGO’s director (Interview on 8/6/2015). Such a redevelopment coalition’s attitude was very much in line with the idea of only conceding unessential elements that couldn’t substantially threaten the feasibility of the project—i.e., the payment of living wages and the provision of training—while not giving away one of its key features, that is, the optimization of the land’s exchange value for a later commercialization of new developments in the area, which could have been thwarted if demands for low-cost social housing were prioritized. A similar mechanism was utilized by central government agents towards local authorities. One DCLG senior official said that during the bid stage the borough’s representatives “felt that they had some influence, even if they actually hadn’t any. Planners think that by reading a plan and saying ‘yes’ they had an involvement” (15/6/2015). Indeed, this

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feeling of participation was expressed by some local representatives. One Hackney councilor exulted over what he saw as the borough’s role in the Olympic Park planning: “We’re the ones setting the agenda. It was coming up from the bottom. So someone has an idea at the top. (…) You need someone coming up with an idea from the bottom at the same time. And that’s what we will do” (Interview on 9/9/2015).

2.4

Conclusion

The data shows that the London redevelopment coalition utilized a sophisticated domination strategy to ensure the success of its plans. While some coercive tactics were employed, consensus-seeking actions played a more prominent role in this strategy. Whereas the former tended to play a rearguard role, the latter acted as the forefront offensive against challenges to the Olympic Park Project, mostly represented by legacy promises, delegitimation, and tokenistic consultation tactics. The strategy proved highly effective, enabling a large-scale redevelopment project to be implemented without major setbacks, despite opposition. However, this approach led to the destruction of communities comprising hundreds of people from disadvantaged backgrounds to make way for commercial real estate developments. At least 25 enterprises, employing 65 people, were forced to close, and local businesses moved to the eastern outskirts of London. Students were moved out of their village, and travelers’ communities were scattered and relocated to different sites in Hackney. Allotmenteers were permanently moved, and the Clays Lane Estate community was dispersed all over London (Pohlisch, 2016; Bernstock, 2014; Watt, 2013). This destruction is much in line with what David Harvey has called accumulation by dispossession (Harvey, 2008), where capitalist interests are preserved via the expropriation of the poor. This fact was covered up by the dissemination of values and beliefs based on the supposed economic and urban development benefits that the Olympics would bring, as symbolized by the widespread terms legacy and regeneration. The priority given to the dissemination of values and beliefs through civil society institutions reflects the hegemonic character of the tactics

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employed. The support of London Citizens, an NGO mostly constituted of educational, labor, religious, and health bodies based in East London, is one such example. The Changing Places Programme, focused on primary school pupils to disseminate the legacy and regeneration ideals within the local communities around the Olympic Park site, is another. This was all part of a wider public relations program based on the utilization of the national and local press and abundant publicity material, emphasizing the importance of consent-seeking tactics. Opposition was suppressed by confining potential conflicts within established institutional frameworks. While detractors were allowed to challenge hegemonic narratives in public hearings and other consultation procedures, these challenges were only allowed through extremely controlled means. For example, the compulsory purchase order inquiry had no decision-making powers and the Olympic Park planning permission allowed formal objections by the public but was both requested and given by the same organization. This “agreement to disagree” was based on “obedience” to the requirement of avoiding protests, civil disobedience, and other possible disruptions. Therefore, material contradictions were temporarily resolved mostly by ideological means, while coercion remained in the shadows most of the time. The redevelopment coalition’s success in implementing the Olympic Park Project resulted in significant negative implications for those living in the area.

Notes 1. In the 1970s, significant changes began in London’s East End, initiating revitalization efforts due to deindustrialization, planning decentralization, and technological advancements. The Port of London Authority downsized and moved docks from the East End to Tilbury between 1968 and 1981, deactivating the world’s largest enclosed docks and leading to job losses and population decline (Page, 1987; Sorensen, 2016). Revitalization projects started in the early 1980s. In 1981, the London Docklands Urban

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Development Area was established, along with the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC). The LDDC aimed to transform the East End into a financial district, investing in infrastructure and triggering private investment. This led to controversial changes, including the Canary Wharf initiative, with the LDDC criticized for lack of transparency and inclusivity. The LDDC eventually adopted more inclusive rhetoric but faced challenges, including an economic crisis and limited social investment. The LDDC closed in 1998. The focus then shifted to the Thames Gateway in the 2000s, a wider sub-region that stretches forty miles on the margins of the River Thames from the Isle of Dogs to the coast. In 2004, the London Thames Gateway Urban Development Corporation (LTGUDC) took over part of the revitalization project, building on a more inclusive and ambitious agenda than that proposed in the last LDDC years (Brownill, 1999, 2010). The Olympic Park project and its regeneration proposals were thought as part of those renewed efforts. 2. Anticipated transportation enhancements encompassed the extension of both the metro Jubilee Line and the Docklands Light Railway. Additionally, the inauguration of the Stratford International Station was on the horizon, poised to establish a direct link between Stratford and continental Europe via the highspeed Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Concurrently, a substantial and transformative undertaking known as Stratford City was underway. Originally conceived to deliver a comprehensive array of benefits, the project intended to yield over 30,000 employment opportunities by constructing 4850 new residences, a noteworthy 30% of which were designated as “affordable”. This ambitious endeavor also encompassed the creation of 465,000 square meters of office space, 150,500 square meters dedicated to retail within a sprawling shopping complex, and the potential provision of up to 2000 hotel rooms (Rushton, 2003; Loney, 2004). Notably, the original design of these endeavors mitigated the necessity for significant displacements in Stratford, as the new infrastructure was strategically planned for development within decommissioned

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3. 4.

5.

6.

7.

railway lands. With the Olympic bid, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Stratford City and Olympic Park projects merged. In 2004, the project budget was equivalent to approximately USD 3.3 billion. According to government guidelines, affordable housing means “Social rented, affordable rented and intermediate housing, provided to eligible households whose needs are not met by the market”. Social rented housing is defined as “owned by local authorities and private registered providers” (…) “for which guideline target rents are determined through the national rent regime”. Affordable Rent “is subject to rent controls that require a rent of no more than 80 per cent of the local market rent (including service charges, where applicable)”. And Intermediate housing is defined as “homes for sale and rent provided at a cost above social rent, but below market levels” (DCLG, 2012).This definition of affordable housing is particulaly controversial, as it is mostly based on housing market values rather than on people’s income (Bernstock, 2014). Later, in 2012, both the ODA and OPLC were replaced by the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), which is the mayoral development corporation currently responsible for managing the so-called “legacy”. Opposition groups were considerably fragmented (Pohlisch, 2016) and did not manage to form an actual coalition. That is why they are here characterized as anti-eviction alliances. The NVivo software was used to implement the coding process and systematize the results, producing an overview of strategic trends called metadata analysis. The latter was carried out in two moments. First, in conjunction the codes referenced to each fragment of each interview generated a set of coded references, which revealed a hierarchy of categories based on their different recurrences. The more a category is coded in a case study, the higher it gets in the case tactical hierarchy. The second moment of the metadata analysis consisted of a word frequency count for the institutional documents and media files associated with each case. This revealed a list of the 150 most frequent utterances, which

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8.

9.

10.

11.

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was contrasted with the tactical hierarchy previously generated by the coding of interviews. Generally speaking, the meaning of some of the most cited words in institutional documents and media files tended to converge with the more prominent coded categories of the interviews. Lastly, the qualitative analysis of the interviews, institutional documents and media files functioned as another checking procedure and complemented the metadata analysis results. Forefront tactic is any tactic with more than 10% of the total coding references, supporting tactic is any tactic with a representation between more than 5% and 10% of the total coding references and rearguard tactic is any tactic with 5% or less of the total coding references. For a given category to be considered as a forefront tactic it was also necessary to be seen by interviewees as a prominent action in the land clearance attempts, with a similar logic being applied to the verification of the other hierarchical levels of supporting and rearguard tactics. For more information, check the appendix and Omena, 2017. A CPO is a juridical instrument in English legislation ensuring special land acquisition powers to government agencies. Despite its compulsory character, it formally allows people living in lands targeted by CPOs to contest the order. An inspector, appointed by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, coordinates such a process and is responsible to present a report containing conclusions and recommendations to the Secretary of State, who in his turn is responsible to decide about the validity of the CPO and the inspector’s recommendations. Regeneration is usually associated with the idea of gentrification, which was first associated with the 1960s expulsion of ethnic minorities from the London West End to benefit middle-class newcomers (Glass, 1964). According to the Living Wage Foundation, “the Living Wage is a voluntary higher rate of base pay. It provides a benchmark for responsible employers who choose to pay their employees a rate that meets the basic cost of living in the UK and London”. For more information, visit https://www.livingwage.org.uk/.

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References ARUP (in association with: Insignia Richard Ellis). (2002). London Olympics 2012, costs and benefits. Bernstock, P. (2014). Olympic housing: A critical review of London 2012’s legacy (Farnham: Ashgate). Blair, T. (2007). “The greenest games ever”. The Guardian, 23 January 2007. BOA. (2004). London Olympic bid: Candidature file. Brownill, S. (1999). “Turning the East end into the West end: The lessons and legacies of the London Doculands corporation”, in: Imrie, R. and Thomas, H. (eds.) British urban policy, an evaluation of urban development corporations. London: Sage, 43–63. Brownill, S. (2010). “London Docklands revisited: The dynamics of waterfront development”, in: Desfor, G. and Laidley, J. (eds.) Transforming urban waterfronts. New York: Routledge, 121–142. COHRE. (2007). Fair play for housing rights: mega-events, Olympic Games and housing rights. Geneva: COHRE Special Report. Davis, J. (2012). Urbanising the event: How past processes, present politics and future plans shape London’s Olympic legacy. PhD thesis. London School of Economics and Political Science, London. DCLG. (2012). National planning policy framework. Available at https:// www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/ 6077/2116950.pdf Evans, L. (2012). “2012 Olympics latest bill: How does it breakdown?” The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/ jun/13/olympics-2012-government-data Games Monitor. (2007a). “CBHA refusal to supply consistent heating and hot water”. Games monitor public discussion web group. Available at: https:// uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/gamesmonitor/conversations/topics/923 Games Monitor. (2007b). “Asbestos and other matters”. Games monitor public discussion web group. Available at: https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/gro ups/gamesmonitor/conversations/topics/995 Games Monitor. (2007c). “Allotment demolition day March & Flopsy bunnies”. Available at: https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/gamesmoni tor/conversations/messages/1175

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Games Monitor. (2007d). “My traveller site planning comments”. Available at: https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/gamesmonitor/conversat ions/messages/317 Glass, R. (1964). London: Aspects of Change. London: Centre for Urban Studies and MacGibbon and Kee. Harvey, D. (2008). The right to the city. New Left Review, 53, 23–40. Horne, J. and Whannel, G. (2016). Understanding the olympics. London: Routledge IOC. (2003). Olympic charter. Geneva: IOC. LBH. (2011). Stratford metropolitan masterplan supporting document: Socioeconomic impacts paper. LDA. (2004). Design statement precinct and legacy context document for the Lower Lea Valley, Olympic and legacy planning applications. London: London Development Agency. Livingstone, K. (2003). “We must go for gold with London’s Olympic bid”. The Guardian, 12th January 2003. Livingstone, K. (2006). “Games on!”. The Guardian, 29th November 2006. Livingstone, K. (2007). “We must defeat these professional 2012 cynics”. The Guardian, 9th March 2007. Loney, N. (2004). Go-ahead for Stratford city project. Available at http://www. placemakingresource.com/article/453129/go-ahead-stratford-city-project ODA. (2007). Park life: Olympic park newspaper. ODA. (2008a). Legacy master framework consultation. London: ODA. ODA. (2008b). 08/90151/FULODA - (document 54) Planning, design and access statement planning application for outer perimeter fence. Available at: http://planning.london2012.com/upload/publicaccessODAlive/ Reduced%20File%20Size%20D%20OPF%20Planning%20Statement% 20(7969).pdf ODA. (2009). Park life: Olympic park newspaper, January. ODA. (2010). From brown to green. Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London in 2012 Omena, E. (2017). Exerting state power in core and semi-peripheral countries: land clearance and domination strategies in London, Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg. Thesis at Oxford Brookes University. OPSI. (2006). London Olympic games and paralympic games act 2006. Retrieved 30th October from http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/200 60012.htm Page, S. (1987). The London docklands: redevelopment schemes in the 1980s. Geography: The Journal of the Geographical Association, 72 (1), 59–63.

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Pohlisch, O. (2016). Edgelands and London 2012. The London Olympics and urban development: The mega-event city, 87, 217 Raco, M. and Tunney, E. (2010). Visibilities and invisibilities in urban development: Small business communities and the London Olympics 2012. Urban Studies, 47 (10), 2069–91. Raco, M. (2012). The privatisation of urban development and the London Olympics 2012. City 16 (4), 452–460. Rose, D.M.H. (2006). London development agency (Lower lea valley, Olympic and legacy) CPO 2005, Inspectors Report. London: Department of Trade and Industry Compulsory Purchase Order, Public Inquiry Rushton, K. (2003). £3bn Stratford City plan submitted. Property Week Sorensen, E. (2016). 1 Remaking the east. The London Olympics and urban development: The mega-event city. Watt, P. (2013). “It’s not for us.” City 17 (1), 99–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13604813.2012.754190. Williams, R. (2007). “Stick with Curbishley and let him take out the rubbish”. The Guardian, 6th March 2007. Wills, J. (2009). Identity-making for action: The example of London citizens. Theorizing identities and Social Action. M. Wetherell.

3 The Hegemonic Weakness of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Project

The Rio de Janeiro Olympics was spread across four major areas: the Barra da Tijuca hub, the Maracanã/City Center hub, the Deodoro hub, and the Copacabana hub. The Barra da Tijuca hub, located at the burgeoning city’s West Zone, received R$21 billion of the total event budget of R$39 billion,1 including the construction of an Olympic Park, an Olympic Village, and several major transportation projects. The Maracanã/City Center hub had the second-largest share, with R$ 10 billion invested in the revitalization of the port area and its connection to the city’s airport (TCU, 2016). The Olympic Park was the core of the Barra da Tijuca hub, hosting 16 of all the 28 Olympic sports. The chosen location was an old car racing track owned by the Rio de Janeiro state government.2 The land was first transferred to the city mayor, who used a public–private partnership (PPP) to then donate part of the site to a consortium of three companies responsible for the construction of the park, namely the biggest local landowner Carvalho Hosken plus its partners Odebrecht The original version of this book has been revised: Captions of Figures 3.1 and 3.2 have been updated. The correction to this book is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_8 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023, corrected publication 2024 E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_3

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Fig. 3.1 Vila Autódromo and the car racing track—Aerial view, 2009 (Credit Luiz Claudio da Silva)

and Andrade Gutierrez. The consortium also received an additional payment in exchange for investing in the new Olympic buildings and had the support of other private institutions such as the Local Organising Committee for the Olympics (LOCOG), the National Olympic Committee (NOC), and planning consultants such as the AECOM company. There was a cooperative relationship between these public and private agents. With a common interest in the implementation of the Olympic Park Project, which was initially represented by the Olympic Park Masterplan (Fig. 3.1), they formed the Olympic Park redevelopment coalition (Guimarães, 2015). However, they were not the only actors involved in the project. The old car racing track employed 1500 people, many of whom lived nearby in the favela Vila Autódromo, which housed nearly 500 low-income families (Fig. 3.2). In the wake of the 2009 IOC’s choice for Rio de Janeiro as the 2016 host city, the then-mayor Eduardo Paes announced

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a list of 119 favelas to be destroyed, including Vila Autódromo, which would be relocated using the Minha Casa Minha Vida National housing program.3 The plan to relocate Vila Autódromo and destroy the car racing track generated opposition, represented by an anti-eviction coalition formed by Vila Autódromo residents, workers and users of the car racing track, local public defenders,4 housing social movements, NGOs, and local academics (Guimarães, 2015). This revived old conflicts between landowners and poor residents in Barra da Tijuca and amplified the forces on both sides.5 Mayor Paes had already led attempts to remove favelas in the area for the sake of beautification and real estate development in the 1990s when he was just a local representative of the municipality and the protegé of the thenMayor Cesar Maia. But this time, in 2009, as the newly elected mayor, he had increased powers. Also, Vila Autódromo residents had a stronger stance as they both possessed the right to occupy those lands conceded by the Rio de Janeiro state government in the mid-1990s6 and had greater experience in resisting evictions (Guimarães, 2015). On the eve of the Rio 2016 Games, the site had been completely rebuilt, despite the fact that twenty Vila Autódromo families were still living next door in revamped houses. How did that happen? This chapter analyzes the strategy used by the Olympic Park redevelopment coalition against the anti-eviction coalition during the land clearance process, based on the theoretical and methodological frameworks established in Chapter 1 and already operationalized in Chapter 2. The study analyzed 108 institutional documents, 622 media files, and 13 interviews conducted by the author, providing a detailed panorama of the tactical hierarchy, which is divided into forefront, supporting, and rearguard tactics, as shown below.7

3.1

Forefront Tactics: The Coercive Triad (Armored by Hegemony)

The strategy of the redevelopment coalition mostly prioritized the use of institutional and economic coercion, with lack of transparency, compensation schemes, and intimidation among the most frequent tactics.

Fig. 3.2 The Olympic Park Masterplan for 2016 (AECOM, 2011)

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However, ideological legitimation of such actions, based on discrediting the anti-eviction coalition, was also key.

3.1.1 Lack of Transparency Transparency was notably absent from the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Project, as indicated by the often-referenced opacity issues in institutional documents and media files. The words “public” (32nd), “access” (66th), “participation” (117th), and “data” (132nd) are among the 150 most cited overall. Furthermore, these issues were recognized by nearly every interviewee. Civil society groups affected by them emphasized the government’s opaque plans. Different actors involved in the project, including those leading government actions, also admitted that they used this tactic. This lack of transparency was not unique to the Olympic Park case; it was a broader problem. The opaqueness of mega-events projects and the need for greater transparency were central issues for organized civil society at the national level (ANCOP, 2011). Local groups also expressed their frustration with the secrecy surrounding the municipality’s actions. For instance, the Rio de Janeiro Popular Committee for the World Cup and the Olympics (PCWCO-RJ), in one of its manifestos, demanded the publication of all information related to the city projects, as guaranteed by the current legislation (CPCMO, 2013). However, the Popular Committee still faced difficulties in accessing crucial data. The lack of transparency even affected some of the redevelopment coalition actions. A research team hired by the LOCOG to develop an official report assessing Olympic impacts “had difficulties accessing primary data from projects and public authorities” (OGI Team, 2014, p. 37). Also, the Public Olympic Authority (POA), responsible for overseeing Olympic projects developed by every level of governance, had problems with information availability (Interview on 30/3/2015). The opaqueness of the Olympic Park Project was also a major issue for Vila Autódromo, which was threatened with evictions. One of its leaders explained how the community learned about the Olympic Park Project and its consequences through the media (Interview on 25/3/2015). The

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same attitude is reflected in the way residents experienced evictions. For example, a woman’s house was destroyed while she was at a doctor’s appointment (Salvesen, 2015). Another resident expressed uncertainty caused by such procedures to other community members: “Every time I go out to work and return I’m afraid that I’ll come back to find my house demolished. It’s what they’ve done with other residents, just bulldozed their home with all their belongings inside. We are trying to get on with our lives as normal, but we know that at any moment we could find ourselves homeless” (Roper, 2016). On top of that, the municipality created many contradictory justifications for the removal of Vila Autódromo, and this behavior was seen as a deliberate action to create difficulties for those not willing to move (Interviews on 31/3/2015, 6/4/2015, 14/4/2015, 9/6/2015). In the same vein, the Mayor was deliberately ambiguous about public decisions concerning evictions. This is openly confirmed by redevelopment coalition agents. According to one director of the Municipal Olympic Company, the mayor “first said that residents would stay. Then he said they would have to leave. And then he got to an intermediary position: ‘those who want to stay will stay and those who want to leave will leave’. I think he was just playing a political game, so that he could deal with the conflictive situation” (Interview on 31/3/2015). The results of this attitude were clear to many anti-eviction coalition members. The public defender working in the case for Vila Autódromo also sees it as a strategic approach with concrete consequences for her work: it was a very perverse strategy (…) the lack of clarity makes our job more difficult, as you don’t know if what they are saying is true or false. Even though it was clear to me that they planned a total removal, the mayor would say to the community that ‘those who wish to stay will stay’. And then it became harder to just say to them ‘don’t believe that, let’s mobilise, let’s try to act’. So it disarms your defence and it makes things a lot harder. (Interview on 6/4/2015)

Thus, the evidence suggests that the lack of transparency was a major tactical element that had important consequences. The most notable

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is the creation of a very uncertain environment for people outside the decision-making circles, thwarting resistance from residents who did not wish to move. Nevertheless, this is just a part of the set of forefront tactics. And, as such, it has to be understood in conjunction with others, particularly the compensation schemes provided by the municipality.

3.1.2 Compensation Payments Compensation schemes were key to the redevelopment coalition objectives, with the words “house” (39th), “minha casa minha vida” (81st), “millions” (103rd) and “deals” (126th) among the 150 most cited in institutional documents and media files. They were offered by the local government as an easy way out of the uncertain situation caused by the Olympic Park Project and its lack of transparency. While monetary compensation was readily available for every family wishing to move, the alternative payment of rental fees by the local government to those evicted was low and only paid for a limited time. However, even the monetary compensation only paid for the building value and not the full value of the property plus 40%, as originally promised in the Olympic bid (COB, 2009; OGI Team, 2014). Despite another alternative proposal of relocation to a Minha Casa Minha Vida social housing complex, located within 2 Km of the original site, residents were generally skeptical of the offers (Junqueira, 2009). In 2011, the municipality decided to scale up offers to favelas all over the city to accelerate land clearance processes (O Globo, 2011a). However, the Vila Autódromo’s poorest families were still not convinced by these promises, as they could count on their lease rights guaranteed in the early 1990s (Rubim, 2013). Deep-rooted bonds to their territory had been created due to the long history of resistance against previous eviction threats. The mayor repeatedly stated that nobody would have to involuntarily leave but quietly kept increasing compensation offers in order to change the residents’ minds. By January 2015, more than half of the people had left due to unprecedented compensation offers (Rehnstrom, 2015), with some families exceptionally being offered sums of up to R$2.3 million

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(Bowater, 2015). While some eventually gave up, they made it clear that it was not an easy decision. As put by one resident: “nobody wanted to leave. We were obliged to thanks to a sort of guerrilla warfare by the municipality, who began to impose a number of obstacles. Life has become too harsh, they suffocated us. So I decided to give up after I got a deal with what I see as a reasonable value” (Berta, 2015). However, 130 families remained on the site in June 2015 (Eisenhammer, 2015). For such cases, the imposed obstacles had to go way beyond financial means.

3.1.3 Intimidation The compensation offers made to the residents of Vila Autodromo cannot be seen separately from the several intimidation mechanisms used by the authorities. As the event approached, the use of such tactics became more frequent and took four forms: psychological pressure, hostile spatial changes, disruption of public services, and threats of police action. Psychological pressure was used during compensation negotiations, with the municipality employing bluffs to hasten the land clearance process (Interview on 6/4/2015). In some cases, residents were subjected to what has been described as a “policy of fear”, involving psychological harassment (AMPAVA, 2014; Interview on 25/3/2015). The authorities made threats such as promising smaller and worse apartments for those who remained (Interview on 6/4/2015), and by September 2014, stating that none of the community would be left (AMPAVA, 2016). Hostile spatial changes were implemented mostly in the form of rubble left behind after demolitions, which made the remaining residents’ lives almost unfeasible (Thomas-Davis, 2016; Interview on 14/4/ 2015). The authorities’ actions led to extreme cases, such as one resident whose house was half-demolished after his ex-wife accepted a compensation offer (Roper, 2015). Some living in second-floor houses had to live on top of smashed walls and debris (Rehnstrom, 2015). The elevation of the ground level around Vila Autodromo, which would drain rainwater

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to the favela site, was another means of forcing evictions, as acknowledged by planning experts and municipality representatives (Interviews on 31/3/2015) (Figs. 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5). Disruption of public services was also seen. According to Amnesty International, the remaining residents of Vila Autódromo were left “without access to basic services such as energy and water supply” (Anistia Internacional, 2016, p. 84). This claim is corroborated by the residents association, which said that the water pipes have been affected daily by the traffic of heavy lorries in the favela and that “public services have been disrupted, with less frequent rubbish collection and energy maintenance works. Public lighting has been periodically cut off, creating insecurity for families” (AMPAVA, 2016, p. 22). Threats of police action were also common. One resident complained that the community was “besieged by several institutions - construction entrepreneurs, the municipality, police power” (Interview on 25/ 3/2015). The movement of the favela dwellers was constantly controlled by security forces (Mendonça and Puff, 2015). One reporter who visited the site noted that “military policemen prohibited residents to cross a flyover (into the favela), making them use another access which is 2 km

Fig. 3.3 The slow demolition of Vila Autódromo, 2016 (Credit Luiz Claudio da Silva)

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Fig. 3.4 Rubble left on site after house demolition, 2016 (Credit Luiz Claudio da Silva)

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Fig. 3.5 Disfigured house, 2015 (Credit Luiz Claudio da Silva)

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away” (Grellet, 2013). A Public Defender gives another example, saying that “the municipal guard has been used a lot to prevent people coming inside with construction materials. Some even tell me that they have to ask for permission to enter with new home appliances” (Interview on 6/ 4/2015). The community’s resilience was severely affected by these different sorts of intimidation, and many had to leave due to the conditions. One evictee explained that what took her from her home “was definitely the demolition of my cousin’s house, next to mine. The structure of my house was shaken and I had to leave (…) I did not want to leave, but it became untenable” (Moraes and Turino, 2016). Others compared living in the community to “a kind of torture (…) The noise is constant. My baby can’t sleep and my house is falling apart” (Douglas, 2016). The Secretary for Housing openly acknowledged the many issues caused by the municipality’s actions. Commenting on the hostile spatial changes imposed on residents, he said that “indeed, those that are still resisting in Vila Autódromo live amid the rubble. I lament and even think that they should accept it (the compensation offer)” (Interview on 12/4/2015). Hence the local government not only used non-transparent procedures and increased compensation offers but also deliberately created several intimidating mechanisms to clear Vila Autódromo off the Olympic map. Whereas opaqueness and intimidation produced a very inhospitable scenario for those resisting, the compensation offers could quickly provide them with a solution. It is the complementary links between these elements coupled with the declared intentionality of government and corporate actions that characterize this set of coercive actions as a major part of forefront tactics. However, such a coercive apparatus could not have been sustained without a major source of legitimation.

3.1.4 Delegitimation Delegitimation of the favela Vila Autódromo was crucial for the general acceptance of the coercive tactics of intimidation, compensation schemes, and lack of transparency. This was achieved through

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the criminalization of the community based on the stigmas associated with favelas and, especially, the usage of the historical denial of basic public services to favela dwellers—such as housing, sewage treatment, water, and energy supply—to make any self-managed solution illegal and eventually susceptible to repressive practices. This situation resembles what some experts have called “grey spacing”, i.e., a method of control that places non-integrated communities between legality and illegality and thus aims to weaken them. These spaces are “neither integrated nor eliminated, forming pseudo-permanent margins of today’s urban regions, which exist partially outside the gaze of state authorities and city plans” (Yiftachel, 2009, p. 250). It has the effect of blurring the boundaries of what is accepted and rejected by planning authorities, making parts of the population face situations of no provision of basic services and constant threats of dispossession. But because Vila Autódromo had exceptional lease rights held by some residents and the status as an Area of Special Social Interest, making it a priority for upgrading programs, the state’s usual violent mode of operation was adapted to a “stealth mode”. This involved initially denying the existence of intimidation practices while using them to implement land clearance plans. The Mayor claimed that the vast majority of families were not compulsorily evicted but chose to leave as the advantages offered were highly attractive (Robertson and Reist, 2016). Instead of merely sending bulldozers to clear the land, as in other favelas, a weak façade of consent was created to cover malpractices. In this scenario, criminalization of the community was a trump card against any remaining resistance to land clearance plans, as openly cited in many institutional documents and interviews. The candidature files of the Rio 2016 Olympics, for instance, mentioned the “irregularity” of Vila Autódromo as one of the reasons for its destruction (COB, 2009, Vol. 01, p. 101). The community criminalization was also emphasized in the discourse of the representatives of both construction companies and the municipality, who considered Vila Autódromo an “illegal occupation” (Interview on 25/3/2015) and an “irregularly trespassed area” that needed to be “retaken” (Interview on 31/3/2015). In particular, the Secretary for Housing stressed that Vila Autódromo was indefensible as

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residents “do not pay for energy and have illegal supplies. They have never paid for water” (Interview on 12/4/2015, my emphasis). The local media frequently reproduced the criminalization discourse of the private sector and public authorities, ignoring the legal guarantees in favor of residents and discrediting those against removals as a “populist front” (O Globo, 2011b; Lima, 2012; Jornal do Comércio, 2012; Magalhães, 2015). One of the few exceptions where the community was able to respond to such claims was when the newspaper O Dia published an article, where the residents denied that they had sold their homes voluntarily or that they had received fair compensation. The president of the residents association then stated that “the community is not illegal. It is considered an Area of Special Social Interest (…). These are families that have tenure conceded by the government and that are being thrown into the streets with their children in the name of games that will only happen for 17 days” (Oliveira, 2016). Thus, despite the claims of “consensual eviction”, the delegitimation of Vila Autódromo through its criminalization legitimated the coercive means used against the families willing to resist, being the sole consentseeking component within the block of forefront tactics. Whereas the increasing compensation offers provided an easy way out for residents caught under an untenable situation caused by the lack of transparency and the intimidation mechanisms, the delegitimation process, backed by mainstream media, tried to make it all acceptable to the eyes of the public. Therefore, the evidence suggests that the forefront tactics to clear the Rio Olympic Park site and its surroundings were mostly coercive, though still with a crucial hegemonic element underpinning them.

3.2

Supporting Tactics: The Hegemonic Secondary Role

Legacy promises coupled with technical documents were prominent among the justifications for the land clearance associated with the Rio Olympic Park Project. But rather than assuming a decisive role, they were frequently instrumentalized as additional support for the main argument,

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which was essentially based on the criminalization of a working-class community and its self-made housing solution.

3.2.1 Legacy Promises Generally speaking, legacy promises were used to legitimize the Rio 2016 Olympics. These promises were focused on delivering benefits both to the city and the Olympic Park neighborhood. The city-level legacy promises included 27 different projects (Phillips, 2015). In the mayor’s words, these would be materialized in the form of “construction works for the population”, such as “BRT, VLT 8 ” and metro lines, revitalization of abandoned areas and sanitation projects” (Paes, 2015). The Olympic Park neighborhood received more specific promises focused on sports, transportation, and environmental issues (COB, 2009). The combination of environmental and transportation promises was particularly emphasized to undermine resistance against evictions in the case of Vila Autódromo. The 2008 Urban Legacy Plan first established the protection of the local lagoons as one of the environmental priorities for the Barra Olympic Cluster, which would be done through the “creation of a park at the margins of the Jacarepaguá Lagoon in an area adjacent to the Olympic park”, a description that fits very well in the characteristics of the Vila Autódromo site. Other priorities were “macrodrainage actions, reforestation, relocation of families living in risky areas and environmental education” (Prefeitura Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, 2008, pp. 62–63, my emphasis). Later, the construction companies used similar arguments. Talking about the projects developed as a result of the destruction of some houses in 2015, the president of the consortium of constructors mentioned as justification that they did “the recovery of the vegetation in that area”, including the creation of a “cradle of seedlings” (Interview on 25/3/2015). The logic of using legacy promises to legitimize the removal of Vila Autódromo is summarized in an Olympic Games impact study, funded by the municipality. According to this report:

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the intention is to transform the site where Vila Autódromo is located into a public park, connected through a flyover to a BRT bus stop (…) where the Transolímpica and the Transcarioca lines will meet. Also it is expected to recover the protection of the Jacarepaguá Lagoon and River Pavuninha shores. And one of the four legacy schools may be erected there as well. (OGI Team, 2014, p. 156)

Thus, environmental and transportation promises were particularly prominent in justifying the removal of Vila Autódromo, despite the general use of infrastructure Olympic legacies as a source of legitimation for other controversial urban development projects.

3.2.2 Technical Documents Several technical documents were created to support the construction of the Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro, including the 2008 Rio de Janeiro candidature files, the 2008 Urban Legacy Plan, and the 2011 Olympic Park Masterplan. However, the Masterplan was especially controversial as it contained more significant information about the future of Vila Autódromo and its surroundings. Despite initially planning to leave the majority of the favela in place for both the 2016 games and 2030 legacy modes, the construction companies responsible for the development opposed this decision. They planned to redevelop the western half of the park into upscale condominiums and viewed the favela as a threat to the value of their investment (Fig. 3.6). Carvalho Hosken’s stated intention was to transform the Olympic Park neighborhood into a “home to a ‘noble’ elite, cleared of poor communities, and ultimately destined as the centre of a ‘beautiful’ new Rio de Janeiro”. The company owner added that Vila Autódromo residents were “going to housing at their standard. They have to go” (Watts, 2015a), even though the Masterplan said the contrary. Likewise, one of the company’s directors argued that, regardless of AECOM’s plan, the removal of Vila Autódromo was part of an “agreed scope” with the mayor (Interview on 2/4/2015). The clashes between private interests and the Masterplan led to content changes, which were kept secret for most of the pre-games period

Fig. 3.6 The AECOM’s Masterplan for 2030, preserving most of Vila Autódromo on the top left corner (AECOM, 2011)

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due to a regulatory loophole (Magalhães, 2011; Mattos and Konchinski, 2016). The Masterplan resulted from a public design competition, but its later adaptation was in the hands of the same companies responsible for the development. According to one AECOM director, “we did a preliminary study and delivered it. Then it went to the hands of the consortium for them to develop an executive project” (Interview on 27/ 3/2015). This was confirmed by the consortium president, who said that “the preliminary study was a conceptual park project, which was a result of an international competition. AECOM won it. And then we developed this project, we transformed it into an executive project” (Interview on 25/3/2015). Despite being unpublished, the “executive project” was used as another justification for the eradication of Vila Autódromo. The Municipal Secretary for Housing, for example, said that “nobody is doing this just for the pleasure of relocating people. There is a need, there is an urbanistic planning behind this” (Interview on 12/4/2015). Also, the director of one of the construction companies highlighted the fact that “in the project that (site) is planned to be recovered ( …) the project says that it all has to be freed, sanitized, recovered” (Interview on 2/4/2015).

3.3

Rearguard Tactics: Escalating Coercion

As forefront and supporting tactics failed to deliver the complete achievement of land clearance goals and the run-up to the Olympics got closer to its end, rearguard tactics were decisively actuated. They were mostly coercive, taking the form of legislative and judicial actions, co-option, and police violence, with the exception of the sporadic use of more hegemonic tactics such as tokenistic consultation.

3.3.1 Tokenistic Consultation Tokenistic consultation was occasionally used as a tactical instrument to temporarily halt disadvantageous situations. Despite the tendency to conceal information and maintain undercover actions, the municipality

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agreed to meet with Vila Autódromo residents in February 2010, a few months after Rio de Janeiro was chosen as the 2016 Olympic host city, due to protests from some of the 119 favelas targeted for planned evictions (AMPAVA, 2016). The community presented its own alternative plan in August 2012, which called for upgrading instead of removal, and the mayor committed to studying the plan with the Municipal Secretariats for Planning and Housing (Otávio, 2012). However, there was never an official response. During the June 2013 national uprisings, when hundreds of thousands of people protested against general urban policy mismanagement, the mayor changed his approach towards civil society movements and arranged a meeting with Vila Autódromo. He expressed regret for his previous intransigent attitude and proposed to develop a project together, but some believed he was trying to isolate Vila Autódromo from the demonstrations and wait for their end before proceeding with the evictions (Interview on 31/3/2015). The municipality subsequently promoted consensual evictions through a public meeting, inviting only a minority willing to move, which led to discontentment from others. Eventually, anti-eviction campaigners and uninvited residents forced their entry into the event (RioOnWatch, 2013). In the view of one director of the Municipal Olympic Company, the controversial public hearing “helped to decompress the atmosphere” (Interview on 31/3/2015). Seen as a positive move, this resulted in the creation of a project called “Vizinhos Olímpicos”—Olympic Neighbors—in early 2014, an initiative mostly based on social media campaigns designed to promote a more inclusive image for the Olympic projects. However, this had a very restricted reach and was not widely known among Vila Autódromo residents and their allies (Interview on 25/3/2015). The consultation mis-en-scene was restricted to middle-class communities. Therefore, tokenistic consultation was used sporadically and provided a “cushion effect” against consecutive drawbacks, such as the negative reactions against the first evictions announcement in 2010, the Vila Autódromo’s offensive in 2012, and the 2013 demonstrations and their immediate aftermath. It signaled the municipality’s intention to develop a more effective public relations program to avoid further turbulence.

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3.3.2 Judicial Actions Judicial actions were considered as an option by local authorities since the bidding stage, but only if other means were insufficient to clear the land. The bid files stated that the “implementation phase” of land acquisition plans may be carried out through administrative measures or “if terms cannot be agreed between the city and the land owner, by a judicial process taking approximately 100 days” (COB, 2009, Vol. 2, p. 145). However, in practice, administrative measures focused on offering compensation while denying public information and intimidating residents to coerce them into accepting eviction deals. Judicial actions were only used as a last resort against residents who inflexibly resisted eviction. The use of judicial actions was associated with the criminalization of Vila Autódromo, as some residents were considered environmental law offenders for living at the margins of the lagoon. The argument of reestablishing order to recover protected areas was used to justify such actions (Seixas, 2013; Interviews on 6/4/2015 and 31/3/2015). However, public defenders countered these judicial orders and imposed preventive injunctions that halted the eviction process temporarily. Despite this, preventive injunctions were often fragile and could be overturned quickly (Interview on 14/4/2015). By March 2015, a judicial order had been issued to evict 90 families located at the Lagoon protection zone (Interview on 31/3/15). Despite the fragile character of preventive injunctions, the community’s advocacy was weakened for other reasons, as seen below.

3.3.3 Co-option Since 2013, members of the redevelopment coalition have emphasized the shift in approach by the public defenders’ office towards Vila Autódromo in favor of evictions. The Secretary for Housing saw this as recognition of the advantages offered by the municipality’s plans, stating that “even the public defenders’ office, which initially resisted, understood the project” (Interview on 12/4/2015). Similarly, a director of

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the Municipal Olympic Company was pleased that “even the general defender, who is the chief of the public defenders’ office, made a decision in favor of the municipality” (Interview on 31/3/2015). They were both referring to the fact that, nearly a year before the beginning of the removals, the public juridical agency responsible for advocating for the more vulnerable populations had contradictorily started advocating against them as well. This had devastating effects on Vila Autódromo resistance. One resident mentioned that “there were very difficult moments because the chief of the public defenders’ office and the municipality became allies. That was the most critical moment and that was when the community lost its orientation and began to fall apart” (Interview on 25/3/2015). However, this change was internally contested within the public defenders’ office, creating a division resulting in different approaches to the same case. One public defender who was unhappy with the new scenario explained the events that led to the conflict, saying that the general defender was elected by the public defenders and appointed by the governor. Since then, the internal sector responsible for land issues got more narrowly connected to the general defender and developed a more conciliatory approach... In the beginning of 2013, there is the indication of an agreement with the municipality in the form of a code of conduct, which admitted demolitions and evictions. Then an atmosphere of division and animosity was created. We were three independent defenders and three defenders appointed by the general defender. So we formed two groups: one against these agreements and the evictions and another backing them. And this was the case for the whole 2013–2014 period (…) Then we got a preventive injunction accepted in the tribunal, and consequentially the judge issued an order to stop the demolitions. It was due to this fact that the general defender intervened in our work here at the land sector (Interview on 6/4/2015).

The change in the public defenders’ office’s approach towards Vila Autódromo was hence a co-option move by the municipality, which established closer relationships with the general public defender and then used the change in approach as proof of the project’s legitimacy and

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weakened the community’s legal resistance. But although the use of cooption against the public defenders’ office was a relevant tactic, it still was not enough to complete the land clearance project.

3.3.4 Legislative Action The municipality had several options for removing residents occupying the lagoon margins, but for those living outside the environmental protection zones who were unwilling to accept compensation offers, legislative actions were the only recourse. This would involve changing the land status of the community via eminent domain, which allows the government to expropriate privately owned properties to meet urban planning objectives. This instrument was considered early on in the process (COB, 2009) but was only issued in March 2015, shortly before the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. The mayor originally insisted that a forcible removal would not happen, but he eventually signed three decrees calling for the urgent removal of the remaining 58 properties on a site he declared a public utility. This led to a compulsory purchase for those who were resisting eviction (Watts, 2015b). Interviewees confirmed that the late use of this instrument was due to the municipality’s intention to only activate it when strictly necessary (Interview on 12/4/2015 and 25/3/2015). The reason behind it was that the use of eminent domain would eventually lead to the use of force, which publicly deconstructed the impression of consensual eviction the mayor’s public relations had been trying to make.

3.3.5 Police Violence The eminent domain decree dealt a final blow to Vila Autódromo residents who were determined to stay on the site, but some still saw civil disobedience as their last chance to save their homes from destruction. On June 3rd, 2015, the mayor sent bulldozers and the municipal guard to enforce the new legislation he had issued, and they were met with protesters who formed a human chain around one of the houses. The

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confrontation turned physical, resulting in severe injuries, as reported by the media: At least six people were wounded in the face-off at Vila Autódromo, a favela community on the edge of the Olympic Park (...) Wednesday’s clashes were the first attempt to forcibly relocate them, following a decree in March by Mayor Eduardo Paes that called for their urgent removal so the Olympic host city can complete its preparations on time. (Watts, 2015c)

Although this was an isolated case of extreme and open coercion, the use of police violence explicitly contradicted the whole narrative of land clearance through consent promoted by the municipality. While tactically necessary, it was strategically reserved as a last resort. The Vila Autódromo case had been in the spotlight for years due to the long history of resistance and the attention paid by the international media to Olympic projects. Therefore, such an approach could not be repeated carelessly without significant losses. Police violence was apparently a final blow to some of the families determined to resist evictions at all costs, but it was also significantly damaging to the legitimacy of the Olympic Park Project and the related redevelopment coalition plans.

3.4

Conclusion

After careful analysis, it is clear that the strategy employed to clear land for the Olympic Park redevelopment in Rio de Janeiro was predominantly coercive, as supported by other authors (Faullhaber and Nacif, 2013; Guimarães, 2015). Despite the implementation of a few hegemonic tactics, such as delegitimization, most of the forefront and rearguard tactics used involved various levels of force, ranging from mild, such as the withholding of public information, to extreme coercion, such as police violence. A key element underlying this strategic arrangement was the recognition of Vila Autódromo as an urban grey area (Yiftachel, 2009), which negatively impacted its legitimacy. Originally developed without state

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sanction in an unwanted semi-rural area, Vila Autódromo’s illegal existence had been tolerated since the 1960s as a source of cheap labor for its rapidly developing surroundings. However, the land became more appealing to the real estate market in the 1990s, and since then, tolerance has given way to increasingly harsh attempts at removal in order to reclaim what was now seen as a previously neglected “asset”. As with most favelas, the informal occupation status made Vila Autódromo particularly vulnerable to such attempts. Despite achieving some legal recognition as a result of resistance against evictions, the delegitimation of Vila Autódromo through its criminalization for lacking formalized provision of basic services and being located in a part of a forgotten nature reserve is a crucial foundation of the predominantly coercive tactics deployed to clear the land. The original deliberate neglect of its population and land by the state is the same act that conveniently allows the state to later criminalize residents and reclaim the land, whenever and however it wishes, in a very discretionary manner. However, from the redevelopment coalition’s perspective, this strategy did not deliver entirely satisfactory results. Land clearance has not been completed, with around 20 families still occupying the site next to the Olympic Park. At the end of the day, the municipality was forced to accept the residents’ permanence by announcing an upgrading plan for Vila Autódromo, even though it was not the alternative plan originally suggested by them (Robertson, 2016). In fact, the upgrading consisted of the reconstruction of some demolished houses aimed at providing a public response to the widespread international repercussion of the case. This runs counter to the developer’s stated intentions to erase any working-class trace from the surroundings of their post-Olympics real estate investments made for “a noble elite”. On the one hand, the partial failure of this strategy can be attributed to the continuous efforts of the anti-eviction coalition. On the other hand, it is also the result of the hegemonic weakness of the local elites at the core of the redevelopment coalition, as evidenced by the recurrent need to use coercive means, some of them illegal, to impose the plans for the area. This has ultimately eroded the legitimacy of the project, fueling opposition and public scrutiny, especially by some international

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media conglomerates. The emphasis on the delegitimation of Vila Autódromo’s residents through their criminalization and its consequences had a negative impact, while the relegation of legacy promises and technical documents to a supporting secondary role and tokenistic consultation to a rearguard level undermined the possibility of enhancing a positive consent around the plans for the Olympic Park. The solution to such vulnerability was to activate the state’s repressive apparatus, including the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and legislative powers, or the actual use of force in the form of police actions. Although this remedy had an immediate relief effect, in the medium and long term, it also deepened the problem of legitimacy. This spiral eventually resulted in some permanent drawbacks. So, this time, accumulation by dispossession (Harvey, 2008) could not be hegemonically fully covered.

Notes 1. In 2016, the event budget was equivalent to approximately USD 11 billion. 2. The Olympics was not the Barra’s inaugural experience with hosting a sports mega-event. Preceding this occasion, new sporting facilities were erected on the edge of the car racing track in preparation for the 2007 Pan-American Games, including an aquatics center, a velodrome, and a versatile sports arena. These developments not only facilitated the event but also served as catalysts for the expansion of the local real estate sector. 3. The Brazilian Federal Government inaugurated the Minha Casa Minha Vida housing program in 2009. Although not specifically designed to rehouse mega-events evictees, the program became an important federal support to the Olympic planning as the number of evicted people rose. 4. Public Defenders Offices are public institutions responsible for guaranteeing universal access to lawyers and the justice system. They usually provide juridical support to the low-income population.

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5. This sort of conflict is a very common issue in the evolution of urban policies in Rio de Janeiro, which have been underpinned by class privilege supported by local governmental actions. Since the early twentieth century, state investments have predominantly favored the expansion of real estate directed towards the middle-class housing markets in affluent areas like the South Zone, extending southwest to Barra da Tijuca. This pattern has persisted, often at the expense of the more working-class North Zone and particularly the favelas. These informal settlements, arising due to the lack of substantial social housing policies, have repeatedly faced displacement due to regeneration initiatives that conveniently make way for further real estate growth in previously overlooked but subsequently prized locations. Notable instances include the clearance of “cortiços” from the city center in the 1900s and the displacement of favelas from the borders of affluent zones and central areas in the 1960s. An exception to this trend was observed in the 1980s and early 1990s, when policies for favela improvement, fair regulations, and participatory planning gained prominence. However, this brief era was followed by a clear shift towards prioritizing urban competitiveness, driven by city marketing and the customary exclusive real estate progress (Abreu, 1987; Perlman, 1976; Valladares, 1978; Ribeiro, 1997). 6. In 1993, the leader of Vila Autódromo was assassinated. Governor Brizola intervened in favour of Vila Autódromo—before being electorally defeated in the following year—by conceding land possession titles to several families and hence halting the relocation. Paes received a lot of media attention and his popularity as a “local sheriff ” quickly rose—a fact that helped him to be first elected as an alderman in 1996 and later become a member of the national parliament in 1999 (Guimarães, 2015). 7. For more information on the methodological procedures, check the Appendix and Omena (2017). 8. BRT is the acronym for Bus Rapid Transit. And VLT is the acronym for Light Railway Transit.

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Seixas, F. (2013). “Prefeitura prevê remoção de ‘área VIP’”. Folha de São Paulo, 19th May 2013. TCU. (2016). O TCU e as olimpíadas de 2016 – 4ª edição. Thomas-Davis, M. “The real cost of Brazil’s Olympic Games”. Al Jazeera, 1st March 2016. Available at http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/ 01/real-cost-brazilian-olympic-games-160125060759255.html Valladares, L. (1978). Passa-se uma casa, RJ, Zahar. Watts, J. (2015a). “The Rio property developer hoping for a $1bn Olympic legacy of his own”. The Guardian, 04th August 2015. Watts, J. (2015b). “Favela residents protest forced Olympic relocation by blocking Rio roadway”. The Guardian, 01st April 2015. Watts, J. (2015c). “Forced evictions in Rio favela for 2016 Olympics trigger violent clashes”. The Guardian, 03rd June 2015. Yiftachel, O. (2009). Ethnocracy: Land and identity politics in Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia, PA: Pennpress.

4 The Failure of the Ellis Park Development Project in Johannesburg

In the wake of previous revitalization schemes, the municipality of Johannesburg decided to build on the 2010 World Cup symbolic appeal to redevelop an area at the eastern fringe of the inner city, where the Ellis Park Stadium is located (Fig. 4.1). The Greater Ellis Park Development (GEPD) project aimed to transform six neighborhoods, including Doornfontein, New Doornfontein, Bertrams, Lorentzville, Judith Paarl’s, and Troyeville. Despite differences, these neighborhoods shared common demographic features, such as high levels of poverty, unemployment, a high proportion of immigrants, and overcrowded buildings, and were targeted for catalyzing urban interventions backed by a public budget of R 2 billion1 (Bénit-Gbaffou, 2009; Steinbrink et al., 2011). The GEPD project had two sets of actions. The first set of actions met the demands of the 2010 World Cup, including the addition of 10,000 new seats in the Ellis Park stadium, the refurbishment of two train stations, the reconfiguration of taxi ranks and roads, and the construction of new parking facilities. The second set of actions aimed to revitalize Bertrams, which included the redevelopment of 17 council houses and a block of squatted and abandoned properties called the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_4

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“priority block” (Figs. 4.2 and 4.3). Ultimately, this initial induced transformation would attract more private investment to Bertrams and later spill over the surrounding neighborhoods2 (Haferburg et al., 2014; JDA, 2009). The GEPD was labeled as a “special project”3 that had to consider the interests of exogenous powerful organizations, such as the Fédération Internationale de football association (FIFA) and its commercial partners, besides other public and private agencies. This created a heterogeneous redevelopment coalition captained by the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), which was controlled by the municipality. Some actors of this coalition were the Johannesburg Property Company (JPC), responsible for managing the city land assets; the Johannesburg Social Housing Corporation (JOSHCO), which was supposed to provide alternative accommodation for evicted people; the Johannesburg Transport Department, responsible for the new transport infrastructure; the Ellis Park World of Sports, which was the private concessionaire running the local sports facilities4 ; the South African national government, which was responsible for providing most of the public funds; and the two local ward councilors, who had an electoral mandate for managing occasional interactions between the municipality and constituents.5 However, people living in the targeted buildings were likely to resist, given the growing organized resistance against evictions in the inner city and beyond (Wilson, 2021). Some groups coalesced around a fragmented plethora of local civil society organizations, characterizing an anti-eviction coalition that tried to make local people’s voices heard. Three organizations stood out, including the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS)—an NGO based at the WitWatersrand University that provided legal assistance to those willing to counteract evictions; the Agisanang Community Development Forum (ACDF)—also known as Bertrams Community Development Forum, which was a group of grassroots activists organizing local residents for better housing conditions; and the Inner City Resources Centre (ICRC), which had similar objectives but acted within a broader geographical range (Haferburg et al., 2014; Bénit-Gbaffou, 2009). This chapter aims to analyze the domination strategy employed in the land clearance process of the GEPD. The primary goal is to comprehend

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Fig. 4.1 The Inner City of Johannesburg, with the Ellis Park and Johannesburg stadiums on the right edge, 2010 (Credit Jorge Láscar)

the nature of this strategy, including its force–consent equilibrium, which is demonstrated by the tactics implemented to address anti-eviction groups, their different types and the degree of significance of each tactics. To achieve this, the same methodological procedures outlined in Chapter 1 and deployed in the other previous chapters are followed, involving a thorough analysis of 37 institutional documents, 31 media files, and 16 interviews conducted by the author, as depicted in the tactical mapping below.6

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Fig. 4.2 GEPD interventions map by JDA, 2009 (JDA, 2009)

Fig. 4.3 Some properties at the Bertrams Priority Block, 2015 (Credit Erick Omena)

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Forefront Tactics: The Hegemonic Ambition

The GEPD coalition employed several tactics to implement land clearance. Three of the most prominent were legacy promises, tokenistic consultation, and delegitimation, which together constituted a set of forefront tactics. The logic and connections of these tactics are further detailed below.

4.1.1 Legacy Promises Legacy promises were a fundamental tactic used to legitimate the Greater Ellis Park Development (GEPD) project, as indicated by the very substantial prominence of utterances associated with them in institutional documents and media files. Words such as “development” (3rd), “housing” (17th), “facilities” (28th), and “services” (33rd) particularly stood out. These were followed by other similar repetitions such as “accommodation” (53rd), “environment” (60th), “regeneration” (78th),” upgrade” (85th), and “infrastructure” (97th). All of them were usually attached to the idea of promoting urban improvements in the areas surrounding the Ellis Park stadium, especially housing, transportation, and commercial and leisure infrastructure. The JDA presented the pledges to the public as a plethora of small-scale projects spread across the area (JDA, 2009). The Bertrams priority block development was the most ambitious project. The JDA decided to buy a whole block of squatted and abandoned properties near the stadium, clear its accumulated debts, and resell it to private investors who would convert it into several four-story buildings comprising a total of 180 housing units. According to the JDA, the project aimed to provide “good quality affordable housing with managed open spaces” (JDA, 2009, p. 03). Other projects included the conversion of derelict houses nearby into medium-density low-cost housing and “the external facelift” of the council houses next to the Johannesburg stadium (Geyde, 2006; CoJ, 2009).

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The Rea Vaya BRT line was also promised as “a rapid bus service designed to link the city from Soweto through the CBD and Ellis Park area to Sandton”, which would “consolidate the urban core and make Johannesburg a more integrated, efficient and sustainable metropolis” (JDA, 2009, p. 06). Besides housing and transportation projects, another intervention with a potentially significant impact was the upgrading of public parks used by local communities, such as Maurice Freeman Park, Bertrams Park, and Fuller Park. The refurbishment of the Ellis Park stadium and the railway stations were considered basic requirements for the staging of the World Cup games. The JDA pledged to stimulate social mobility and the “proactive absorption of the poor” via all these projects (JDA, 2006a, p. 122). This legacy narrative fitted well with the local socio-economic conditions, which included a very poor population and an acute shortage of affordable accommodation. However, the alleged developers’ will to combine the attraction of new investments with the permanence and benefit of the poor population was sometimes contradictory. Representatives of the City of Johannesburg openly recognized that “the main obstacle to the development” of the Bertrams priority block was “the rights of the people living there”. They added that those people would “have to be moved to alternative accommodation” in the BG Alexander building in Hilbrow, a relocation site situated outside the GEPD area (CoJ, 2008a). Such official remarks seemed to align with the prediction by the Star newspaper that “while the city is transformed and rejuvenated for 2010, these residents will be bought out, relocated, or evicted” (Russell, 2008). The legacy promises were a key factor in overcoming the “obstacle”. According to the leading planning consultant for the project, “local buy-in has been partially achieved through the provision of social and affordable housing, the redesign of neighborhood parks, and the introduction of community sporting facilities” (Albonico, 2009, p. 04). One JDA senior manager reiterated such a rationale, saying that “people were genuinely so happy that money is being spent in Ellis Park, which is an area that was in decline… so we didn’t have to overcome motivated people” (Interview on 23/7/2015). Indeed, according to an ACDF leader, pledges for housing improvements for local poor people were used to convince those more reluctant

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to be relocated (Interview on 10/9/2015). Such promises were also confirmed by a local newspaper, which mentioned that “the new developments in Bertrams would be available to the displaced residents once they are completed, probably over the next two years” (Russell, 2008). Nevertheless, there have been no significant developments in social housing in the area (Interview on 10/9/2015). The leading planning consultant at GEPD acknowledged this issue, stating that “social housing was not a priority” and that it “didn’t really happen” (Interview on 13/7/2015).

4.1.2 Tokenistic Consultation Additionally, the GEPD project substantially used public consultation to legitimize its proposals. Planning documents and the planners themselves emphasized the extensive exercise in public participation that was undertaken to develop the Urban Design Framework for the Greater Ellis Park Area in which “different stakeholders and interested parties were consulted on the vision and development objectives for the precinct” (ASM, 2005, p. 07). The JDA’s CEO and a senior manager both praised the consultation process and the support they received from the community (Interviews on 22/7/2015 and on 23/7/2015). However, the then-local ward councilor revealed that some decisions on project implementation were made without consulting the community: “the JDA came to me and said they had 30,000 rands to put into a project in the Ellis Park precinct and they couldn’t think of anything that needed doing. They wanted to allocate the budget by the next day. So I don’t have time to ask my community, I am not given the opportunity to have public participation” (Interview on 28/7/2015). Also, she disputed the idea that the consultation procedures were truly participative. An ICRC activist confirmed the tokenistic nature of some of the public meetings, highlighting the ward councilor’s lack of power to influence decision-making (Interview on 30/7/2015). The 2008 City of Johannesburg’s report on the project also revealed that the outcomes of the participatory process were known a priori and could not be changed by those formally consulted, as seen below:

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There are some 82 families living on the block, in very poor conditions. Bethlehem [the JDA CEO] is sensitive to their rights, and ongoing meetings have been held with them. They will have to be moved to alternative accommodation (…) So far more than half the people from the priority block have agreed to voluntarily relocate. Consultations with the rest of the residents are continuing; eventually a court order will be obtained to remove those unwilling to move. (CoJ, 2008a, my emphasis)

None of the local community members who were involved in the consultation process felt that they had any significant influence on the project or its outcomes. The leader of the ICRC called her experience “a waste of time” (Interview on 30/7/2015). A CALS lawyer, who provided juridical assistance to evictees, described the meetings as complicated and opaque, with officials often interpreting silence as consent (Interview on 31/7/2015). The local press also reported the frustration felt by residents who spoke out at public meetings, revealing the simulation of consultation. In a 2008 public hearing, one resident, who had waited for 14 years for a house and a job, expressed his lack of confidence in the government. Another resident said he had little clarity on what JDA wanted to achieve or where he would live when he was made to leave the flat he rented (Russell, 2008). Frustration was even shared by some of those responsible for designing the consultation procedures. The leading planning consultant for the GEPD project stated that it was “very frustrating to have actually conducted and mobilised in the way we mobilised people. It was an enormous effort that was made by everyone to get those things to almost be recognised as being as important as the infrastructure project. But at the end of the day the city would decide” (Interview on 13/7/2015). In summary, the public consultation process in the GEPD project was tokenistic, with decisions being made without community consultation, and residents feeling frustrated and powerless to influence decisionmaking.

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4.1.3 Delegitimation The importance of delegitimation tactics is indicated by the preponderance of words such as “bad” (11th), “safety” (82nd), “crime” (108th), “poor” (103rd), and “security” (114th) in institutional documents and media files. Also according to some interviewees, it was a primary tactic used to undermine resistance to land clearance in the GEPD area. Delegitimation took at least two forms. Firstly, it involved discrediting the entire GEPD territory and its inhabitants, particularly those living in poverty. Secondly, it included the specific dismissal and denigration of individuals and organizations opposing the clearance process. In both cases, poverty and dissent were portrayed as undesirable and criminalized, enabling repressive actions that hindered resistance efforts against evictions. As previously mentioned, the GEPD area had high levels of unemployment and low-income residents, with many undocumented immigrants living in squatted buildings or overcrowded, substandard housing. Some of these properties were taken over by groups who controlled them by force and rented them out informally, without paying taxes or contributing to municipal services despite the payments originally made by residents to the “building hijackers”. The debts could eventually cause the disruption of basic services. The lack of regulation transformed the area into an urban grey space (Yiftachel, 2009), where the boundaries between legality and illegality are blurred. While some property rights were tolerated by government agencies, the limits and duration of this tolerance were never clear. Evictions could be carried out violently, or under specific legal guidelines that guaranteed basic rights for evictees, thanks to court orders that established jurisprudence in such matters. This lack of clarity made a significant proportion of the local population vulnerable to delegitimation tactics, particularly immigrants without recognized citizenship who depended on informal housing to survive. The association between crime and social existence could be easily and conveniently made whenever the local government and its occasional private partners wanted to justify an eventual takeover of properties.

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The regeneration discourse present in the GEPD plans and media files encapsulated these delegitimation efforts, with frequent generalizations about the area as an undesirable and criminal space in need of complete reconfiguration. This homogenization was represented by the constant use of derogatory terms like “sinkhole”, “foetid”, “depressed”, “degenerated”, “deteriorated”, “threatening”, “crime-infested”, “decaying”, “illicit”, “illegal”, and “rotten” to describe the local population and the area (ASM, 2005; Geyde, 2006; Kharsany, 2008; Thakali, 2009). The use of such stereotypes as a delegitimation tactic was recognized by those threatened by them. According to one ICRC leader, “what they do is to say that the building is dilapidated, that there are thugs and prostitutes there – they label them with every label they can” (Interview on 30/7/2015). Frustration with this approach sometimes led to political organization and resistance, which prompted an escalation of delegitimation tactics to a more aggressive level. This included denying claims made by groups opposing land clearance, followed by labeling as a means of discrediting them (Interview on 31/7/2015). For instance, one senior manager from JDA adopted a derogatory tone when discussing opposition to the Bertrams priority block development. He labeled locals who resist relocation as foreigners engaged in illegal activities, implying their objections lack legitimacy (Interview on 23/7/2015). In a striking instance of delegitimation strategy, a prominent figure leading the fight against evictions in Bertrams was publicly branded a “building hijacker”. This attempt aimed to undermine his credibility and portray him as a criminal. He had also been advocating for residents against unlawful rent collection by criminal groups in inner-city buildings. This stance exposed him to increasing hostility from these factions. A coordinated effort, possibly involving certain police officers and judges, led to formal accusations of “hijacking” against him. This orchestrated campaign thrust him into the local media spotlight, as he found himself depicted as the orchestrator of such actions (Interview on 10/9/2015). Capitalizing on this situation, a JDA social worker exploited it to facilitate his arrest, thus paving the way for evictions linked to the GEPD project. She described how this development played a vital role in tarnishing his reputation as a leader and persuading residents to

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comply with relocation. According to her, “when they started to read the newspaper, all of them agreed. Then it was like when you put a robot there and then you say to the robot ‘move!’ and then the robot moves. Beautiful!” (Interview on 29/7/2015). Consequently, the strategy of delegitimation served several crucial purposes. It initially constructed stereotypes of impoverished residents to bolster the narrative of regeneration. These stereotypes linked the community to criminal behaviors that regeneration purported to rectify. Moreover, delegitimation effectively discredited activists and local organizations striving to oppose the land clearance plans. Lastly, it facilitated the vilification and subsequent imprisonment of vocal leaders, thereby quelling organized local resistance against evictions. As seen above, this approach operated alongside two other prominent tactics already explored: legacy promises and tokenistic consultation. Collectively, these tactics aimed to either directly or indirectly ease the implementation of land clearance plans through symbolic operations. While pledges of improvement and consultation methods aimed to manufacture consent, the delegitimation tactic, along with its ensuing criminalization component, aimed to stifle opposition and, whenever necessary, enable possible coercive measures such as police involvement and legal proceedings.

4.2

Supporting Tactics: The Increasingly Violent “Plan B”

In addition to the forefront tactics, there were several other supporting tactics that were used to achieve the same objectives. These tactics were more fragmented, but still cohesive enough to play their complementary role. The supporting tactics included lack of transparency, intimidation, co-option, police violence, and judicial actions. Below is a detailed explanation of how these tactics were used and how they were connected to each other.

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4.2.1 Lack of Transparency The lack of transparency was a critical tactic that supported the grey space condition of the inner city territory. For instance, the City of Johannesburg openly recognized the existence of a transparency issue concerning its criteria for disrupting municipal services delivery in “bad buildings”. This made it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions, thus enabling officials to use discretion to criminalize poverty. According to the Bad Buildings Strategy program, “in some cases the City has acted contrary to the law. Provincial legislation prohibits cut-offs by owners without a court order, yet the City has routinely responded to requests by owners to cut-off water and power at street level in order to force tenants out” (Zack et al., 2009, p. 37). The document recommends that “transparent procedures for services interruption need to be developed and circulated. All officials need to follow these agreed procedures” (Zack et al., 2009, p. 64). Similarly, the specific planning and execution of the GEPD relied heavily on opacity, which not only facilitated poverty criminalization but also kept local communities away from decision-making processes. The absence of local community involvement was confirmed by the vice president of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the 2010 World Cup, one ward councilor, and the ICRC representative, who supported residents fighting evictions (Interviews on 28/7/2015, 5/8/2015, and 30/ 7/2015). Also one representative of the South African Informal Traders Forum (SAITF), whose members used to work and live in the area, reiterated that executive committees and boards “were existing to FIFA and SAFA (South African Football Association) only but for residents there was nothing” (Interview on 29/7/2015). This lack of transparency was perceived by many as a deliberate action. One Anti-privatization Forum activist believed that the intention was to withhold information and wear people out, while the ICRC representative agreed that officials tried to tire people out by refusing to communicate with them (Interviews on 30/7/2015 and 31/7/2015). The systematic denial of information about the plans was also combined with the release of less relevant and even contradictory data. One CALS lawyer revealed that meaningful information was nonexistent, adding

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that “what you have is glossy brochure type of publications that made commitments, which, if anything, are even more meaningless. Or totally different to what the plans actually envisage” (Interview on 31/7/2015). In conclusion, the lack of transparency was widely recognized by several agents, including some local government representatives. Opacity made it difficult for residents to engage in decision-making processes, enabling officials to make decisions that were not in their best interests. But as a softer coercive tactic, the institutional information filter could not contain people motivated against the GEPD proposals, making the escalation of coercion inevitable.

4.2.2 Intimidation Intimidation was a recurring factor used as a means to make residents leave the buildings targeted for redevelopment before the 2010 World Cup. Over the years, it took various forms, such as the threat of violent acts by the police or building hijackers, as well as the disruption of municipal services. According to one of the Friends of the Inner City Forum manifestos released nearly a year before the FIFA World Cup, “We have had all sorts of intimidation all these years, from sending the police, sending of bogus sheriffs, many fake court orders, to having the water and other essential services cut off ” (FICF, 2009). One ICRC leader recalled the first time she heard about intimidation against residents in Bertrams by the local government, in 2003, pointing out that “they started harassing the people around the area telling them they had to move because they wanted to build coffee shops. I think they had high expectations. People were intimidated”. Then, she added, “in 2006, 2007, 2008, they were trying their best to evict but they couldn’t. (Still) Some of the houses were emptied because they went in there and intimidated some of the people” (Interview on 30/7/2015). The residents of Josana Court, a building located at the Bertrams priority block, confirmed the use of this approach, saying that “they started attempting to evict us in 2004, they would come every month (…) they threatened us” (Interview on 6/8/2015).

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During consultation procedures, the South African Police Service (SAPS) would accompany local officials. According to one JDA social worker, eviction procedures also counted on permanent policing as a form of intimidation against any sort of resistance (Interview on 29/ 7/2015). Even in the post-eviction scenario, the intimidating presence of the police would be used to guarantee the takeover of properties, as “windows and doors are bricked up to prevent squatters from returning to buildings that have been vacated (Figs. 4.4, and 4.5). Security patrols make sure that this remains so” (Kharsany, 2008). Basic services such as water and electricity were disrupted to harshen living conditions and force residents out. This had very significant consequences for their everyday life. Josana Court residents, for instance, explained their situation after the cutoffs: “We ended up collecting our own water and we did tell the lady that we can’t live without water. We steal everything. She saw our tap and closed it, we were surviving off

Fig. 4.4 The Josana Court building, located at the Bertrams Priority Block, 2015 (Credit Erick Omena)

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Fig. 4.5 One of the priority block properties with bricked up doors, 2015 (Credit Erick Omena)

that tap (…) somewhere somehow we need access to water and lights” (Interview on 6/8/2015). Even in buildings where residents were willing to use pre-paid meters, local agencies would be reluctant to normalize service provision. For example, the Josana Court building suffered water and electricity cutoffs despite the residents’ attempts to restore service provision. The reluctance of local agencies to normalize water and energy supply reinforces the suggestion by interviewees that the cutoff was usually aimed at harshening living conditions and forcing residents out (Interviews on 30/7/2015 and 6/8/2015). This is reiterated by the timing of the initial cutoff at Josana Court, as the year 2004 coincides with the beginning of the works for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The most apparent effect of all these intimidation mechanisms was the increasing erosion of the physical and psychological conditions of those who still resisted. As pointed out by one CALS lawyer, residents got used

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to living in a constant state of fear (Interview on 20/7/2015). However, other coercive means were still necessary.

4.2.3 Co-option Several interviewees have reported the use of co-option practices to weaken dissent, particularly through long-established patronage networks that use ward councilors as intermediaries between inner-city constituents and the municipality. These councilors tend to have considerable power over the allocation of public resources in their respective areas. As one CALS lawyer stated, “It is usually the ward councillor deciding who gets housing and who doesn’t. Who gets sanitation and who doesn’t. It puts them in an intolerably compromised situation. And generally speaking the ward councillor’s mates get housing and people who are not the ward councillor’s mates don’t get housing” (Interview on 31/7/2015). However, in the GEPD area, which was controlled by opposition parties such as the Democratic Alliance (DA) in ward 66 and the Inkatha Freedom (IFP) in ward 61, traditional patronage networks could potentially make the relations between councilors and the city executive level difficult. Despite this, co-option was still possible. According to one JDA senior manager, “As long as the councillor put forward a database where we were employing people, they were happy. (…) I think for every person we employed they get some money” (Interview on 23/7/2015). Apart from councilors, additional co-option channels were activated in varying degrees, as suggested by at least three different examples. For instance, JDA attempted to buy off taxi drivers who were resisting the relocation of their taxi ranks from a street near the stadium by offering them small benefits, such as expensive meals, which, from the perspective of one JDA social worker was the “best strategy that you could ever think of ” as it “worked like a bomb” (Interview on 29/7/2015). In another instance, CALS was contacted by people living in council houses who had faced eviction threats during the 1995 Rugby World Cup and were again facing eviction and demolition threats due to plans to widen Bertrams Road (Bénit-Gbaffou, 2009; Haferburg et al., 2014).

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JDA offered community leaders the possibility of remaining on the site as long as they ceased to involve CALS in the discussions and accepted the removal of a few shacks from their backyards for beautification purposes. This change involved some form of co-option, as several people were promised that nothing bad would happen to them as long as they kicked CALS out (Interview on 31/7/2015). The third instance concerns several attempts to co-opt the leader of the ACDF, who was seen as a crucial gatekeeper to access local communities and win their support for the GEPD project. Initially, the leader was convinced of the benefits of redevelopment for poor local residents and was appointed as an officer by JDA to facilitate the process of relocation, in 2009. However, the promises made by JDA were not fulfilled, and the removals seemed to be permanent, which led to the leader being questioned by his community. The leader then demanded responses from JDA before completing the removals (Interview on 10/9/2015). As the leader’s attitude became more confrontational towards JDA and hijackers, he began to face harassment. He was approached by landlords and local policemen who were interested in his knowledge of local communities and access to the municipal database of properties. The leader rejected money offers and was subsequently imprisoned, which was the result of a concerted action with the participation of both JDA and the police staff that had approached him. Later in the judicial process, it emerged that some witnesses were paid to give evidence against him in court (Interview on 10/9/2015). Overall, there were multiple and multi-layered forms of co-option attempts utilized to disarm dissent set against the GEPD project and other initiatives in the area. These attempts were complemented by the deployment of court and police actions to guarantee control over the most extreme cases of resistance. While the conclusion is exceptionally based solely on interviews, the abundance of testimonies from both the co-optor and co-opted ends involving different cases adds weight to the evidence.

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4.2.4 Judicial Actions and Police Violence Force has been regularly used to evict inner-city residents in Johannesburg, whether through police or private security actions. In April 2006, the JDA Executive Committee recommended the agency hire “The Red Ant Security Company” in order to “implement the by-law enforcement plan, municipal services improvement plan and crime prevention plan for the Greater Ellis Park Development area” (JDA, 2006b, p. 04). As the committee provided more details about these enforcement plans, it left no doubt about the violent character and the economic reasons motivating such measures: “The project entails implementation of an aggressive by-law enforcement program (…) identified by all stakeholders as critical to make the area attractive to new investment” (JDA, 2006b, p. 04, my emphasis). The enforcement plans included targeting illegal buildings and “buildings which show signs of serious physical degradation”, besides conducting meter readings, with a clear emphasis on using force (JDA, 2006b, p. 05). Although there is no evidence that the program was implemented, it demonstrates the use of force as a fundamental part of the GEPD initiative. In fact, rather than using direct force against all residents, the institutionalized force was tactically utilized against community leaders by criminalizing them, reducing political onuses, and facilitating land clearance. This relied on links between police violence and judicial actions. The criminalization of the members of the ACDF is an emblematic example of this tactic. The ACDF was established in 2008 as a grassroots organization to represent poor residents in disputes with slumlords, hijackers, the police, and the local government. The organization’s objectives included normalizing public services and challenging illegal rent collection and evictions in Bertrams and beyond (Maepa, 2009, 2014; Moeng, 2010). The ACDF’s confrontational approach triggered reactions from building managers and the police outside the GEPD area. As one of the disputes escalated, the leader of the ACDF and other members were accused of being hijackers themselves. Although the original allegations against hijackers received little attention, the accusations against

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ACDF were promptly considered and publicized by a local newspaper (Dlamini, 2010). The case against ACDF was opened in March 2010, at the height of the unrelated altercations between JDA and ACDF in the GEPD area and just a few months before the World Cup. Then, the JDA social worker responsible for executing eviction plans at the Bertrams priority block contacted the police after hearing about the case, providing details of the location of the organization leaders and facilitating their imprisonment, which happened on March 28, 2010. In her own words, the episode unfolded as follows: Every time I come in (the priority block) and people agree (to move). Then I go out. And when I come back people say “no, but, this is what this man says”. So it was a to and fro and it was really frustrating me. So at that time they were looking for him. In the Star (newspaper), they said they were looking for this person… They were three….that they were busy stealing buildings of the City of Joburg and renting them out for a certain amount. (...) So I said “Bertrams! I know this guy!” So I phoned them (the police) and said “Director, did you see this guy? Look in the news. Get the Star on this page”. And then he said “yes!”. Problem solved (…) I work with SAPS, and the nice part was that they knew that he would come to the site. Because they knew it all along about my frustrations and stresses. So that was an opportunity to get him, to arrest him. So when they arrested all three of them I moved all the 258 people (Interview on 29/7/2015, my emphasis).

This testimony indicates that JDA took advantage of the fact that the leader of the ACDF had been deliberately criminalized due to an unrelated dispute in another neighborhood, playing a decisive role in the imprisonment of the organization members, which had the effect of facilitating the removal of several families from the Bertrams priority block. Additionally, the crucial participation of the police in this concerted action is also pointed out by the ACDF president as he mentions the fact that the same policemen who had tried to co-opt him by offering bribes were responsible for his arrest a few days later (Interview on 10/9/ 2015).

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In order to keep ACDF’s representatives in prison up until the aftermath of the FIFA event, it was also necessary to have collaboration from members of the judiciary, occasionally based on unlawful judicial acts. According to the lawyer of the ACDF president, his client “was arrested without a warrant of arrest” and his “right to be brought before court within 48 hours of arrest was violated” (Talane, 2014, pp. 2–3). The community leader confirms it, saying that he was only taken to court nearly a week after being arrested (Interview on 10/9/2015). On this occasion, he applied for bail, which was declined “based on false opposing affidavits”, according to his lawyer (Talane, 2014, p. 3). After waiting for months in prison for a trial, the president of ACDF was finally released in September 2010, that is, over two months after the end of the World Cup. However, since the Bertrams renovation process had not been finished yet and there were other litigations with slumlords and hijackers, he was arrested again for a different matter regarding the same building in December 2010 (Dlamini, 2010). Another ACDF member died in prison while waiting for the trials, which eventually started in late 2014 (Interview on 10/9/2015). Soon afterward, all the charges were dropped. The president of the ACDF is currently prosecuting the State for his unlawful arrest (Mahopo, 2014).

4.3

Rearguard Tactics: Playing the Last Coercive Card

Lastly, a set of rearguard tactics was composed by the use of economic constraints and compensation payments, with rather sporadic and less relevant use.

4.3.1 Economic Constraints Although the deployment of forefront and supporting tactics enabled the evacuation and demolition of some buildings, there were still people living in other priority block properties and council housing in Bertrams. JDA recognized that their efforts were only partially successful and that

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they needed to replace their direct eviction attempts with less intensive interventions, creating economic constraints that would indirectly force people out. Initially, the municipality planned to change the conditions of leasing council houses and restrict economic activities traditionally developed by poor people living in them. The aim was to increase rents to a level beyond what people could afford and stop people from making money by parking cars at Ellis Park, instead bringing in their own contractor (Interview on 31/7/2015). However, this initiative was met with resistance. JDA and JPC then shifted towards releasing the ownership of public properties to occupants, who would arguably have no other option than selling their houses to developers, facilitating the completion of the relocation process and the redevelopment. One JPC senior manager explained that: there were council-owned properties that were leased or occupied but it became very political to move people out. People would not go out and the law society was heavily involved in the area of the evictions and representing people. And that was a huge political issue at the time. I think no one had the appetite to fight with moving people out. And they said: “all in all, transfer the property to them and in the future someone might make an offer which they can’t refuse”, in theory (…) see if a developer comes along and wants to buy them out. They become the negotiators with the private sector so you take the public sector out of it. (Interview on 22/7/2015)

Privatization of council housing was seen as one of the last resources, leaving it solely to the market forces to force residents out. However, there was no indication that this proposal was taken forward. Meanwhile, the partial redevelopment of buildings that had been demolished after evictions facilitated by other tactics also had indirect effects on their surroundings. According to an ICRC representative, “the investors gained because they got the buildings for close to nothing from the city. Now those investors are using the buildings for rentals which are high for the people. And even the middle class people—R15000 salary—cannot afford to live in those places because the rental is too high” (Interview on 30/7/2015). Those who had already been relocated

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from Bertrams faced similar problems. After being removed from BG Alexander relocation site, several families still needed to pay rent to the municipality, compromising a substantial proportion of their low and unstable income (Kharsany, 2008), which eventually made them vulnerable to new evictions (Interview on 30/7/2015). The use of economic constraints was hence essentially characterized by the creation of a hostile economic environment for the permanence of people living in Bertrams council houses and the priority block. Both cases suggest a retreat by JDA and the City of Johannesburg, who intended to use a relatively less interventionist approach to force the relocation of residents seen as obstacles for the GEPD and the redevelopment of the inner city as a whole.

4.3.2 Compensation Also, compensation policies have been utilized by JDA to evacuate occupied buildings. One such policy was the provision of low-cost temporary accommodation to poor tenants, which was initially driven by legal requirements to uphold constitutional housing and property rights. However, the large number of people involved and budget constraints limited the scope for significant increases in compensation and the use of compensation as a means of enabling eviction. The shortage of social housing and shelters for the homeless in the inner city also posed challenges in terms of offering relocation alternatives. A 2008 City report estimated that between 50,000 and 75,000 new social housing units would need to be built by 2015 in order to solve the housing deficit in the area (CoJ, 2008b). To create better conditions for negotiations with residents, JDA social workers utilized the municipal social housing agency, JOSHCO, and its subsidies system, coupled with public-owned buildings. By negotiating with people’s income, JOSHCO rent was substantially reduced, with the first month’s rental and deposit being paid by the municipality (Interviews on 29/7/2015 and 22/7/2015). However, the lack of sufficient housing stock often thwarted eviction plans (Interview on 23/7/ 2015). The JDA social worker responsible for the evictions said that

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she could not move everybody who had agreed to because “at the time when we wanted to move the last bit, the building that we refurbished to move the people to wasn’t taken by the Mayor’s office” (Interview on 29/7/2015). This is particularly emblematic of the limitations of compensation payments as a land clearance tactic (Bénit-Gbaffou, 2009; Haferburg et al., 2014), which may have influenced its non-priority rearguard character. Moreover, the provision of temporary alternative accommodation exacerbated the issue of evictions and relocations, with some people eventually being evicted from BG Alexander due to their financial instability. This underscores the need for a more comprehensive approach to address housing affordability in the inner city.

4.4

Conclusion

The analysis results reveal a very balanced general strategic approach by the GEPD redevelopment coalition when it comes to the use of coercive and hegemonic means to clear the land. However, a more detailed view denotes a much less balanced tactical hierarchy. Firstly, the use of hegemonic means was focused on a few tactics, such as legacy promises and tokenistic consultation, while coercive means were dispersed through a wider range of tactics, including softer coercive actions such as lack of transparency and harsher forms such as intimidation and police violence. Secondly, there was a significant reliance on extreme tactics from both hegemonic and coercive sides of the strategic spectrum, while more intermediate and nuanced tactics, such as the use of technical documents, legislative actions, and compensation payments, were less relevant. This suggests a hegemonic deficit that led to a rapid escalation of coercion, resulting in the utilization of nearly every coercive instrument available for dissent control. Efforts initially focused on promoting ambitious and sometimes unrealistic legacy promises, including social housing, transportation improvements, new leisure facilities, and job opportunities. However, this was far from sufficient for manufacturing consent, as evidenced by the strong dissent manifested during consultation procedures. Frustration with the non-materialization of these legacy

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promises led to sporadic opposition challenges that gradually became increasingly out of control, leading to the use of force. The relationship between JDA and ACDF is particularly emblematic, rapidly escalating from pledges of legacy to co-option attempts and ending with incarceration and false judicial accusations against local leaders. This transition from the prominence of hegemonic attempts to coercive actions could not take place without the decisive use of delegitimation tactics. This involved delegitimizing the Bertrams territory and criminalizing local communities, enabling the use of extreme forms of coercion, such as the widespread disruption of basic services and the activation of judicial and police actions against community leaders. In both cases, the recognition of the inner city as a grey space, where the boundaries between legality and illegality are blurred, was fundamental. The discretionary cutting-off of water and energy supply from houses targeted by demolition plans and labeling opponents as “hijackers” exemplifies this fact. This grey spacing was a fundamental condition not just for the demanded escalation of coercion but also for implementing most of the exclusionary GEPD proposals. Despite its fundamentality, the coercive escalation was not sufficient. While the JDA managed to consolidate the first set of event-related actions and meet FIFA’s demands, the second set of “regeneration” measures mostly failed. The initial decision to demolish the 17 council houses was reversed due to mobilization and engagement with patronage. Although the JDA acquired most of the priority block properties, none were transferred to the private sector, and only some buildings were actually demolished. However, 258 people were evicted from the priority block due to the land clearance strategy adopted, which was predominantly based on criminalization, although its uses changed over time according to circumstances.

Notes 1. In 2010, the project budget was equivalent to approximately USD 260 million.

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2. The GEPD is one of the many initiatives that have been trying to tackle socio-economics issues resulting from the inner city transformation over several decades. Historically, the Central Business District (CBD) housed major national capitalist institutions, but by the early 2000s, it had undergone significant changes. The headquarters of corporations and the stock exchange relocated to affluent suburbs, leaving the once-opulent CBD buildings in decay. Demographically, a shift occurred as affluent white middle-class residents moved to the suburbs, while black migrants seeking better opportunities moved into the downtown area, resulting in high unemployment and crime rates (Bremner, 2000; Mabin, 2005; Winkler, 2006; Landau, 2005). The movement of people and corporations was influenced by factors such as new roads, housing subsidies, economic crises, and apartheid-era policies (Morris, 1994, 1998, 1999; Goga, 2003). While the CBD’s functionality remained, it adapted to demographic shifts, serving as a retail and service center for townships and foreigners. However, infrastructure degradation and financial challenges led to property value decline and a lack of investment in housing. The deteriorated urban environment struggled to accommodate a growing population, largely consisting of the “working poor”. Affordable housing shortages led to issues like “slumlordism” and squatting (Tissington, 2013; Peyroux, 2014; Rubin, 2014). The neglected inner city also became a haven for homeless individuals, drug dealers, prostitutes, and criminals. This has contributed to the area’s stigma, particularly among the middle-classes (Murray, 2011). 3. The GEPD stood out as a distinguished participant among the twenty City Improvement Districts (CIDs) in the Inner City. These CIDs, formally authorized administrative bodies, empower property proprietors and businesses within specific urban zones to impose supplementary assessments. The accumulated funds are then channeled towards enhancing, developing, and endorsing the district in manners deemed suitable by those contributing. Notably, the GEPD held the status of a “special” CID due to its uniquely tailored structures and distinct requirements. It’s worth highlighting

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that all CIDs shared a common objective: fostering the revival of the Inner City (Murray, 2011). 4. The Ellis Park World of Sports was also responsible for the Johannesburg Stadium and other smaller facilities, located next to the Ellis Park Stadium. 5. In the run-up to the World Cup, the wards 61 and 66 were directly affected by the GEPD project. 6. For more information on the methodological procedures, check the Appendix and Omena (2017).

References Albonico, M. (2009). “Cinderella will go to the football”, in: Place making: Celebrating quality and innovation in urban life. RUDI and the Academy of Urbanism. ASM. (2005). “GEP Bertrams Derby Road precinct plan”. City of Johannesburg. Bénit-Gbaffou, C. (2009). “In the shadow of 2010: Democracy and displacement in the Greater Ellis Park Development project”, in: Pillay, U., Tomlinson, R. and Bass, O. (eds.) Development and dreams: The urban legacy of the 2010 Football World Cup, Cape Town: HSRC, 200–222. Bremner, L. (2000). Reinventing the Johannesburg Inner City. Cities, 17 (3), 187–302. CoJ. (2008a). “JDA moves in on Bertrams”. Official Website of the City of Johannesburg, 30th June 2008. CoJ. (2008b). “Integrated Development Plan 2008/09”. City of Johannesburg. CoJ. (2009). “Art, parks and kids in Ellis Park”. Official Website of the City of Johannesburg, 07th September 2009. Dlamini, P. (2010). “Cops ‘shield flats hijacker’”. Sowetan, 31st December 2010. FICF. (2009). “Notice of a protest march to your offices”. Geyde, L. (2006). “What World Cup?” Mail & Guardian, 05th October 2006. Goga, S. (2003). “Property investors and decentralization: A case of false competition?”, in: Tomlinson, R., Beauregard, R., Bremner, L. and Mangcu,

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X. (eds.) Emerging Johannesburg: Perspectives on the postapartheid city, Routledge, 71e84. Haferburg, C. et al. (2014). “PostWorld cup effects and local regeneration strategies in Johannesburg and eThekwini”, in: Haferburg, C. and Huchzermeyer, M. (eds.) Urban governance in post-apartheid cities: Modes of engagement in South Africa’s Metropoles. Stuttgart: Borntraeger, 273–293. JDA. (2006a). “Regional spatial development framework: 2006/07 – Administrative region 8”. City of Johannesburg. JDA. (2006b). “Rockey-Raleigh High Street and Greater Ellis Park Developments”. City of Johannesburg. JDA. (2009). “Bertrams proposed mixed use development”. City of Johannesburg. Kharsany, Z. (2008). “Bertrams waits for nip and tuck”. Mail & Guardian, 9th June 2008. Landau, L. (2005). Transplants and transients: Nativism, nationalism, and migration in Inner-city Johannesburg. Forced Migration Working Paper Series no. 19. Mabin, A. (2005). Suburbanisation, segregation and governance of territorial transformations. Transformation, 57: 41–63. Maepa, S. (2009). “Reportback and way forward”. ACDF – Agisanang Community Development Forum. Maepa, S. (2014). “Short report about Agisanang Community Development Forum”. ACDF – Agisanang Community Development Forum. Mahopo, Z. (2014). “Building ‘hijacker’ freed fights back”. Sowetan, 17th February 2014. Moeng, K. (2010). “Building ‘hijackers’ appear in court”. Sowetan, 13th April 2010. Morris, A. (1994). The desegregation of Hillbrow, Johannesburg, 1978–1992. Urban Studies, 31, 821–834. Morris, A. (1998). ‘Our fellow Africans make our lives hell’: The lives of Congolese and Nigerians living in Johannesburg. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21 (6), 1116–1136. Morris, A. (1999). Bleakness and light: Inner-city transition in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Murray, M. (2011). City of extremes: The spatial politics of Johannesburg. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Omena, E. (2017). Exerting state power in core and semi-peripheral countries: Land clearance and domination strategies in London, Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg – Thesis at Oxford Brookes University.

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Peyroux, E. (2014). “Social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility in Johannesburg’s inner city housing and revitalisation strategies”, in: Urban governance in post-apartheid cities: Modes of engagement in South Africa’s metropoles, Borntraeger Science Publishers; UKZN, 231–250. Rubin, M. (2014). “Johannesburg’s bad buildings programme: The world class city hegemony at work?” in: Haferburg, C. and Huchzermeyer, M. (eds.) Urban governance in post-apartheid cities. Stuttgart: Borntraeger Science Publishers. Russell, C. (2008). “Helping Bertrams get off its knees”. The Star, 13th March 2008. Steinbrink, M., Hafenburg, C. and Ley, A. (2011). Festivalisation and urban renewal in the Global South: Socio-spatial consequences of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. South African Geographical Journal, 93, 15–28. Talane, E. (2014). “Complaint: Unlawful arrest, detention, malicious prosecution”. E. Talane Inc. Attorneys, 19th March 2014. Thakali, T. (2009). “Suburbs’ dead-end streets finally get makeover”. Saturday Star, 04th April 2009. Tissington, K. (2013). Minding the gap: An analysis of the supply of and demand for low-income rental accommodation in inner city Johannesburg. Johannesburg: Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa. Winkler, T. (2006). Kwere Kwere Journeys into strangeness: Reimagining inner city regeneration in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. PhD thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Wilson, S. (2021) Human rights and the transformation of property. Juta, Cape Town. Yiftachel, O. (2009). Ethnocracy: Land and identity politics in Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia, PA: Pennpress. Zack, T., Bertoldi, A., Charlton, S., Kihato, M. and Silverman, M. (2009). “Bad buildings strategy - Draft strategy for addressing blighted medium and high density residential ‘bad buildings’ in Johannesburg”. City of Johannesburg.

5 The Failure of the Maracanã Project in Rio de Janeiro

The FIFA announcement designating Brazil as the host country for the 2014 World Cup reignited interest in the longstanding idea of revitalizing the Maracanã stadium, located at the western fringe of the city’s downtown, and entrusting its management to private enterprises. This initiative, also known as the Maracanã Refurbishment Project (MRP), had previously been put on hold due to the concerted efforts of various civil society organizations. The Maracanã holds immense symbolic and practical significance for the people of Rio de Janeiro, characterized by its distinctive and magnificent architectural design originally conceived for the 1950 FIFA World Cup as a representation of the nation’s urban progress (Moura, 1998). As time passed, it evolved into a pivotal landmark, drawing individuals from diverse backgrounds who would gather weekly to partake in sports, music, political, and religious gatherings (Gaffney, 2008). This became especially poignant in a city rife with profound socio-spatial disparities. Consequently, the prospect of altering the stadium and other sports facilities around it had been a subject of debate spanning decades, making the 2014 mega-event a remarkable chance for those willing to surmount opposition and effect transformation.1 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_5

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Fig. 5.1 Aerial view of the Maracanã Sports Complex before refurbishment, with the Old Indigenous Museum and Julio Delamare Aquatics Park in the bottom-left corner, the Celio de Barros Running Track on the right edge, and the Maracanã stadium at the center, 2009 (Credit Pedro Lopez)

Building on this opportunity, the Rio de Janeiro state government, supported by the federal and municipal governments, decided to pay R$ 1.2 billion2 for the reconstruction of the stadium to a consortium of three contractors, namely the Odebrecht, Andrade Gutierrez and Delta construction companies (Calil, 2013). Furthermore, the state government used a Public–Private Partnership (PPP) model to concede the management of the venue to another consortium comprising the Odebrecht construction company and the AEG and IMX entertainment companies, who were expected to pay a total of R$ 181 million to the local authorities within 35 years. In exchange, the companies could commercially exploit sports and entertainment events in the refurbished stadium and construct new commercial facilities, such as cinemas, restaurants, and shopping malls (Rio de Janeiro, 2013). However, this would involve the destruction of traditional sports and educational facilities around the stadium, such as the Célio de

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Fig. 5.2 The Celio de Barros Running Track marked for demolition in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013)

Fig. 5.3 The Julio Delamare Aquatics Park marked for demolition in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013)

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Fig. 5.4 The Friedenreich Primary Municipal School marked for demolition in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013)

Barros running track (CBRT), the Julio Delamare aquatics park (JDAP), the Friedenreich municipal primary school (FMPS), and a nineteenthcentury building previously used as the first national indigenous museum (IM) and then occupied by local movements willing to transform it into an indigenous cultural center (Figs. 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5). Amidst this backdrop of increasing tension, the early 2010s witnessed the emergence of two significant coalitions with contrasting viewpoints. On one side stood the coalition of municipal, state, and federal authorities, alongside companies like Odebrecht, Andrade Gutierrez, Delta, AEG, IMX, and FIFA. Their aim was to enhance the commercial utilization of a public asset by means of administrative and structural modifications. On the other front, groups facing eviction threats opposed the revitalization project, comprised of certain Maracanã stadium users and adjacent facility users, including young poor athletes, and elderly

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Fig. 5.5 The Old Indigenous Museum first marked for demolition and later for renovation in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013)

and disabled people. They garnered support from public defenders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), social movements, and scholars, thus forming an anti-eviction coalition. This chapter aims to replicate the methodological procedures outlined in Chapter 1 and applied in previous chapters to examine the domination strategy utilized in the relationship between the two coalitions. The primary objective is to comprehend the unique force–consent balance that characterizes this strategy, as demonstrated by the hierarchy of tactics employed against potential and actual anti-eviction groups by the redevelopment coalition. This hierarchy is primarily evident in the significance attributed to each tactic used to implement the land clearance plans and their interrelationships. The following sections delve into the meaning of these tactics through a detailed analysis of 15 interviews, 71 institutional documents, and 958 media files.3

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Forefront Tactics: A Mixed Approach

The overall findings indicate a well-balanced and diverse strategic approach, combining both coercion and consent-seeking methods. However, upon closer examination of the tactical level, a clear hierarchy emerges, with four prominent tactics: lack of transparency, delegitimation, the use of technical documents, and compensation payments. The ranking of the 150 most repeated words in institutional documents and media files indicate a high recurrence level of utterances potentially associated with transparency issues, such as “public” (26th), “access” (88th), “decision” (89th), “website” (99th), “publicize” (102nd) and “reserved” (130th). This is also the case of words associated with the use of technical documents as a source of legitimation—such as “document” (17th), “project” (38th), “contract” (47th), “public bid” (60th) and “tender document” (70th)—and with the delegitimation of the facilities to be destroyed—such as “ancient” (37th), “authenticity” (93rd) and “value” (95th). There is also some prominence of words associated with compensation payments, such as “millions” (41st), “new” (77th), “proposal” (82nd), “construction” (103rd) and “deal” (123rd). These four tactics and their respective rationales are elaborated on below.

5.1.1 Lack of Transparency The Maracanã refurbishment project was met with significant challenges due to the lack of transparency from local and state governments. The absence of dialogue with decision-makers was identified as the main difficulty hindering advocacy for groups directly affected by the project (Interview on 23/3/2015). Various impacted groups supported this claim, noting disinformation and a failure to invite them to discuss or inform them about anything (Interviews on 2/4/2015 and 7/4/2015). The lack of transparency was evident in the governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro’s statement during an October 2012 press conference about the building next to the stadium that once housed the Indigenous Museum (IM). The governor claimed that it would be demolished and converted into “an area for the passage and circulation of pedestrians”,

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citing it as a FIFA requirement (Mello, 2012). However, FIFA publicly denied demanding “the demolition of the old Indigenous Museum to the state government or any other authority” (Danilas, 2012). The state chief of cabinet later acknowledged that it was never a FIFA requirement but an option made by the state government (Maia and Rogero, 2013). The first publication of the tender document for the concession of the sports complex to private companies, which included plans for the demolition of the CBRT, JDAP, FPMS, and IM facilities, only occurred in October 2012, and users argued that they were not directly consulted about such plans. One FPMS user mentioned that he had “only heard about this tender document in the news” and the public defender working in the case called the document “a secret” that “nobody had access” (Interviews on 2/4/2015). The lack of transparency continued throughout the process, with contradictory official announcements emerging. Opacity was also evident in the evacuation of venues, with CBRT users discovering they could no longer enter the building without prior notice (Nogueira, 2013a, b). According to one leader of the CBRT users “I’d heard people were suspicious about the closure. But it was only suspicion, as nobody had ever told us about it (…) they didn’t inform us. One day they locked it up and we could never get in again” (Interview on 7/ 4/2015). This opaque approach was recognized as a strategic element by civil society and public defenders, who launched campaigns for transparency and popular participation in the project among other demands (CPCMO, 2012). One representative of the Popular Committee for the World Cup and the Olympics (PCWCO) suggested that “their strategy was to deny information, even though there is a law that guarantees public access to any information regarding public works” (Interview on 14/4/2015). Also one member of the parliamentary opposition believed that the “lack of clarity does not result from incompetence. On the contrary, it is not possible to be clear because it is not possible to have a legal document backing what they are doing. If they do the impact assessment studies, the construction works are not going to happen. The lack of transparency is not a detail, it is a strategy. It is fundamental” (Interview on 13/4/2015). As pressure increased, a

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state judge temporarily suspended the concession procedures because of its opaqueness, creating momentum for opposition (Grellet, 2013). Therefore despite the importance of this tactic for the redevelopment coalition, using the lack of transparency alone was insufficient to evacuate the buildings targeted by the MRP due to persistent resistance.

5.1.2 Delegitimation Delegitimation was a common tactic employed to challenge the legitimacy of the buildings that were earmarked for destruction, as well as the people occupying them. The IM was particularly susceptible to symbolic attacks, with government officials frequently asserting that the building had no historical significance and that it was not even an indigenous museum (Mello, 2012; Interviews on 6/4/2015 and 8/4/2015). There were also attempts to delegitimate the squatters who occupied the building, with government officials portraying them as drug users and criminals. For instance, the president of the Local Organizing Committee for the World Cup (LOC) saw them as “a bunch of scroungers”, adding that “even the construction workers supported us saying that those Indians stayed all day in hammocks smoking weed” (Interview on 26/3/2015). Also one former State Secretary for Sports believed that “there was not one single Indian there but a lot of potheads and snorters (…) Only rascals willing to live in that property (…) If you find an Indian there I will go back there and do the rain dance with them” (Interview on 24/3/ 2015). And according to a former State Chief of Cabinet, the indigenous people squatting the building “used to rent it as a storehouse for informal traders to store their products, which they used to sell at the Maracanã” (Interview on 9/4/2015). The CBRT and JDAP users were criticized on the grounds that both facilities were obsolete, and the thousands of users who utilized the facilities daily were symbolically diminished and obliterated from the officials’ narratives. A former State Chief of Cabinet argued that the CBRT “was already in a deteriorated state. The track did not meet international requirements anymore. The stands also had some issues” (Interview on

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9/4/2015). A former State Secretary for Sports put forward a similar view on the aquatics park, mentioning that the JDAP “hasn’t got a pool of high standard excellence anymore. Nowadays it is only used for a few competitions” (Interview on 6/4/2015). The president of the LOC argued that “these two sports facilities do not have everyday users, apart from some local communities” (Interview on 26/3/2015). Meanwhile, the FPMS was criticized for its location and infrastructure. It was argued that the 50-year-old school inside the stadium was no longer appropriate, and that a much better school should be built outside the sports complex (Interviews on 24/3/2015, 9/4/2015, and 6/ 4/2015). It is important to note that despite the symbolic attacks on the four facilities and their users, this tactic varied depending on the group targeted. The key to understanding the different approaches to delegitimation is the fact that the IM building was considered a grey space (Yiftachel, 2009). Originally a public federal property, it had been abandoned for 28 years until October 2006 when indigenous groups decided to occupy it to reclaim its use as an indigenous cultural center. The squat was then tolerated until late 2012, when the municipal and state governments finally decided to retake control of the property. This situation tended to blur the limits between legality and illegality since federal law guarantees specific land rights for those occupying abandoned public buildings for more than five years. Therefore, as an urban grey space, it was specially susceptible to criminalization. This was further amplified by the widespread deficit of legitimacy faced by Brazilian indigenous populations as one of the most neglected ethnic minorities. This situation was not applicable to the CBRT, JDAP, and FPMS activities, where property and identity rights were never directly challenged. The lighter approach may also have been facilitated by the fact that the non-permanent occupation of sports and education facilities did not require more extreme measures to evacuate buildings, as demanded by the permanent occupation of the IM.

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5.1.3 Technical Documents The government’s claims for land clearance were also supported by technical documents produced by private consultants and government agencies with a vested interest in the project. These studies aimed to imbue the MRP proposals with a symbolic power associated with an alleged scientific and technical authority, which was intended to produce an impartial truth about the contentious issues at stake. One of the most significant technical documents was the financial viability study of the stadium’s management possibilities, developed by the Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) consultancy company in 2007. The study contained polemical proposals concerning the Maracanã sports complex, which suggested significant spatial changes to enable better infrastructure utilization, maximize revenue generation, and improve stadium operation. This would require transferring the CBRT and JDAP to another area, which the study author suggested would guarantee the maintenance of current activities and free up spaces needed for operationalizing the stadium and hosting mega-events like the World Cup and Olympics (Rio de Janeiro, 2009). The consultancy company representative referred to the CBRT and JDAP as “mostly focused on social activities” and “hosting only a few major events recently” to justify their removal (Rio de Janeiro, 2009, p. 07). A few years later, the state government hired the company IMX to deliver a new viability study, which transformed the initial suggestion of removals into a basic technical requirement necessary for making the MRP project economically and financially viable. The study suggested the delisting of CBRT and JDAP as municipal heritage sites and their detachment from their original social purposes (IMX, 2012). This transformed the possibility of relocation into a basic technical requirement and made the decision for removal mandatory, leaving no room for political contestation. Then the 2013 concession tender document obliged the concessionaire to demolish the CBRT and the JDAP, rebuilding them elsewhere. The concessionaire was also required to establish commercial activities in the area after clearance (Rio de Janeiro, 2013). The technical legitimation for the demolition of the FPMS and the IM followed different paths from those used for the CBRT and JDAP.

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The 2007 BAH viability study laid the basis for the argument underpinning the demolition of the IM, citing “a lack of space for the movement of crowds, which do not allow the people to stay next to the stadium, creating an agglomeration of people in tiny spaces, which generates discomfort and insecurity” (Rio de Janeiro, 2009, pp. 8–9). In December 2010, the Steer Davies Gleave consultancy company was commissioned to deepen the analysis of crowd movements, leading to a report used in 2012 by the state government’s cabinet as a technical justification for demolishing the IM (Rio de Janeiro, 2012). The resulting decision to demolish the building was initially announced in the first draft of the concession tender document in October 2012, but the technical justifications were heavily contested by specialists and judicially challenged. The government made a U-turn, erasing the plan to demolish the IM from the 2013 final version of the tender document. Conversely, the FPMS prompted a very different approach, with unclear and sporadic justifications. The late 2012 draft and early 2013 final version of the concession tender document only shortly mentioned the need for “creating two warming-up courts” in order to adapt the Maracanãzinho Gymnasium, which is next to the school, to mega-events requirements, particularly the 2016 “Olympic volleyball competitions” (Rio de Janeiro, 2013, Annex 3, p. 42), without any further explanation. Thus the use of technical documents to legitimize land clearance plans varied depending on the facilities in question. The CBRT and JDAP were explicitly targeted by this tactic early on, while the IM was affected slightly later by a similar but less consistent approach. However, the FPMS was hardly mentioned and only very late in the process. These differences highlight the need for technical documents to complement other tactics. The CBRT and JDAP were less vulnerable to delegitimation tactics and required a consistent approach to transform political decisions into technical requirements. In contrast, the IM and its defenders were relatively more vulnerable, and the demand for technicalities was weaker but still used and ultimately defeated. The lack of attention given to the FPMS in the technical documents approach may indicate its greater symbolic power, requiring additional tactics to address it.

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5.1.4 Compensation In the land clearance plans, governmental agents have consistently offered compensation in various forms to ease the process. The concession tender document presented new facilities to substitute the CBRT, JDAP, and FPMS, which would be reconstructed within 2.5 km from the Maracanã (Rio de Janeiro, 2013). This aimed to undermine resistance. Architectural designs of new facilities were published as proof of this promise, as seen in the Figs. 5.6 and 5.7. Interviewees representing government agencies were especially keen to highlight the advantages offered to the FPMS users by the new proposed building in comparison to the original site (Interviews on 24/3/2015 and 6/4/2015). This also included the formal conditioning of relocation to the completion of the new school. However, this was not the case for the CBRT and JDAP users. The sports facilities’ area was regarded as fundamental to the concessionaire business plans, and their destruction was seen as crucial for providing additional space for the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup and 2014 FIFA World Cup, leaving organizers with a tight deadline to implement such plans in the first semester of 2013. This made it nearly impossible to reconstruct the removed facilities in such a short period. The case of the indigenous squatters was unique, as the group firstly forced a major U-turn in the original eviction plans, with the 2013 tender document obliging the concessionaire to recover the building (Rio de Janeiro, 2013). Then compensation offers were deployed to help persuade them to leave. The State Secretary for Social Assistance and Human Rights publicly announced that the government was “offering the necessary guarantees for them to peacefully leave” (Folha de São Paulo, 2013). Compensation offers consisted of either three options of distant relocation sites or paid transportation back to their homelands outside Rio de Janeiro or the payment of a monthly R$ 400 housing benefit.4 However, only a few people accepted such offers, opting for the relocation to a site 20 KM away in the Jacarepaguá neighborhood, where a new indigenous cultural center would be constructed. Meanwhile, they would have to live in containers located at a deactivated leprosy hospital (Werneck, 2013).

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Fig. 5.6 Architectural project of the new Celio de Barros Running Track, published in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013)

Therefore, the use of compensation as a tactic varied in terms of intensity and purposes according to each facility targeted. The most appealing offers were made to the representatives of the FPMS, which included pledges of improvements in the infrastructural conditions and formal

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Fig. 5.7 Architectural project of the new Julio Delamare Aquatics Park, published in the concession tender document, 2013 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013)

guarantees that the demolitions would only happen after the completion of the promised reconstruction. This may indicate the higher political and symbolical ground held by the group in comparison to others.

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Thus, a varied and customized approach subsumes the different utilisations of the forefront tactics and their complementarity. If the squatters of the IM were primarily targeted by delegitimation, the use of technical documents tended to be more consistently used against the sports facilities, while compensation offers prevailed in the case of the FPMS. Additionally, the lack of transparency played a transversal role, being more equitably applied to every case. As a whole, these multiple combinations show the dynamicity of the clearance process.

5.2

Supporting Tactics: Erratically Addressing the Shortcomings of Forefront Tactics

Legacy promises, intimidation, tokenistic consultation, and conceded participation played a secondary role, being classified as supporting tactics. More details about them are given below.

5.2.1 Legacy Promises Legacy promises played a secondary role but were still deemed important enough by government agencies to justify land clearance. However, this tactic lacked focus and produced several different promises, primarily centered on improving the leisure and entertainment infrastructure of the Maracanã complex. The IMX feasibility study promised an entertainment complex that would transform the stadium into a “sustainable legacy”, benefitting the city and local neighborhoods (IMX, 2012, p. 02). The project’s advocates promoted a leisure and entertainment legacy, based on a “huge need for sports and leisure areas in the Tijuca and Maracanã neighborhoods” (Interview on 24/3/2015). One former State Chief of Cabinet argued that the CBRT, JDAP, FPMS, and IM facilities would have to be demolished so that “the Maracanã can reinforce its complex characteristic, with true entertainment activities and leisure areas - bars, restaurants, cinemas, car parks” (Interview on 9/4/2015).

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However, this approach also highlighted some contradictions and weaknesses, as it advocated for more exclusive use of the new entertainment infrastructure, potentially excluding those who used the existing sports facilities. According to the IMX feasibility study, the Maracanã complex would achieve “its whole potential” (…) “for the benefit of society” by “attracting a public with higher income and consumption capacity that was not used to utilize these venues before” (IMX, 2012, p. 02). The concerns about attracting a wealthier group of consumers to the detriment of others prompted controversy. New fan-based movements, such as the National Fans Association and the National Front of Fans, emerged to contest changes to the audience profile brought by the MRP plans. One public defender summarized the feeling of frustration by pointing out that “all these sportive, historical and heritage references would be demolished and replaced by a shopping mall and a car park. Honestly, I don’t think we can consider shopping malls as a legacy (…) This is not exactly the legacy local communities expect” (Interview on 23/3/2015). While other pledges involved infrastructural improvements, such as streetscaping, transportation, and drainage upgrades, these played a minor role in the official legacy discourse compared to the emphasis given to new entertainment and leisure infrastructure (Interviews on 26/3/2015, 31/3/2015, and 9/4/2015). Still, the use of multiple and disconnected legacy promises produced an unfocused approach, and the anti-eviction coalition contested some of the contradictions and controversies present in the refurbishment proposals. These trends weakened legacy promises as a tactic.

5.2.2 Intimidation The implementation of land clearance plans involved the use of intimidation mechanisms, including hostile spatial changes and the threat of police action. These tactics had a significant impact on the eviction of the JDAP and CBRT facilities and the partial destruction of the latter. Access to the CBRT was suddenly denied two months after the release of the concession tender document without notice. The professional

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equipment of the athletes was locked inside, and they couldn’t access it for more than six months. The CBRT underwent further spatial changes after its closure, including paving over the track and transforming the athletics track into a car park (Interviews on 7/4/2015 and 14/4/2015). The representative of the concessionaire justified it by saying that the CBRT was “not hosting sports events because it had to be used to house TV equipment related to the World Cup and the Olympics” (Interview on 15/4/2015). In practice, the new uses resulted in the partial destruction of the original stadium (Konchinski, 2013). Similar procedures were implemented at the JDAP in April 2013 (Interview on 7/4/2015). Enclosure was complemented by fencing with black walls, which blocked the view of the facilities from the outside, leading to a slow and unnoticed deterioration. According to a representative of the JDAP users, “they fenced it so that the passer-by forgets what is inside there. With this black fence, people don’t notice it. Nobody knows that there is an aquatic park there, with a beautiful history of sports competitions and social projects for disabled people. They blocked the view for us to be forgotten” (Interview on 2/4/2015). These hostile spatial changes were generally concomitant to threats of violent police actions. Police presence was deployed during the public bid opening procedures related to the concession of Maracanã, which took place on 11 April 2013 at the headquarters of the Rio de Janeiro State government, to intimidate protesters and restrict their access (Cardoso, 2013). Furthermore, police presence was especially deployed to intimidate the squatters living in the IM. According to a local newspaper, on 12 January 2013: At least 40 men from the Military police surrounded the former Indigenous Museum in the Maracanã neighborhood, where 23 indigenous families have been living for 6 years. The policemen expected a court order to evacuate the building, whose demolition is part of the package of measures preparing the Maracanã stadium for the World Cup. The indigenous people oppose the eviction. The troops have left and may return today. (Giuliana, 2013)

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Despite the evictions in March 2013, there was a constant presence of police cars in front of the Indigenous Museum to keep people away and avoid further re-occupation (Interview on 14/4/2015). These tactics helped to intimidate squatters before evictions and guarantee that the evacuated facilities remained empty.

5.2.3 Tokenistic Consultation Tokenistic consultation was not a genuine priority for the state government in its attempt to control dissent. Instead, it was primarily activated as a legal requirement under Brazilian legislation, which mandates public hearings for large-scale development projects. Consultation procedures were infrequently and arbitrarily utilized on an individual basis. The first public hearing regarding the MRP was held on a Friday afternoon in September 2009, with little publicity or public interest. Organized by the Rio de Janeiro State Secretariat for Sports and Leisure, the consultation aimed to legitimate the transfer of control over the stadium to the private sector. However, the event had a tame composition of audience members, with most of the 35 questions posed being from civil servants involved in the organization of the event. The only challenge to the proposed demolitions was from a group of retired users of the JDAP and its social programs against the removals, but it was quickly dismissed by the event organizers. The State Secretary for Sports then stated that the issue was beyond the scope of the discussion, as the demolitions to meet FIFA requirements “will have to be done anyway. The release of that area (to FIFA) was already presented, approved and ratified and it is because of this that Rio de Janeiro was chosen as a host city” (Rio de Janeiro, 2009, p. 28). The second public hearing, held in November 2012, on the eve of the final tender document release, was more widely publicized and attended. However, its purpose was again only to discuss the implementation of the public–private partnership plan. Groups facing eviction threats made alliances among themselves and with other social movements, such as football fan associations, to obstruct the public hearing and challenge its

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tokenistic nature. One PCWCO member requested the microphone and spoke at the beginning of the hearing, saying: A public hearing is supposed to hear the population. It is clear that this process is rigged. We are radically against this privatization (...) This public hearing is not legitimate. We don’t recognize it and we demand it to be cancelled. We demand a new audience to discuss whether the management is going to be either public or private. This is the crucial debate. The state government is turning this hearing into a farce. (Baltar, 2012)

Soon afterward the audience protested by making as much noise as possible in order to make the public hearing unfeasible. Despite their attempts, the hearing continued, but many opponents later challenged its legitimacy. Ultimately, the consultation procedure was legally recognized, the concession tender document was released, and the public–private partnership plan moved forward.

5.2.4 Conceded Participation Facing protests, the MRP promoters had to make compromises to continue with the project. The proposals were widely unpopular, and the affected groups were mobilizing against them. Under this growing unrest, the promoters made significant retreats, leading to the abandonment of plans to demolish the IM, the CBRT, the JDAP, and the FPMS in January, July, and August 2013, respectively (Naddeo & Carpes, 2013; Nogueira, 2013b; Alencar & Galdo, 2013). The decision-makers recognized that the combination of causal factors mentioned above was the primary reason for conceding some participation to local movements and partially meeting their demands. The State governor acknowledged the society’s clamor and the demands from athletes, sports federations, and judicial courts as key elements for the change of plans (Konchinski, 2013). Likewise, the State Chief of Cabinet acknowledged the importance of popular pressure, saying that the government had to make these U-turns regarding the Maracanã

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complex because they could not surmount resistance (Interview on 8/4/ 2015). For months, the opposition had severely criticized and contested almost every tactic used by the state government, including lack of transparency, which was constantly denounced through several mechanisms. These included dossiers produced by the PCWCO and the alternative media actions promoted by the “O Maraca é Nosso!” campaign (CPCMO, 2011, 2013). Against the claims of sub-utilization made by the government, CBRT representatives argued that “every day 800 people use the athletics facilities” (Interview on 7/4/2015). Another interviewee supporting the IM squatters highlighted the “history, sociology, and philosophy classes that used to periodically happen” there (Interview on 2/4/2015). Moreover, the anti-eviction coalition strongly counteracted the use of technical documents as a source of legitimation by the State government. They produced alternative reports by independent experts showing the historical and anthropological importance of the IM and the possibility of having appropriate crowd movements without demolishing public buildings (Gomes, 2010; Magalhães, 2012). Additionally, interviewees emphasized efforts to expose the flaws in the compensation proposals, such as the smaller dimensions of the new plots designated for relocation, the elitist character of legacy promises, and the tokenistic consultation procedures. All these counterfactual elements were used to underpin the judicial actions by the public defenders advocating against the destruction of the targeted facilities. However, the partial acceptance of the opposition demands was a tactical option made under very specific unfavorable circumstances. A federal public defender stated that “as they (the state and municipal governments) were under a lot of pressure and their approval ratings were plummeting, they decided to re-list the buildings and give a lot of publicity to these acts in order to regain public support” (Interview on 23/3/2015). This provided some relief to the pressure, creating leverage to either help evacuate the facilities or keep the users already evicted away from the buildings.

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The case of the IM illustrates this point. In January 2013, the official announcement that publicized the news in favor of the revitalization of the building also reinforced the associated need for eviction (Naddeo & Carpes, 2013), which eventually happened in March. Additionally, there was the permanent postponement of the deadline to reopen the JDAP and the CBRT facilities. Whereas the former would initially be “reopened soon”, the latter would need eight months to be rebuilt, according to the first statement on the matter made by the state government in August 2013 (Konchinski, 2013). However, both sports facilities remained closed for a longer period than initially anticipated, with their reopening postponed until 2017. This approach temporarily satisfied those who had been advocating for the preservation of the facilities, but it also allowed officials to wait for changes in the situation and adjust their plans accordingly, particularly after the PPP contracts were revised due to significant U-turns. Thus, supporting tactics played a crucial role in addressing the shortcomings of the forefront tactics. Intimidation and conceding some ground to the opposition proved more effective in advancing the implementation of the MRP plans than making empty promises and token consultations, which often encountered staunch resistance. Although progress was made through these hard-fought advancements, the supplementary tactics used were not adequate, necessitating the utilization of rearguard tactics as well.

5.3

Rearguard Tactics: The Inevitable Use of Force

With the constant failure of forefront and supporting tactics, the undesired use of force sporadically entered the stage. However, this left an inevitable political onus to the redevelopment coalition, as seen below.

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5.3.1 Police Violence Although police violence was considered a last resort and was used only in a few specific situations, it played a crucial role in evicting squatters from the IM. Despite various unsuccessful attempts to remove the squatters, including offers of compensation, announcements of the demolition U-turn, and intimidation tactics involving armed police presence, the squatters refused to leave. On March 22, 2013, the state government decided to use force, resulting in physical confrontations and drawing widespread media attention. The New York Times reported that: the Brazilian police on Friday stormed the work site of Maracanã (…) in an attempt to end a standoff with more than 20 indigenous protesters who had squatted for years in an adjacent building that once housed Brazil’s first Indian Museum. A force of about 200 camouflage-clad police officers fired tear gas in the direction of more than a hundred protesters supporting the squatters, and used pepper spray on them at various points in the chaotic operation, drawing sharp rebukes from indigenous leaders and human rights advocates. (Romero & Barnes, 2013)

O Globo provided additional information on the consequences of the police violence, including attacks on its own staff: “The police action left the photographer of O Globo slightly injured as he was hit by a few bits of a gas bomb (…) An indigenous protester felt ill because of tear gas and some protesters were arrested” (Barreto et al., 2013). The decision to forcefully evict the squatters was not intended to garner such intense media attention. The former State Chief of Cabinet in charge of the MRP admitted that the police operation “caused a lot of public exposure”, and the former State Secretary for Sports and Leisure acknowledged that the eviction procedures had negative effects on public opinion, making “everything crumble down” (Interviews on 9/4/2015 and 6/4/2015). The use of extreme coercion led to successive protests and reoccupations, prompting the production of a report about police abuses during the evictions by the NGO Justiça Global, which was addressed

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to the United Nations, creating more bad press for the MRP (Barreira & Souza, 2013; Werneck, 2013; Grellet, 2013b). Although the State government eventually managed to control these protests, the IM was reoccupied twice in 2013 (Agência EFE, 2013; Cudischevitch & Grellet, 2013). Finally, the definitive eviction took place on December 17, 2013, when indigenous squatters and protesters were pepper-sprayed, dragged out of the site, and arrested for the last time by the police (Gomes & Torres, 2013). While police violence was effective in regaining control over the building, it also brought a substantial onus to the redevelopment coalition. The excessive media attention and the persistent resistance by squatters were not considered in the local authorities’ calculations, which may have contributed to the difficulty of guaranteeing the permanent evacuation of the building. This misreading of the situation could explain the year-long process of evacuating the building.

5.3.2 Judicial Actions The use of extreme force was a last resort in the demolition and eviction plans. However, judicial actions were also available as a tool. Despite being avoided by local authorities, judicial actions were used in response to court orders triggered by Public Defenders and the Public Ministry.5 The persistent legal challenges made by both institutions against the State and Municipal governments played an important role in eventual changes to the original demolition plans, though evictions could not be avoided. Several legal battles over the demolition and eviction plans took place for over a year in local courts between October 2012 and December 2013. On 25 October 2012, a Federal Public defender formally demanded an immediate and urgent prohibition of the IM demolition, which had been publicly announced by the State government via the first release of the concession tender document. On the next day, this demand was provisionally accepted by a local judge (Pita, 2012), triggering the first judicial action by the State government on 8th November, which requested the suspension of the prohibition. This led

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to numerous subsequent judicial reviews and new injunctions for and against the demolition (Corrêa, 2013). Eventually, on 28th January, the State government announced its first major U-turn, relinquishing the initial plan. However, the decision was part of a tactical change aimed at only evicting squatters without destroying the property, to give a different use to the existing but renovated building that would still be aligned with the concessionaire business plans. The State General Attorney demanded a court order to guarantee eminent domain over the property in early March 2013 (Justiça Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2013), which, despite a few new challenges, was finally conceded later in the same month, justifying the use of force that resulted in the first eviction. This was the only proactive legal action deployed by the government over the course of the MRP implementation. By early April, with the IM evacuated through police violence and the sports facilities totally unoccupied via intimidation tactics, the State government retracted back to its reactive judicial position and tried to use its powers to implement the stadium concession and part of the original destruction plans that had not been obstructed yet. Nevertheless, the State Public Ministry posed a new legal challenge to the tendering process on 10th April, one day before the public opening of tenders to be held at the government’s headquarters, arguing against the participation of the company IMX as a tenderer after having produced the feasibility report that underpinned the same bid competition. But only a few hours later, the State General Attorney once again opposed the court decision and won the case, clearing the way for the MRP plans (Castro, 2013). Later in April and May 2013, the Public Defenders and the Public Ministry guaranteed new injunctions specifically forbidding the destruction of the JDAP and CBRT. As the dispute involved several technical justifications for and against the demolitions, the legal battle was sustained up until late July 2013, when some significant though not definitive victories were obtained by the challenging agents and the State government decided to announce another major U-turn, i.e., the full scraping of the demolition plans (Cudischevitch & Grellet, 2013; Marcolini & Castro, 2013; Rogero, 2013).

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Regarding the later re-occupation of the IM, the State government did not need new judicial actions to counteract it. Instead, the authorities opted for reutilizing the initial favorable court decision of March 2013, which had already guaranteed eminent domain over the building and once again underpinned the ultimate evictions in December 2013 (Ricardo et al., 2013).

5.4

Conclusion

The panorama above leads to several important conclusions regarding the MRP case. First, the implementation of the land clearance proposals was characterized by a heterogeneous and dynamic strategy that relied on both hegemonic and coercive actions. The forefront tactics sometimes leaned towards consent-seeking, with delegitimization and technical documents, though also sometimes being more inclined towards coercion, with lack of transparency and compensation payments getting prominence. The supporting tactics tended to be hegemonic, while rearguard tactics were predominantly coercive. The diversity of social groups affected by the demolition plans, which was evident in the spatial arrangement of the Maracanã complex and its surroundings, required such a varied approach. Established community groups like the fifty-year-old FPMS, which served middle and lower middle-class families, and the CBRT and JDAP, which had been used for competitions and training by elite athletes and for social programs by retired, disabled and poor people for decades, were targeted with relatively less confrontational tactics like lack of transparency and compensation payments. In contrast, the squatters of the IM, who had been using the previously abandoned building for only six years and had no recognized rights of use, were subject to more openly confrontational tactics like judicial actions, intimidation, and the use of police violence, underpinned by strong delegitimation. Also the outcome of the process varied depending on the group targeted and the tactics used. The activities of the FPMS were never substantially disrupted, and the CBRT and JDAP users eventually regained access to the respective facilities. However, the situation of the

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IM remains unresolved, with no indication that it will become an Indigenous Cultural Centre managed by indigenous people as demanded by the squatters, and the previous occupiers may never be allowed to return. The heterogeneous and dynamic character of the land clearance strategy also revealed a deficit in hegemonic means, evidenced by the resort to coercion and the failure of some hegemonic tactics like technical documents, legacy promises, and tokenistic consultation. The increasing dissemination of dissent and the vulnerability of the redevelopment coalition to such attacks further demonstrated this hegemonic deficit, which led to the partial dismantlement of the MRP original plans caused by the decision to preserve all the facilities. Therefore, while the operation was insufficient for fully guaranteeing the aimed land clearance, the use of coercive means through criminalization facilitated by grey spacing was decisive in promoting permanent evictions as one of the necessary steps to achieve the spatial and economic reconfiguration of the Maracanã complex. However, this approach also reveals the insufficiency of hegemonic means and the consequent escalation of coercion, particularly against those groups living and utilizing grey spaces who became more vulnerable targets for delegitimation through criminalization and ended up with the worst outcomes.

Notes 1. The controversies surrounding alterations to the sports complex began surfacing in the late twentieth century. A tragic incident in 1992, resulting in the death of three individuals due to the collapse of overcrowded stands, catalyzed discussions about the imperative for structural renovation. Subsequently, in 1995, the state governor proposed privatizing the stadium, citing a scarcity of public funds and the necessity to ready the city for the 2004 Olympics bid. The plan aimed to shutter the geral sector—a section where spectators could watch matches near the pitch for a nominal fee—transform the stadium into an all-seated venue, and erect new amenities like a shopping mall, four cinemas, and a parking lot, the latter replacing the Celio de Barros Running Track. However,

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the National Athletics Federation thwarted this endeavor (Curi, 2012). In 1999, the first substantial renovation, amounting to R$ 100 million, was undertaken by the state government. Relatively modest in scope, this “make-over” was rationalized by the preparation for the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship in Rio de Janeiro. Although the geral section remained unchanged, seating was introduced to the upper tiers, and luxury boxes were incorporated. Consequently, the seating capacity decreased from 125,000 to 90,000 attendees. Between 2005 and 2007, the state government invested an additional R$ 290 million to convert the stadium into an all-seated venue for the 2007 Pan-American Games. This transition led to a further reduction in capacity, accommodating 86,000 people, accompanied by a notable surge in ticket prices. The Julio Delamare Aquatics Park was also repurposed to host some of the event’s competitions. Eduardo Paes, then State Secretary for Sports, expressed intentions to hand over the sports complex to the private sector. Once more, owing to opposition from sports federations and bureaucratic hurdles, the proposition failed to come to fruition. In 2014, the project budget was equivalent to approximately USD 450 million. For more information on the methodological procedures, check the Appendix and Omena (2017). In 2013, this was equivalent to approximately USD 200. Public Defenders are responsible for guaranteeing universal access to lawyers and the justice system. And the Public Ministry is responsible for counteracting any threat to collective and diffuse rights.

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Alencar, E. and Galdo, R. (2013). “Escola Municipal não será mais demolida”. O Globo, 06th August 2013. Baltar, M. “Audiência pública sobre privatização do Maracanã é marcada por protestos”. Globo Esporte, 08th November 2012. Available at: http://glo boesporte.globo.com/futebol/copa-do-mundo/noticia/2012/11/audienciapublica-sobre-privatizacao-do-maracana-e-marcada-por-protestos.html. Barreira, G. and Souza, P. (2013). “Manifestação contra desocupação de índios fecha avenida no Centro”. G1 Rio de Janeiro, 22nd March 2013. Available at: http://g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2013/03/manifesta cao-contra-desocupacao-de-indios-fecha-1-de-marco-no-centro.html. Barreto, D., Costa, A.C., Alves, M.E. and Schimdt, S. (2013). “Aldeia Maracanã vai para Jacarepaguá”. O Globo, 23rd March 2013. Calil, L. (2013). “A R$ 1,2 bilhão, Maracanã vira estádio mais caro da Copa e deixa Fifa na mão com atrasos”. Extra, 08th May 2013. Available at: https://extra.globo.com/esporte/copa-2014/a-12-bilhao-maracana-vira-est adio-mais-caro-da-copa-deixa-fifa-na-mao-com-atrasos-8324827.html. Cardoso, C. (2013). “Manifestantes fazem protesto contra a concessão do Maracanã”. G1 Rio de Janeiro, 11th April 2013. Available at: http://g1. globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2013/04/manifestantes-fazem-protestocontra-concessao-do-maracana.html. Castro, C.O. (2013). “Justiça mantém a concessão do estádio”. O Globo, 11th April 2013. Corrêa, D. (2013). “MPF entra com recurso para impedir demolição”. Agência Brasil, 15th January 2013. CPCMO. (2011). “Megaeventos e violações de direitos humanos no Rio de Janeiro”. Comitê Popular da Copa e Olimpíadas—RJ. CPCMO. (2012). “Campanha—O Maraca é nosso!”. Comitê Popular da Copa e das Olimpíadas, 25th April 2012. CPCMO. (2013). “Megaeventos e violações dos direitos humanos no Rio de Janeiro”. Comitê Popular da Copa e Olimpíadas—RJ. Cudischevitch, C. and Grellet, F. (2013). “Cabral desiste de vender quartel e negocia com índios”. Agência Estado, 06th August 2013. Curi, M. (2012). Espaços da emoção: arquitetura futebolística, torcida e segurança pública. UFF, Niterói. Danilas, F. (2012). “Referencia: Oficio n2 NDPU-RJ/065/2012/GAB/12 DHTC/ASO, de 10 de setembro de 2012, enviado à FIFA pelo do 12 Oficio de Direitos Humanos e Tutela Coletiva da Defensoria Publica da União”. FIFA.

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Folha de São Paulo. (2013). “Aldeia ao lado do Maracanã recebe ultimato”. Folha de São Paulo, 22nd March 2013. Gaffney, C. (2008). Temples of the Earthbound Gods: Stadiums in the cultural landscapes of Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. University of Texas Press, Austin. Giuliana, D. (2013). “PM espera ordem judicial para retirar índios de museu”. Folha de São Paulo, 13th January 2013. Gomes, M. (2010). “O reconhecimento do valor do ‘Museu do Índio’ para os índios que vivem no Rio de Janeiro”. Gomes, M. and Torres, S. (2013). “PM retira índios e ativistas do antigo Museu do Índio”. Agência Estado, 16th December 2013. Grellet, F. (2013). “Justiça suspende licitação para privatizar Maracanã”. Agência Estado, 10th April 2013. Grellet, F. (2013b) “Índios fazem novo protesto no Rio”. Agência Estado, 26th March 2013. IMX. (2012). “Estudo de viabilidade técnica, econômica e jurídica para o Complexo do Maracanã”. Konchinski, V. (2013). “Cabral muda de novo projeto do Maracanã e deixa privatização ‘em suspenso’”. UOL, 02nd August 2013. Available at: http:// copadomundo.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2013/08/02/cabral-muda-denovo-projeto-do-maracana-e-deixa-privatizacao-em-suspenso.htm. Magalhães, R.A. (2012). “Estádio Mario Filho—Maracanã: alternativas de dispersão de público”. Maia, L. and Rogero, T. (2013). “MP quer liminar para anular licitação do Maracanã”. O Estado de São Paulo, 11th April 2013. Marcolini, B. and Castro, C.O. (2013). “Falta assinar”. O Globo, 31st July 2013. Mello, I. (2012). “FIFA desmente Cabral e afirma que não pediu demolição do Museu do Índio”. Jornal do Brasil, 18th October 2012. Moura, G. (1998). O Rio Corre para o Maracanã. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Naddeo, A. and Carpes, G. (2013). “Governo do Rio desiste da demolição do Museu do Índio”. Terra, 28th January 2013. Available at: https://esp ortes.terra.com.br/futebol/copa-2014/governo-do-rio-desiste-da-demolicaodo-antigo-museu-do-indio,68e005e8ef18c310VgnVCM20000099cceb0a RCRD.html. Nogueira, C. (2013a). “Na cidade olímpica, 300 atletas ficam sem pista de atletismo”. O Globo, 12th January 2013.

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Nogueira, C. (2013b). “Estado não vai mais demolir o Júlio Delamare”. O Globo, 30th July 2013. Omena, E. (2017). Exerting state power in core and semi-peripheral countries: Land clearance and domination strategies in London. Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg—Thesis at Oxford Brookes University. Pita, A. (2012). “Justiça impede demolição do Museu do Índio, no Rio”. Agência Estado, 26th October 2012. Ricardo,I., Mansur, P., Galdo, R. and Leite, R. (2013). “PM detém 25 ativistas da Aldeia Maracanã”. O Globo, 16th December 2013. Available at: https://oglobo.globo.com/rio/pm-detem-25-ativistas-da-aldeia-mar acana-11078904. Rio de Janeiro. (2009). “PPP Complexo do Maracanã: Ata da Audiência Pública”. Governo do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro. (2012). “Apresentação”. Secretaria de Estado da Casa Civil/ Escritório de Gerenciamento de Projetos do Governo. Rio de Janeiro. (2013). “Edital de Licitação (Concorrência Casa Civil n 3/ 2013)”. Secretaria da Casa Civil do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Rogero, T. (2013). “Cabral diz que Julio Delamare não será demolido”. Agência Estado, 29th July 2013. Romero, S. and Barnes, T. (2013). “Police storm squatters at Rio stadium site”. The New York Times, 23rd March 2013. Werneck, F. (2013). “Juiz tenta conciliação em disputa do Museu do Índio”. Agência Estado, 24th March 2013. Yiftachel, O. (2009). Ethnocracy: Land and identity politics in Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia, PA: Pennpress.

6 The Historical Constraints on Hegemonic Construction

The preceding chapters reveal noteworthy distinctions and shared elements among the examined land clearance processes. One prominent contrast lies in the successful execution of eviction plans by the redevelopment coalition in the case of the London Olympic Park, whereas in the instances of Rio Olympic Park, Ellis Park, and Maracanã, such plans faltered, resulting in lingering populations within the designated areas. Notably, the land clearance strategy in London was primarily underpinned by hegemonic means, whereas in Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg, coercion in its diverse forms took precedence due to the recurring inefficacy of consent-based approaches. What factors contribute to these variations? What could account for the disparate dynamics between force and consent evident in each land clearance strategy? Exploring these inquiries necessitates an examination of the historical and societal contexts enveloping each case. This chapter furnishes such insights by adopting a historical perspective on the distinctive socio-political conditions underpinning each case. Drawing upon the general Gramscian framework delineated in the first chapter, including concepts like “the normal exercise of hegemony”, “hegemonic crisis”, “passive revolution”, “transformism”, and “counter-reformation”, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_6

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the aim is to better fathom the broader trends characterizing the unstable balance between force and consent within English, Brazilian, and South African societies. This analysis uncovers potential correlations linking the specific force–consent equilibrium evident in localized contexts to the overarching historical settings. Furthermore, the chapter delves into the interplay of power dynamics among nations, a factor of significant importance to understand internal relations.

6.1

The English Condition

6.1.1 Power Sharing for Legitimacy For centuries, the English ruling classes gradually made moderate concessions to the population and gained greater legitimacy. The process began in the thirteenth century with the creation of the Magna Carta, which imposed the first institutional restrictions on the absolutist monarchy. The English Revolution, in the mid-1600s, and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in the late 1600s further subordinated the monarch to the aristocracy and emerging bourgeois class (Tombs 2014). Despite these changes, by the late 1700s, political power was still highly concentrated, with less than 10% of the male population having any participation in the decision-making process. The franchise only substantially expanded in the second half of the nineteenth century after decades of pressure by organized movements and consistent repression against them (Thompson 1963). Male working-class householders obtained political rights and became legally allowed to influence the public selection of Members of Parliament. However, universal suffrage was only guaranteed with women’s full enfranchisement in 1928.1 The creation of the Welfare State represented a continuation of the trend of gradual concessions for political stabilization,2 but there were more immediate and important reasons for its establishment. The experience of World War I and its aftermath generated much disappointment, with people feeling that the sacrifices made during the war were not compensated (Gilbert 1995; Pugh 2011). The 1920s and 1930s

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brought very high levels of unemployment and low real wages, which were much worse than those experienced during the war (Denman and McDonald 1996). In addition, the government’s intervention in the economy during World War II coincided with full employment and better wages, boosting popular support for a more interventionist government. And the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, which suggested a stronger government able to actively create jobs, provide social welfare, and counteract economic crises through public expenditure, were increasingly seen as a viable solution to socio-economic issues. This was best expressed in the proposals presented in the famous 1942 report of William Beveridge, who chaired the government’s Committee on Social Insurance. Unions also began making greater pressure for better wages (Pugh 2011). As World War II ended, the public debate over such issues converged to the 1945 general election. The Labour Party won a vast majority of seats in parliament by defending a program of social and economic interventionism as a continuation of the efforts initiated during the war. This represented an extension of the political influence of the Labour movement into the middle classes. The center of the institutional politics had shifted to the left, with full employment and universal social welfare objectives widely accepted by most politicians, including those from the right-wing Conservative Party, who pursued similar goals once in government in the 1950s (Hobsbawm 1996). The Keynesian approach of the Welfare State delivered unprecedented improvements to the population as a whole, guaranteeing satisfactory levels of employment, education, healthcare, housing, transportation, and social care for nearly thirty consecutive years. Inequality decreased, with the poorest population being positively affected by improvements in the standards of living financed through progressive taxation (Dorling 2012). These rapid and constant improvements solidified the legitimacy of a highly centralized and power-hoarding political system that was technocratic and only indirectly accountable to civil society (King 2015). The legitimacy was apparent in the peak membership records for both predominant parties, Labour and Conservatives, in the years following World War II (Keen and Audickas 2016). Additionally, the highest

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election turnouts were recorded between 1950 and 1966 (Rogers and Burn-Murdoch 2012). Thus, the three decades following World War II represented the culmination of a process that had started many centuries ago, characterized as a successful “passive revolution” resulting from constant “pressures from below” and responses in the form of “concessions from above” (Buci-Glucksmann and Therborn 1981).

6.1.2 The Neoliberal Counter-Reformation However, a significant inflection point emerged in the mid-1970s. The 1973 world economic crisis severely impacted Britain, leading to inflation and a rise in the national cost of living. Annual economic growth collapsed between 1974 and 1979, while unemployment rates rapidly grew (Denman and McDonald 1996). The repeated failures of both Conservative and Labour governments to address the situation eventually led to dissatisfaction and the so-called “winter of discontent” of 1978– 1979, when trade unions organized the biggest strike movement since the interwar period. Economic de-acceleration, the inability to control production inputs and outputs, and the construction of an anti-Welfare State narrative began to undermine the credibility of Keynesian policies and the higher moral ground held by Welfare State enthusiasts (Hay 2010). The post-war consensus was threatened. The 1980s marked a shift away from the consensus policies of the previous decades, with Margaret Thatcher’s radical proposals to reduce the role of the state, curb union influence, and increase the participation of market forces in the national economy. The resulting recipe, known as neoliberalism, promised economic improvements, but its implementation led to a deep economic depression and significant social inequality. To legitimize these policies, the government developed an “authoritarian populism” (Hall 1988) by promoting a dream of homeownership, encouraging financial deregulation and boosting consumerism through credit expansion, and mobilizing nationalism through war efforts. These policies had limited appeal and resulted in widespread dissent, manifested in outbreaks of rioting and strikes across the country in the early 1980s. The government responded with severe repression and coercion,

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and the climax of tensions occurred with the implementation of the poll tax, which triggered widespread protests and civil unrest. The combination of civil unrest, economic crisis, and conflicts within the Conservative Party ultimately led to Thatcher’s resignation (Pugh 2011; King 2015).

6.1.3 Reviving Consensus…Temporarily John Major, successor to Margaret Thatcher, had to distance himself from some of the policies of the 1980s in order to secure a Conservative victory in the 1992 elections, despite a net loss of 34 seats. While Major softened some of Thatcher’s social policies, he largely maintained the neoliberal macroeconomic policies, such as low taxation and privatization schemes, with the exception of the unpopular poll tax (Reitan 2002). However, this slight softening of Thatcherism failed to resolve the economic issues that had plagued the country for more than a decade. Unemployment rates increased again, poverty levels remained high, and income inequality did not decrease (Denman and McDonald 1996; McGuinness 2016; Belfield et al. 2014). After almost two decades in opposition, the Labour Party rebranded itself as “New Labour” and successfully exploited the Conservatives’ weaknesses while distancing themselves from their own past commitments to nationalization and full employment. Under the leadership of Tony Blair, the party promoted a “third way” between socialist and market-friendly policies, which included initiatives like a national minimum wage and increased welfare spending (Giddens 1998). This socially aware form of neoliberalism propelled Labour to an electoral victory in 1997, with an exceptional majority of 179 seats in parliament. The new government reversed the trend of increasing income inequality and achieved steady economic growth, with unemployment rates falling from 8.3% in 1996 to 4.7% in 2004 (Belfield et al. 2014). Additionally, power devolution to lower government levels gained ground. Despite this initial success, the government’s foreign policy and economic performance began to disappoint, and controversy arose from regressive environmental policies and renewed privatization schemes. The 2003 invasion of Iraq triggered widespread protests, and economic

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inequality and unemployment began to increase again from 2005 (Belfield et al. 2014). The 2007–2008 financial crisis further eroded the public’s trust in the government, and the Labour Party suffered an electoral defeat in 2010. The new Conservative-Liberal Democrats ruling coalition pursued a more aggressive neoliberal agenda, cutting welfare benefits and imposing financial restraints in the public sector. In 2011, widespread riots broke out in poor neighborhoods throughout the country. It was in this context of deteriorating consensus-building strategies that the IOC chose London for the 2012 Olympic bid, in 2005. The economic and political climate was further worsened by the 2007–2008 financial crisis and the subsequent public bailout of the banking system. The collapse of the “third way” and its socially aware neoliberalism ultimately led to the Conservatives’ victory in 2015 and the implementation of a more severe neoliberal agenda. In summary, following the long tradition of “concessions from above” and the “passive revolution” of the post-war period, the Thatcher government marked a “counter-reformation” by partially undoing those economic, political, and social concessions and increasing coercion. While the Major and Blair governments tried to mitigate this trend by incrementally increasing concessions, this was not enough to sustain a new consensus for long, and disruptions of the “unstable equilibrium” have become more frequent, as evidenced by growing Scottish independence claims, as well as recent rows over European Union membership and immigration, and the following Brexit. Despite this general trend, it is important to note two facts. First, the policies associated with the Olympics had already been established before New Labour’s legitimacy crisis worsened. Then, in 2003, the event was seen as an opportunity to promote the government’s environmentally and socially aware “sustainable” policies and enhance its hegemonic strength (Hayes and Horne 2011). Second, some of the post-war hegemonic cornerstones, such as the welfare system based on universal entitlement, remained despite counter-reformation (Tombs 2014). This is exemplified by the fact that the National Health System was used as a symbol to showcase Britain to the world at the 2012

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Olympic opening ceremony. Therefore, even though making concessions to the most disadvantaged was relatively less relevant than in the immediate post-war years, it was still a preoccupation in the run-up to the Olympics. The persistence of such a preoccupation results from the broader historical trend of privileging consent-seeking strategies, despite conjunctural change. The timing of the planned evictions, which took place prior to the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent deterioration of the Labour government, may have played a crucial role in the character and success of the land clearance and the eviction plan, which primarily aimed to maintain consensus and avoided coercion tactics, as seen in Chapter 2.

6.2

The Brazilian Condition

6.2.1 Building Hegemony Amidst Political Turbulence Throughout almost four centuries, Brazil’s socio-economic fabric was woven with the thread of monoculture agrarian exports deeply intertwined with sprawling rural estates owned by European descendants and fueled by the toil of Indigenous and African slaves (Prado Jr. 1976). This historical tapestry remained largely resistant to political transformation. Even the establishment of a constitutional parliamentary monarchy in 1822 and national emancipation did little to quell the dissatisfaction stemming from general social injustice, rigged local elections orchestrated by rural oligarchies and authoritarianism, leaving popular revolts usually crushed under oppression (Carvalho 2008). Change only began to unfurl after the abolition of slavery in 1888 and the proclamation of the Republic in 1889. These milestones marked the inception of substantial socio-economic shifts, giving rise to industrial endeavors. However, these advancements were eclipsed by an electoral process that marginalized the illiterate population, reducing direct participation to a mere 2% (Carvalho 2008). The mechanism of manipulation, still underpinned by local agrarian oligarchies, persisted thanks to the

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federal decentralized governance structure that was freshly implemented (Leal 2012). As the twentieth century dawned, urban uprisings led by burgeoning anarchist unions commenced a shift away from rural rebellions. Yet, these movements were met with brutal repression, extinguishing their momentum by the late 1920s (Samis 2019). A watershed moment came with the “1930 revolution”, expelling the incumbent president and relegating rural elites to secondary roles in the political-economic landscape. A more centralized interventionist state then catalyzed industrialization and import substitution, trading labor and social rights for stringent control over unions and other working-class entities (Araujo 2003). In Gramscian terms, this period exemplified transformism, with some union leaders absorbed into the state apparatus. Nonetheless, political and civil rights fell victim to the grip of the “Estado Novo” dictatorship (1937–1945), commanded by the same figure, Getúlio Vargas, who spearheaded the “1930 revolution”. Vargas’ ousting in 1945 reinstated civil and political rights while retaining welfare legislation and union oversight. Two decades of direct, transparent elections followed, coinciding with rapid urbanization. During this interval, an unprecedented “normal exercise of hegemony” coalesced around a nationalist-populist ideology, marrying economic growth with tangible improvements for the populace. Thus, the 1930 “bourgeois revolution” and its subsequent concessions of social rights marked a first “passive revolution”, forging a durable consensus advocating for a “social pact” between classes (Coutinho 2012). This consensus weathered more than three decades, remaining largely unchallenged despite initial political turbulence. A democratic respite was followed by a 1964 military coup, thrusting Brazil back into a much more coercive regime. The ensuing government dismantled civil and political rights, subjecting opposition figures to persecution, imprisonment, torture, and even death. Direct presidential elections were suspended, older political parties abolished, and the national congress temporarily shut down. In their place, a controlled two-party system emerged, offering limited electoral choice while maintaining stringent oversight. However, the government also temporarily augmented social rights and bolstered some legitimacy by nationalizing

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retirement pensions, unemployment insurance, and housing policies (Carvalho 2008). While the military regime maintained state intervention, it allowed certain sectors, like automobile production, to open their doors to foreign investments. The regime leaned heavily on loans from international investors to sustain its expenditures, fueling rapid annual GDP growth, averaging an astonishing 10% between 1968 and 1973. Nevertheless, this period saw the emergence of an autonomous, politically engaged proletariat, galvanized by the expansion of the automobile and steel industries. Fresh unions defied government threats, becoming linchpins in the resistance against the dictatorship. This resistance was further bolstered by progressive factions within the Catholic Church, professional associations, artists, and burgeoning urban social movements, collectively contributing to the regime’s gradual decline. Under growing pressure, the military leadership initiated a negotiated re-democratization process. Exiled dissidents were permitted to return, and an “amnesty” law was enacted, absolving individuals of political crimes, even including official torturers. The two-party structure was dissolved, replaced by multi-party representation. Direct elections for state governors were reinstated in 1982. However, these actions fell short, prompting over a million people to rally in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in 1984, demanding the full restoration of formal democracy. The regime eventually crumbled by the decade’s close.

6.2.2 Contradictions in the Renewed Pact of the New Republic The culmination of Brazil’s re-democratization in 1988 brought forth a new federal constitution and the direct election of a president in 1989. This apparent progress bore two contrasting threads that would intertwine. On one hand, the new constitution marked an unprecedented expansion of civil, political, and social rights. New political parties emerged, illiterate citizens gained full citizenship rights, freedom of expression and direct participation mechanisms were established, and torture and racism

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were officially recognized as crimes. The constitution promised every Brazilian access to public education, healthcare, sanitation, social assistance, housing, and even established Public Defenders Offices to ensure universal legal representation. These milestones, borne from sustained popular pressure and the gradual transfer of power, heralded a new era of “passive revolution” in the New Republic. Conversely, Collor de Mello, the first president directly elected in nearly three decades, implemented measures that eroded these constitutional guarantees. Embracing neoliberal economic policies, he championed extreme market deregulation, privatization of public assets, unbridled imports, foreign investment, and financialization of the economy. His successors, Presidents Franco and Cardoso, continued down this path, aiming to rein in the astronomical inflation inherited from the military era. However, this came at the expense of shrinking the state and deregulation. The government’s divestiture extended to selling 68 state-owned companies between 1990 and 2002, with more than half falling into the hands of foreign multinationals (Marques and Nakatani 2013). The resulting economic shifts tilted the balance from state and private national companies to multinationals and financialization. This fostered an acute dependency on external institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, sapping the vitality of the national industry (Santos 1996). This, in turn, led to economic slowdown, surging unemployment, and one of the world’s highest levels of income inequality. The rise of informal employment compounded these challenges, with nearly half of Brazil’s labor force between 1995 and 2001 finding itself in this precarious category (World Bank 2023). Although progress was evident in curbing inflation and reducing illiteracy and child mortality, the setbacks took their toll. By the early twenty-first century, the hegemonic renewal encapsulated in the 1988 constitution had noticeably failed, while Cardoso’s Brazilian SocialDemocratic Party (PSDB) struggled to maintain power. Frustrated by stagnant wages and dwindling job opportunities, Brazilians were disinclined to vote for continuity (Bresser-Pereira 2002).

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6.2.3 Resurgence of Strong Hegemony in Brazil The Workers Party (PT) emerged in 1980, comprised largely of independent unionized industrial workers, left-wing intellectuals, and artists who championed democratization. Rapidly ascending the political ladder, the PT became a formidable contender in national elections. Lula da Silva, a former union leader, clinched the presidency in 2002, solidifying the PT’s status as a dominant political force. This bore immense significance in a nation where the working class and the underprivileged had long been marginalized. To break their electoral losing streak, the PT adopted a conciliatory stance, promising to uphold the neoliberal framework erected by the PSDB in an open letter before the 2002 elections—a divergence from their socialist roots. Rather than confronting the ruling classes head-on, the PT embraced a more accommodating posture. While some progressive pledges remained, such as tackling extreme poverty and reducing social disparities, these would be achieved within the constraints of a heavily financialized economy, prioritizing loan payments and incentives for private enterprise. Hence, the quest to fulfill 1988s constitutional commitments went hand in hand with, not counter to, the neoliberalization begun under earlier administrations. The presidencies of Lula (2003–2010) and Rousseff (2011–2014) yielded substantial economic and social gains. Between 2003 and 2014, the annual GDP grew at an average rate of 3.5%, up from 2.4% during the Cardoso era. Unemployment plummeted from 10% in 2003 to 6% in 2012. Income inequality waned, with the Gini coefficient dwindling from 0.58 in 2003 to 0.51 in 2014, owing to consecutive national minimum wage hikes outpacing inflation by 75% over 12 years (World Bank 2023). Moreover, benefit payments expanded, and nearly 16 million individuals were lifted out of extreme poverty. These advances, coupled with credit expansion, propelled domestic consumerism and expanded internal markets. Universal access to education, healthcare, water, and electricity neared realization. Rights for marginalized groups, including LGBT and Black communities, gained dedicated representation in governmental bodies. National social housing initiatives were

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revitalized, and nationwide public consultations, rooted in municipal PT governance from the 1990s, gained broader acceptance. Simultaneously, the PT contributed to the resurgence of the national bourgeoisie. Between 2003 and 2012, the most significant growth in gross value added was recorded in extractive industries, construction, and commerce (IBGE 2012). The national financial sector also reaped benefits from the government’s choice to maintain high-interest rates and shift external debt into internal loans. And the agribusiness sector enjoyed state support and a buoyant international market, raising its share in Brazilian exports from 20 to 26% between 2003 and 2014 (World Bank 2023). In essence, the PT engendered a “conservative social pact” (Singer 2012) ensuring gains for the working classes alongside substantial rewards for various segments of the national bourgeoisie. The party’s rule was underpinned by four consecutive electoral victories, emblematic of a period of unusual stability. A protracted era of expansion in social, political, and civil rights transpired. However, the party and its allies sidestepped essential structural concerns, including concentrated property ownership and towering interest rates discouraging investment and stifling industrial sectors and public services. Critics maintain that the PT’s leadership saw the party’s grassroots wither as they solidified their positions within the state apparatus, a process referred to as “hegemony in reverse” (Oliveira 2006). The PT government was accused of practicing “transformism”, assimilating opposition leaders into state bureaucracy to effect marginal change, rather than addressing fundamental issues (Coutinho 2010). Notwithstanding these critiques, the PT’s ability to foster consensus for more than a decade underscored an exceptional strain of hegemony in Brazilian history under Lula and Rousseff. This sets the stage for Brazil’s hosting of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. Former President Lula lauded the IOC’s decision, in 2009, proclaiming “the world has finally recognized: it is Brazil’s time and turn” (Brum 2016). Nonetheless, the apparent political dominance enjoyed by the ruling Workers’ Party had already begun to unravel before the Olympics. The 2013 protests, spurred by discontent over World Cup spending and inadequate public services (Omena,

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2020), led to a temporary dip in approval ratings for President Rousseff. Despite this, she managed to recover and secure re-election in 2014. However, Brazil’s heavy reliance on primary exports proved precarious as fluctuations in the global commodities market triggered a profound recession in 2015. Austerity measures, coupled with a massive corruption scandal involving the state oil company, further eroded public confidence in the government. This culminated in Rousseff ’s suspension and subsequent impeachment in 2016. This political turmoil signaled a departure from the trajectory of the stable rule that the PT had solidified through the expansion of political, civil, and social rights. It may portend a return to traditional authoritarianism in a context of dwindling government support. This transformation was starkly reflected in the election of Jair Bolsonaro, an ardent enthusiast of Brazil’s past military dictatorship, as President (Anderson, 2019). Importantly, the escalation of coercion during land clearance for projects like the Maracanã Refurbishment and the Rio Olympic Park, explored in Chapters 3 And 5, coincided with widespread dissatisfaction and upheaval that gripped Brazil since 2013. This synchronous element could be more than a mere coincidence; it might be a vital connection to the deeper structural facets of Brazilian society, as the ruling classes have historically privileged coercive approaches while failing to build hegemony consistently, apart from a few short periods (Miguel, 2022).

6.3

The South African Condition

6.3.1 Segregation Origins South Africa’s history of racialised capitalism spans over three centuries, characterized by formal minority rule backed by high levels of coercion. From the mid-1600s, when the Dutch established settlements on the West Coast, to the early 1800s, domination was achieved through slavery and dispossession of native peoples. The British Empire’s emergence in the nineteenth century led to further expansionist wars with

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Afrikaners3 and the establishment of a formal parliamentary representation that enfranchised only a small percentage of the white population (Ross 2008). The discovery of diamonds and gold reserves was followed by the country’s unification and the institutionalization of segregation policies that kept black and colored4 populations as a source of cheap labor (Saul and Bond 2014). Resistance to segregation policies escalated over time, culminating in the establishment of the apartheid regime by the Afrikaner National Party (NP) in 1948. The second half of the century saw the implementation of total spatial segregation, which confined black populations in poorly structured “reserves” and townships. This regime was exclusionary, and the excluded majority did not accept it passively, leading to continuous violent conflicts (Ross 2008). The first mass general elections in 1994, which saw the ascension to power of anti-apartheid forces represented by the African National Congress (ANC), was a crucial watershed in South Africa’s history. For the first time, the ruling elite needed to obtain formal majority consensus to govern, and the country began its transition to a more inclusive society.

6.3.2 Striding Towards Consent-Seeking During the election campaign, the ANC presented a comprehensive societal view that outdid its rivals (Lodge 1999; Beall et al. 2002). The party aimed to ensure political stability and widespread improvements for the entire population while symbolically reconstructing the country as a new “imagined community” (Anderson 1983) with a diverse cultural and ethnic makeup, in contrast to apartheid ideology. The party’s slogan, “Vote ANC for peace! A better life for all!” and associated imagery portrayed a racially united nation with a promising future. The electoral outcome showed that the strategy was effective, with 62.6% of voters, representing nearly 20 million people, supporting the ANC. The charismatic Nelson Mandela, who had been imprisoned by the apartheid regime for almost 30 years, became president, and Thabo

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Mbeki, another leader and former exile, was one of the deputy presidents. The NP received slightly above 20% of the votes, and former president F.W. de Klerk was the other deputy president. The ANC gained significant support in areas with a high concentration of poor Africans who were keen to see the promised improvements in their daily lives (Lodge 1999; Bundy 2014). Mandela’s party outlined how these improvements would be achieved, albeit with some contradictory proposals. The plans included developing “an economy which grows through providing jobs, housing and education” and making “the millions of people without jobs” a top priority. This would result from a national public works program called the “Reconstruction and Development Program” (RDP) and “boosting investor confidence” as the international community responded positively to the “call for massive investments” (ANC 1994). Ten years later, the ANC had partially fulfilled these commitments. Economic development had improved, with an average annual growth rate of 3% between 1994 and 2003, triple the figure of the last decade of apartheid. Education and housing improvements were modest but significant: the pupil-teacher ratio in primary education fell slightly, literacy rates increased, and the number of South Africans living in slums decreased (World Bank 2023), with one million new homes being built and delivered during the same period (Charlton and Kihato 2006). However, the national unemployment rate increased sharply from 16.9% in 1995 to 27.1% in 2003. Therefore, the ANC achieved mixed results, with some progress but a significant failure to provide jobs, which was a top priority for the government. The initial failures of the new government are widely attributed to the neoliberal framework adopted after the elections (Ross 2008; Saul and Bond 2014; Bundy 2014), which denationalized the economy (Hart 2013). Although the establishment of universal suffrage and equal rights for all citizens represented a clear political break from the apartheid era, the old socio-economic structures remained largely intact. This was due to various compromises reached during the “negotiated revolution” (Waldmeir 1997), such as the implementation of fiscal policies demanded by multinational corporations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. These policies included the privatization

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of public assets and other “structural adjustments” aimed at reducing government expenditure and creating space for private investment. In particular, the Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR) program of 1996 marginalized job creation initiatives such as the Keynesian RDP, which had been drafted by some of the ANC’s long-time anti-apartheid allies, including the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The faulty results of the new government’s policies resulted from the irreconcilable contradictions within the ruling coalition formed by both major international and national capitalist interests and the older ANC partners (Saul and Bond 2014; Bundy 2014). Despite these challenges, the symbolism of having the first black government in more than 300 years, the promotion of an inclusive agenda, the use of patronage networks, and the initial positive outcomes were still sufficient to further strengthen the coalition’s hegemony. As indicated by the following elections, popular support for the ANC continued to grow (Seekings and Nattrass 2005). In 1999, 66.4% of voters opted for Mbeki to replace Mandela, representing a 3.8% increase from 1994. Then, in 2004, Mbeki was re-elected, with the party obtaining a still unsurpassed record of 69.7% of votes. In that same year, FIFA chose South Africa to host the 2010 World Cup, capitalizing on the legitimacy of the ruling coalition at the time. The event was seen as a way to unite the country behind a single project and showcase it to the world (Spencer 2011). The World Cup slogan, “Ke Nako (It’s time). Celebrate Africa’s Humanity”, aligned with the then-recent ideological reconstruction of a multi-racial South Africa proud of itself. This initiative built on the already well-known role of sports events in South Africa’s identity re-alignment, exemplified by Mandela attending a rugby game traditionally dominated by Afrikaners after his election (Carlin 2008).

6.3.3 The Resurgence of Dissent However, growing dissent surfaced in the run-up to the World Cup as the transitional period’s contradictions worsened. Criticism from SACP and

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COSATU became more prominent, demanding policy changes from the re-elected Mbeki government. The government shifted towards a “softer” neoliberal approach and embraced a “developmental state” rhetoric promising better service delivery and economic growth (Bundy 2014). The public budget of R2.3 billion for World Cup projects—which eventually cost R39.3 billion—contributed to urban improvements, aligning with “developmental” changes (Bond and Cottle 2011). Despite maintaining above 3% annual economic growth between 2004 and 2008, unemployment remained high, and income and wealth inequality increased during the first ANC mandates. Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies promoted a small black middle and upper middle-class without addressing major class inequalities (Seekings and Nattrass 2005). South Africa remained one of the most violent countries in the world, with corruption and patronage practices rampant. In 2007, Jacob Zuma became the new party representative with consistent support from COSATU, SACP, and ANC’s Youth League leaders, challenging Mbeki’s leadership. Mbeki resigned as president in 2008, confirming the growing turbulence within the government. Discontent was not limited to the ruling coalition but was widespread among the population due to service delivery deficiencies and informal settlements forced removals, which had led to sporadic unrest since 2001 (Hart 2013; Brown 2015). The manifestations gained momentum and became a national issue in 2007 when 26 strikes broke out at World Cup construction sites. In July 2009, 70,000 construction workers went on a week-long nationwide strike, uniting competing trade unions and receiving widespread support from the public and media (Cottle and Rombaldi 2013). In the same year, the results of the general election indicated changes. The ANC faced a loss of popularity for the first time, electing a new president—Jacob Zuma, as their percentage of votes decreased from 69.7% in 2004 to 65.9%, which proved to be a major inflection point. After the World Cup, in 2012, the police killed dozens of miners protesting for better working conditions at the Marikana mines, repeating an apartheid practice shockingly. In 2013, a new party formed by ANC dissidents—the Economic Freedom Fighters—emerged, challenging its former comrades. In 2014, the ANC’s electoral share decreased again

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to 62.15%. Since 2015, impeachment attempts became recurrent with growing popular support, and a new leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, came to power in 2017. Finally, in 2019, the ANC’s electoral share hit its lowest historical point of 57.50%. In summary, a new broad national consensus resulted from a “passive revolution” as revolutionary pressures “from below” led to significant concessions “from above”, such as the formal political participation of the previously excluded black population. This was followed by a clear “transformism” as some parts of the dominated and repressed groups—such as the ANC, the SACP, COSATU, and emerging black entrepreneurs—were absorbed into the ruling politico-economic coalitions, which still maintained the participation of the same major international and national mining and financial conglomerates that prevailed before and during the apartheid regime. However, the run-up to the World Cup was characterized by growing disillusionment with the highly popular ANC government, accompanied by a wave of dissent led by “insurgent citizens” (Brown 2015). This indicated the formation of a hegemonic crisis in South Africa, which has intensified in the aftermath of the international event (Hart 2013). Although policy-makers expected that the nationalistic symbolism attached to an international sports competition would strengthen the ruling coalition’s legitimacy, the contradictions inherited from the transition to a post-apartheid South Africa stood out, leaving those ambitions unfulfilled. The South African passive revolution and transformism provided some important political stability and economic growth. But, contrary to the initial neoliberal propositions and even to its later blending with a more “developmental state”, growth did not trickle down to the vast majority of the population. On the verge of the first African FIFA World Cup, the newly remade “rainbow nation” was losing social cohesion while remaining extremely unequal and violent. The apartheid legacies reminded South Africans that there was more continuity than expected after the democratic turn. Therefore, despite the attempts to create a “normal exercise of hegemony” since the end of the twentieth century, “hegemonic crises” prevailed in the South African history, including in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup. This is in line with the initial hegemonic failure

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followed by the coercive escalation in the specific context of the Ellis Park project, as seen in Chapter 4.

6.4

The World-System Condition

It is clear that the English, Brazilian, and South African national trends of class relations are distinctive and that these distinctions may have played a significant role in the respective local power configurations. However, the explanation for such differences is beyond national boundaries, as “international relations intertwine with these internal relations of nationstates, creating new, unique and historically concrete combinations” (Gramsci 2003, p. 182). Thus, when examining national domination dynamics, it is crucial to consider the impact of unequal interactions between nation-states.

6.4.1 The World-System Hierarchy and Its Consequences The strength of a nation-state is not solely determined by its internal authority but also by its ability to compete in the global system. Strong states have greater influence over weaker states, and can pressure them to keep their borders open to factors of production that benefit firms located in stronger states. This pressure is often one-sided, with weak states expected to comply without reciprocity. Strong states also pressure weak states to install and maintain leaders that they find acceptable and to conform to the policies of the strong states. In return, weak states may buy the protection of strong states by arranging capital flows (Wallerstein 2004). However, the traditional developed/developing countries dichotomy fails to provide a comprehensive understanding of this crucial hierarchy and its origins. This definition relies on a non-relational and deterministic viewpoint, in which countries inevitably follow a linear path towards maturity, characterized by the most advanced stage of mass consumption represented by North American and European societies and their values

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(Pieterse 2009). Instead, a more appropriate definition is provided by World-Systems analysis, which was originally developed by Immanuel Wallerstein, inspired by dependency theorists (Wallerstein 2004). According to Wallerstein’s theory, countries’ “stages of development” are interconnected synchronically through their relative positions in a world division of labor, rather than diachronically, which is key to understand the international imbalances of power aforementioned. Wallerstein divides production into a core-periphery arrangement based on differences in profitability, largely defined by the degree of monopolization of products in the world economy and relations of production. Corelike production processes are those controlled by quasi-monopolies and tend to be concentrated in a few core-states, mostly associated with the production of highly industrialized technological products and specialized services. Peripheral processes are truly competitive and tend to be scattered among many peripheral states, mostly associated with primary products. Semi-peripheral states occupy an intermediary position, characterized by a more balanced mix of core-like and peripheral products (Wallerstein 2004). Originally, semi-peripheral states included countries like South Africa and Brazil, while the United Kingdom was considered a core nation-state in the world-system (Li and Christensen 2012).

6.4.2 Ruling in the Periphery and Semi-Periphery The interference of strong states, mostly situated in core economies, in the affairs of weaker states, usually located in the semi-peripheral and peripheral world-system regions, can transform the national elites of the latter into a function of those based in the former. This issue has its roots in the long colonial period when colonies and their rulers were mostly a function of European metropoles. Despite independence movements, colonial influences lingered, and national elites of post-colonial states became facilitators of foreign governments and corporations’ intensive resource extraction. However, the formation of a national leadership with a broader societal perspective remains necessary. Fanon pointed out the diminished role played by the emerging national bourgeoisies in Africa, which saw their

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mission as being the transmission line between the nation and neocolonialism’s masked capitalism. The national bourgeoisies played their part as the Western bourgeoisie’s business agent, preserving their own profits and power but without fulfilling their historic political role of bourgeoisie as the leader of a national encompassing construction (Fanon 2001). The peripheral bourgeoisie’s diminished character has never been substantially altered in the continent, with a second phase of elite formation in the 1980s that allowed for the rise of technocratic neoliberalism, primarily within finance ministries and central banks in African capitals (Bond 2006). Recently, national African elites have been especially important for international highly exploitative networks operating as authentic “looting machines” (Burgis 2015). The historical challenges faced by peripheral national bourgeoisies are not unique to Africa. Seminal works on development and underdevelopment in Latin America have been written by authors such as Cardoso and Faletto (1979), Marini (2012), Oliveira (2003), and Fernandes (2009). They explored the socio-political implications of the development of “dependent capitalism” for Latin American national elites and working classes. According to this analysis, concrete historical capitalist development in Latin America followed a general pattern with roots in the colonial system during the post-colonial era. This pattern reproduced forms of appropriation and expropriation intrinsic to modern capitalism but with an additional factor, as institutionalized capital accumulation promoted the concomitant expansion of both external and internal dominant agents. This means that the national economic surplus is not exclusively controlled by the local bourgeoisie. Instead, it has to be shared with dominant elites based in core countries, creating the need for a supersurplus, which can only be achieved via the overexploitation of the local working classes and the dispossessed (Marini 2012). Hence dependence on the interests of an external bourgeoisie and the creation of a super-surplus are the essence of Latin American “mature” capitalist development (Fernandes 2009). This partnership is not necessarily a direct imposition, but rather a common choice made by national bourgeoisies. They work to ensure

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the conditions demanded by their external partners, not because they are unable to command, but because doing so makes the whole process more lucrative, fast, and secure for themselves. They defend their own immediate interests and historically constituted privileges by preserving the interests of core economies’ elites. However, this is mostly done through the permanent exclusion of the interests of the national lower classes, restricting the universalization of benefits from economic development and barring any possibility of significant social mobility, which are only formally guaranteed. As Fernandes points out, the formally announced ideals of social inclusion are only pursued “within the limits of the dependent capitalism’s rationality (that is, in a way that privileges and maximises the dual accumulation and sharing of the national economic surplus)” (Fernandes 2009, p. 69, my translation). Therefore, by opting to maintain excessive social privileges with colonial roots and exclude the lower classes, national bourgeoisies “reduce the range and variety of the interests they could represent, hence losing the opportunity to fuse the fulfilment of their class interests with national integration and failing as political elites” (Fernandes 2009, p. 99, my translation). In Gramscian terms, the Latin American bourgeoisies suffered from a historical hegemonic deficiency, which is also prevalent in other peripheral and semi-peripheral regions beyond Africa and Latin America. Ranajit Guha (1997) developed a subaltern view of colonial history, characterizing the British rule in colonial India as “dominance without hegemony”. Guha argues that the failure of nationalism to assimilate the class interests of peasants and workers into a bourgeois hegemony is a predicament of a bourgeoisie nurtured under colonial conditions. This failure resulted in a limited role for the emergent national bourgeoisie and created the basis for its subsequent failure to include the interests of lower classes in its project of post-colonial domination. This perpetuated the hegemonic crisis in the post-colonial era, as evidenced by the renewed authoritarian twist against dissenters in that country.

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6.4.3 The Contemporaneity of Subordinated Rule The historical and material conditions affecting semi-peripheral and peripheral national bourgeoisies, which underpin their “dominance without hegemony”, are evidenced by empirical data. The balance between outflows and inflows of foreign direct investments (FDI) shows significant differences between core economies and peripheral and semiperipheral regions. This disparity has been emphasized by the recent exponential intensification of such trends, and the specific links between positive and negative investment balances. The European Union (EU), for instance, had only six negative annual results (2002, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2019, and 2020) over the last 52 years. However, the opposite is true for the cases of Latin America & Caribbean (LAC) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), as both presented only two positive balances (1980 and 1992 for SSA) in the same period, as seen in Graph 6.1. The specific links between these positive and negative investment balances are highlighted by the fact that approximately a quarter of the EU FDI flowed to LAC and SSA in the early 2010s (Eurostat 2016). FDI Outflows X Inflows (US$ billions)

500

400

300

200 European Union Latin America & Caribbean

100

Sub-Saharan Africa

2022

2020

2018

2016

2014

2012

2010

2008

2006

2004

2002

2000

1998

1996

1994

1992

1990

1988

1986

1984

1982

1980

1978

1976

1974

1972

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0

-100

-200

-300

Graph 6.1 FDI outflows X inflows (US$ billions) (World Bank 2023)

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150 100 50 0 -50

European Union 2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

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2019

2020

2021

Latin America & Caribbean Sub-Saharan Africa

-100 -150 -200

Graph 6.2 Primary income receipts X payments (US$ billions) (World Bank 2023)

The imbalance in the creation of foreign investments results in an imbalance of surplus value appropriation (Graph 6.2). For instance, the EU has had consistent net primary income surpluses from non-member countries, whereas LAC and SSA had persistent deficits. Similarly, the UK figures are much better than those registered for Brazil and South Africa (World Bank 2023). Between 2006 and 2013, the Brazilian economy alone had already lost more than USD 192 billion in the form of profits repatriated by multinational companies (BCB 2016) while the “leakage” in South Africa corresponded to USD 57.5 billion (SARB 2016). Such specific transfers were never compensated by profits flowing in the opposite direction either, contributing significantly to the deficits in the balances of payments of both countries (DIEESE 2014; Strauss 2015)5 . On top of that, these substantial disparities tend to be deepened by the investment return gaps between core and semi-peripheral/peripheral countries. For example, in 2011 the UK investments in Latin America and the Caribbean presented a nearly 10% rate of return, whereas Latin American and Caribbean investments in the UK were restricted to a meager 5% (Hamroush et al., 2016). Likewise, the general rate of return for FDI in Africa has also been around 10% over the last decade, constantly staying way above the world average (Chen et al. 2015). The direct political implication of this tendency has been the increasing influence of corporations and states based in core regions,

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such as the EU and the USA, over corporations and states based in the peripheral and semi-peripheral regions, such as the LAC and the SSA. One of its most significant contemporary results is the concession and maintenance of very generous tax exemptions and other similar schemes, such as the funneling of the inflow of international investments and outflow of profits through multinational subsidiaries based in offshore tax havens, which are crucial for the abnormally enhanced rate of return provided by semi-peripheral/peripheral economies to foreign capital (Zucman 2015). While core countries are also submitted to these tax avoidance schemes, the impact is much less harmful, as they are not as dependent on international capital inflows as the semi-periphery/ periphery of the world-system (UNCTAD 2015). In general, national elites in peripheral and semi-peripheral countries tend to respond to external political pressure by accepting their subordinate role. However, this acceptance often involves making deals that provide substantial advantages for them. National bourgeoisies can benefit from high rates of return and other spillover effects of FDI, such as technology transfer and productivity gains, by developing their own minor business ventures in association with foreign enterprises (Crespo and Fontoura 2007; Hermes and Lensink 2003). Additionally, local politicians often receive personal compensation for maintaining a status quo that favors major national and international corporations. This compensation is often in the form of corruption, which can be seen through the significant amount of data on the charges against multinational bribery schemes developed all over the world. The ten countries with the highest number of bribery schemes are situated in Asia (China, Iraq, Indonesia, Russia, and India), Latin America (Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil), and Africa (Nigeria and Gabon). But the companies that have faced the ten biggest monetary sanctions for bribery payments were all based in core regions (Stanford Law School 2017), which is a testament to the intertwining interests of national elites from semi-peripheral/peripheral regions and multinational corporations from core economies. Furthermore, the use of tax havens by multinational corporations to pay minimal corporate taxes in host countries is also utilized by national

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elites to hide profits and kickbacks received for cooperating with multinationals. Offshore tax havens hold 30% of Africa’s financial wealth and 22% of Latin America’s financial assets. The percentages for Europe and the U.S.A. are much lower, at 10 and 4%, respectively (Zucman 2015).

6.5

Conclusion

The empirical evidence presented highlights the historical and contemporary factors that contribute to the subordination of semi-peripheral national elites to their core country counterparts. The main implication of these facts for internal class domination is a hegemonic deficit, as the subordinated association prioritizes national bourgeoisies’ immediate “economic-corporate” interests over their “politico-ethical” leadership. This can lead to neglect of the need to transform their own corporate interests into the interests of other subordinate groups, resulting in the exclusion of subaltern classes from national development - best represented by the aversion of semi-peripheral national elites to any democratic advancement (Miguel, 2022) - and eroding their potential consent to the domination of ruling groups. Conversely, the flows of superprofits from the semi-periphery and periphery provide an overaccumulation to the core countries’ bourgeoisies, strengthening their internal consensus-building capacity and enabling occasional material concessions to subordinated groups. Therefore, due to the significant historical and structural constraints here explored, rule by force tends to be more prominent in the semi-periphery, while consent-building tends to prevail in the core of the world-system. This was confirmed in the specific South African, Brazilian, and British cases examined earlier, both nationally and locally.

Notes 1. Although women could vote after 1918, it was only in 1928 that they achieved the same rights as male voters.

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2. There were some important precedents, such as the English Poor laws of the sixteenth century and the liberal reforms of the early twentieth century. However, they were incipient and far from being as encompassing as the post-war welfare system (Tombs 2014). 3. Afrikaners are those who descend from the Dutch and Huguenot colonizers of the seventeenth century. 4. This is the term still widely used to define the mixed race population in South Africa. 5. There are other aspects affecting the balance of payments of a country. However, the type of participation in FDI flows is a good indicator of a country’s position in the world-system, and thus sufficient for the argument made here.

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7 The Semi-peripheral Domination Complex

After conducting a thorough examination of each individual country and case, it is time to compare them. Firstly, by contrasting the results of the Olympic land clearance core case with the semi-peripheral case of the same nature, this chapter highlights the specificities of the semiperiphery. Subsequently, the two semi-peripheral cases related to World Cup regeneration projects are analyzed, focusing on their similarities and the recognition of further semi-peripheral particularities. Finally, the chapter draws conclusions from both types of comparisons, encapsulating them with the framework of the semi-peripheral domination complex. The findings help addressing the general and specific research questions while identifying some theoretical and political implications, giving special attention to Gramscian considerations of the Eastern mode of class domination and forms of resistance, as well as alternatives to some of the mainstream urban theories.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_7

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Cross-National Comparisons

7.1.1 Comparing Core and Semi-periphery Cases The two Olympic cases discussed here display significant differences in the coercion/consent-seeking balance, as shown in Table 7.1. The Rio de Janeiro redevelopment coalition relied heavily on force while neglecting more hegemonic means, whereas the London redevelopment coalition did the opposite. The contrast is illustrated by the different roles similar tactics played in the two cases. For instance, in Rio de Janeiro, lack of transparency, intimidation, and increasing compensation were forefront tactics used to remove Vila Autódromo from the Olympic map, whereas in London, they played only supporting and rearguard roles in attempts to remove Stratford communities. On the other hand, legacy promises and tokenistic consultation were key for the London redevelopment coalition, whereas in Rio de Janeiro, they played a minor role. Despite these differences, both cases used delegitimation as a forefront tactic. However, the meaning given to delegitimation differed. In London, the attempts to demoralize detractors were limited to using symbolic power to produce a new truth about them and the place where they used to live, erasing communities from a reinvented local history and disempowering their counter-narratives. This was done by officials, bureaucrats, and experts who used their positions to legitimize their assertions, regardless of content scrutiny. These assertions focused on the illegitimacy of opposition claims. In Rio de Janeiro, delegitimation focused on the illegitimacy of the opposition’s existence as citizens and rights-holders. Officials, bureaucrats, and experts used their institutional power to recreate the legality or illegality of grey spaces, according to convenience. Once most of Vila Autódromo was reconverted into an illegal site, basic rights of those residents resisting eviction, such as freedom of information and movement, were rolled back, facilitating the use of coercion, including in the form of police violence. When challengers are not recognized as subjects, their claims do not even need to be dismissed. These different approaches produced similar results, such as the total physical reconfiguration of both sites, as illustrated in the comparative

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Table 7.1 Comparative tactical mapping—Core X Semi-periphery Tactical hierarchy level

London Case

Forefront

Legacy Promises Delegitiimation Tokenistic Consultation Technical Documents Publicity and Propaganda Lack of Transparency Compensation and Judicial Actions Legislative Action Fragmentation Intimidation

+Hegemonic

Conceded Participation

+Hegemonic

Supporting

Rearguard

Tactics

Rio de Janeiro Case Strategic orientation

Tactics

Strategic orientation

Lack of Transparency Compensation Intimidation Delegitiimation Legacy Promises Technical Documents

+Coercive

+Coercive

Tokenistic Consultation

+Hegemonic

+Coercive

Judicial Actions

+Coercive

+Coercive +Coercive

Co-option Legislative Action Police Violence

+Coercive +Coercive

+Hegemonic +Hegemonic +Hegemonic +Hegemonic

+Coercive +Coercive +Hegemonic +Hegemonic +Hegemonic

+Coercive

+Coercive

aerial images below (Figs. 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 7.4). However, the processes and social outcomes were different. In the English case, land clearance happened without major turbulence, and the opposition’s formal challenges were recognized. In the Brazilian case, when land clearance plans faced resistance the opposition was not properly recognized, which fueled extra-institutional contestation through alternative media campaigns and protests. This led to a deeper erosion of the project legitimacy and, eventually, to a partial failure of the redevelopment coalition’s strategy. The findings suggest that the hyper-coercion, the lack of domination legitimacy, and the inability to fully implement decisions found in the Rio de Janeiro case are consistent with the historically recurrent hegemonic crisis and the conjunctural hegemonic deterioration tendency of the mid-2010s at the national level, as pointed out in Chapter 6. Moreover, the discretionary measures found in Rio de Janeiro, which crucially relied on the existence of working-class territories as grey spaces,

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Fig. 7.1 London Olympic Park Site (2005)—7 years before the Olympics (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021)

Fig. 7.2 London Olympic Park Site (2019)—7 years after the Olympics (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021)

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Fig. 7.3 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Site (2009)—7 years before the Olympics (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021)

Fig. 7.4 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Site (2021)—5 years after the Olympics (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021)

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indicate an important semi-peripheral particularity. However, it is also necessary to assess how the force–consent balance and its foundations in Brazil compare with other similar countries to refine observations on semi-peripheral particularities. This is done in the next section.

7.1.2 Comparing Two Semi-peripheral Cases The comparative analysis of the Johannesburg and Rio de Janeiro cases reveals several similarities, the most notable being the tight balance between hegemony and coercion, as seen in the Table 7.2. In both cases, prominent hegemonic deficits existed, with different consentseeking tactics failing, partially remedied by an escalation of coercion to implement the spatial changes demanded by the respective redevelopment plans. This escalation was based on delegitimation, manifested in Table 7.2 Comparative tactical mapping—Semi-periphery X Semi-periphery Tactical hierarchy level

Rio de Janeiro Case

Forefront

Lack of Transparency Delegitiimation

+Coercive

Technical Documents Compensation Legacy Promises Intimidation Tokenistic Consultation Conceded Participation

+Hegemonic

Police Violence

+Coercive

Judicial Actions

+Coercive

Supporting

Rearguard

Tactics

Strategic orientation

+Hegemonic

+Coercive +Hegemonic +Coercive +Hegemonic +Hegemonic

Johannesburgh Case Tactics

Strategic orientation

Legacy Promises Tokenistic Consultation Delegitiimation

+Hegemonic

Lack of Transparency Intimidation Co-option

+Coercive

Judicial Actions and Police Violence Economic Constraints Compensation

+Coercive

+Hegemonic +Hegemonic

+Coercive +Coercive

+Coercive +Coercive

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Fig. 7.5 Maracanã Refurbishment Site (2007)—7 years before the World Cup (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021)

the form of criminalization of already marginalized poor local populations and opponents, facilitated by the usual grey space character of the territories occupied and used by them. However, significant differences also exist between the cases. In Johannesburg, more extreme tactics from both sides of the tactical spectrum were unequivocally prioritized. Legacy promises based on the pledges of amelioration of infrastructure to the local poor population particularly stand out as a forefront tactic. The insufficiency of such an approach to constrain dissent triggered a quick and abrupt activation of the most extreme coercive means available to the local government, manifested in the combined use of co-option, intimidation, judicial actions, and police violence as decisive supporting tactics. Comparatively speaking, there was an overall tendency to prioritize relatively milder tactics in Rio de Janeiro. While lack of transparency, compensation payments, and technical documents assumed a protagonist role as forefront tactics, their failure to obstruct opposition was

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Fig. 7.6 Maracanã Refurbishment Site (2021)—7 years after the World Cup (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021)

Fig. 7.7 Greater Ellis Park Development Site (2003)—7 years before the World Cup (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021)

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Fig. 7.8 Greater Ellis Park Development Site (2017)—7 years after the World Cup (Credit Google/Maxar Technologies 2021)

partially counterbalanced by the activation of other means such as intimidation, tokenistic consultation, and conceded participation as supporting tactics. The more extreme options of legacy promises and police violence are relegated to a rather secondary role, respectively as supporting and rearguard tactics. Beyond these differences, the comparison revealed that the recourse to grey spacing is a crucial commonality. Urban grey spaces are fundamental spatial elements enabling both coercive escalations. This fact is evidenced by the different treatment given to distinct groups in each case according to their vulnerability level. Additionally, the resemblances between these two cases are manifested in the results of such projects, as illustrated by the respective aerial images below (Figs. 7.5, 7.6, 7.7 and 7.8). This is because the redevelopment interventions were never fully implemented and the landscape did not change substantively. Although hundreds of poor people have been removed from the surroundings of the Ellis Park stadium, local authorities never managed to complete the evictions and demolition

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plans for the Bertrams priority block, which was considered a crucial step towards the accomplishment of the GEPD project goals. Likewise, despite the initial evictions of communities and the demolition of few facilities around the Maracanã stadium, state representatives have been particularly unsuccessful in achieving the original redevelopment goals, bringing the whole MRP to a long standstill. To sum it up, resemblances between the two cases were the rule, while differences were the exception. The main contrast, based on the different levels of the same strategic options, somewhat paradoxically reinforces similarities, as it is fundamentally based on a matter of intensity rather than qualitative differences.

7.2

Comparison Implications

The comparison results offer valuable insights into the historical tendencies and counter-tendencies present in core and semi-peripheral countries discussed earlier. The usually predominat use of coercion against the lower classes in the South African and Brazilian histories and the more recent general erosion of consent-seeking strategies, especially in the run-up to the World Cups and Olympics, coincide with the coercive escalation found in the immediate local level of redevelopment projects. The use of more extreme coercive means, such as co-option, judicial actions, intimidation, and police violence against anti-eviction groups, aligns with the respective broader hegemonic crisis faced during the ANC government and the PT government. The Labour government in the UK was also beginning to face a hegemonic erosion by the time London was chosen by the IOC as the 2012 Olympic host city, but it did not substantially impact the land clearance strategy used for the London Olympic Park redevelopment project. This is because the consistent use of more hegemonic tactics and the completion of the plan before the end of 2007 aligned with the still stronger hegemonic environment at the national level, which only substantively deteriorated after the 2008 world economic crisis. These results suggest that land clearance strategies are highly context-sensitive, with connected

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variations in the force–consent balance of domination relations at the local and national levels. Moreover, the results also support the general tendency of semiperipheral dominant elites to face a recurrent hegemonic deficit, related to the national and local bourgeoisies’ dependence on subordinated association with their counterparts from core countries. The redevelopment coalitions leading the projects in Johannesburg and Rio de Janeiro could not completely overcome resistance by the local populations threatened with evictions and fully implement their respective land clearance plans. On the other hand, the London Olympic Park redevelopment coalition managed to relatively easily achieve its land acquisition goals and nullify anti-eviction groups, reinforcing the hegemonic strength of core dominant elites. Lastly, the analysis confirms the prominence of informality issues in the semi-periphery, particularly their importance for the local mechanisms of socio-spatial control. In all three semi-peripheral cases investigated, there is a clear correlation between the constitution of territories occupied by historically disempowered groups as urban grey spaces and the use of extreme coercion. The undefined and volatile condition of grey spaces is very convenient for semi-peripheral elites who resort to coercive means to hold onto institutional power and implement their political-economic projects. The criminalization of indigenous people, immigrants, and the urban poor living in squatted buildings and favelas reinforces the links between structural hegemonic deficiency and the use of informality as an instrument that enables coercive control. None of these characteristics could be found in the English case, corroborating the previous assertion that neither persistent hegemonic deficit nor grey spaces are typical issues in core countries. In conclusion, the existence of grey spaces in South Africa and Brazil is related to the recurrent use of coercive measures as a means of control and dispossession against local working-class communities. This is due to the local ruling elites’ failure or neglect to achieve consent from people living in those places to cooperate with their accumulation and political projects. The inability to manufacture consent is also a function of the historical and circumstantial choices made by semi-peripheral bourgeoisies to cooperate with their stronger counterparts based in the core

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regions of the world-system. This perpetuates the subordinate association between local and international ruling elites to the detriment of the former’s political and moral leadership role. The constant interplay between these typical semi-peripheral urban, political, and geopolitical characteristics forms a specific general framework within which all sorts of complex governance interactions and political conjunctures take place, hereafter called the semi-peripheral domination complex. Acknowledging the existence of the semi-peripheral domination complex does not mean that grey spaces are one-dimensional and solely exist to control the urban poor in semi-peripheral metropolises. Nor does it mean that every semi-peripheral ruling bourgeoisie always fails to establish hegemony. Nor does it mean that the failure to build consensus always results in the use of coercion. Additionally, the economic and political upper hand held by core countries’ ruling elites does not always force semi-peripheral and peripheral elites into a submissive role. There is not always a dominant perfect unity with no internal conflicts within national and international bourgeois sectors and between them. In fact, the counter-tendencies found in the South African and Brazilian cases demonstrate that there is considerable space for the agency to challenge such a framework. The semi-peripheral domination complex is primarily characterized by the combination of relative autonomies of the local bourgeoisies, who can choose to build more encompassing societal projects of domination and play a “moral and political leadership” role rather than simply rule by force. This autonomy is, however, significantly restricted in the urban, national, and geopolitical levels, where they are more likely to be subordinated to core elites, lack hegemonic strength, and rely on grey spacing. Compared to their peripheral counterparts, they may have more room for occasional attempts to build hegemony, but their autonomy is much more limited compared to core elites. Local elites under the semi-peripheral domination complex tend to engage in sporadic “chicken flight”, where their occasional hegemonic constructions and progressive advancements tend to be short-lived. At the same time, the lower classes tend to face occasional disappointments and promote uprisings due to unfulfilled promises of passive revolution, which aims to increase their political and economic participation in national and local policy-making,

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as seen after the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship and South African apartheid regime. From the perspective of redevelopment coalitions, the contested nature of grey spaces as a crucial urban condition in the semi-periphery is a double-edged sword that always leaves room for resistance. Repressive measures used to reclaim these territories cannot address the hegemony problem and its roots, and at best, they allow the temporary and spatially circumscribed implementation of specific accumulation projects. However, even though most of these projects can eventually be implemented, they sometimes encounter setbacks. From the perspective of the populations facing dispossession, the success of their resistance against this recurrent coercive escalation is heavily dependent on their mobilization capacity and the historicalpolitical conjuncture in which they mobilize. Despite their efforts, the immediate results of such resistance tend to be very limited, as seen in the low percentage of people who managed to remain in the contested sites of the Rio Olympic Park, the MRP, and the GEPD.

7.3

Addressing Research and Political Questions

The semi-peripheral domination complex has theoretical and political implications, particularly regarding the exertion of power by the capitalist state to prevent and confront dissent, a matter at the heart of the present research objectives. The book addressed three main questions: how power is typically exerted against dissenters, differences between core and semi-peripheral countries, and socio-economic underpinnings of such differences, in the context of land clearance processes associated with sports mega-events. The examination of land clearance strategies and tactics employed in cases such as Ellis Park, Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park, and London Olympic Park yields several significant insights. First, the exercise of state power to suppress dissent is consistently done through a volatile combination of force and consent-seeking actions. Second, these actions lean more towards coercion in semi-peripheral regions of the

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world-system, particularly when contrasted with core countries. Third, the prevalence of coercive approaches in these contexts is influenced by unique environmental conditions at urban, national, and international levels. These conditions encompass issues such as the insecurity of tenure faced by marginalized urban populations, recurrent legitimacy challenges for local and national elites, and their relatively limited political autonomy. Fourth, the dominance of coercive strategies and the underlying semi-peripheral environmental factors are not rigidly fixed, but rather tendencies that have only occasionally been challenged by counter-trends. These findings are encapsulated by the semi-peripheral domination complex framework, which indicates that relations between the state and the lower classes in countries such as Brazil and South Africa happen within specific constraints. This framework, while providing essential insights, should not be perceived as definitive. Rather, it offers preliminary indications of crucial factors influencing domination dynamics in the semi-periphery, prompting further inquiries. For instance, what other environmental conditions might contribute to coercive prominence in the semi-periphery? Additionally, how do the urban, national, and international semi-peripheral levels interact? Could one level outweigh the others in significance? Furthermore, how do anti-eviction groups and dissenters formulate strategies to counter prevailing dominance, both in semi-peripheral and core contexts? Besides the potential for further exploration, these findings also offer substantial contributions to previously identified literature gaps. They notably draw parallels between semi-peripheral conditions and the Gramsci’s “Eastern” model of domination (Gramsci, 2003), as evidenced by the prevalence of the repressive apparatus of political society in relation to a more “primordial and gelatinous” civil society realm in South Africa and Brazil. The research results confirm the continuation of the general “East–West” hegemonic differences originally pointed out by Gramsci in to present time. Additionally, it refines the “Eastern” state model by identifying a particular semi-peripheral version while still leaving room for considerations on the more specific forms historically found in each country.

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In this sense, the identification of tactical hierarchies, divided in forefront, supporting, and rearguard tactics, provides a further refinement of the coercion and consent-seeking subdivision forms, hence revealing the nuances found within the semi-peripheral version of the Eastern state model itself, such as the slightly more extreme land clearance strategy found in South Africa and the country’s relatively greater “Eastern alignment”, when compared to Brazil. This fact is in line with the “differences of degree and not of type” emphasized by Gramsci (2003). Potentially, such a framework could also underpin further investigations on subtler distinctions between countries with more “Western” leanings. The tactical hierarchy approach can establish dialogues with some subaltern studies, which derive from Gramscian reflections (Anderson, 2016). According to one of the subaltern studies founders, Ranajit Guha, the power relation between dominance and subordination and their respective derivative pairs (persuasion/coercion X cooperation/resistance) differ “from society to society and from event to event according to the organic composition of D(ominance) and S(ubordination)”, which are determined by “a host of factors and their combinations, circumstantial as well as structural” (Guha, 1997, p. 22). The tactical hierarchies framework developed here offers an important tool for deepening the comprehension of the specific organic composition of “persuasion” (consent) and coercion and their “structural” and “circumstantial” determinations. Building on that, future studies can also extend the framework toward the other important half of power relations, i.e., subordination and its resistance/cooperation ramifications. Also the detailed exploration of the semi-peripheral specificities and its results challenge the assumptions made by a considerable part of the urban governance literature. The idea of a nearly ubiquitous predominance of consent (Peters, 2000; Rhodes, 2000; Klijn, 2008), particularly defended by networks theories, becomes problematic if applied to the South African and Brazilian cases here explored. To a minor degree, the metagovernance considerations of governance operating “in the shadows of hierarchy” (Jessop, 2000, 2003; Whitehead, 2003) also does not allow a more substantive engagement with the greater presence of coercion and the sophistication of coercive strategies found. Even if applied to the

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London example, these theories would tend to ignore the less preponderant but still relevant mechanisms of dissent control and their decisive role in keeping “troublemakers” at a distance in order to cherish the English consensus over the Olympic Park project and its land clearance demands. The particular application of such an alternative framework to countries of the world-system semi-periphery and the resulting identification of the semi-peripheral domination complex and its underpinnings also helps to address another gap of the urban theory literature, that is the need to decenter urban theory production from the so-called “Global North” and its limited reach (Robinson, 2002; Watson, 2007; Roy, 2011; Parnell & Robinson, 2012; Robinson, 2014). The identification of the articulation between informality and its grey space facet with a specific coercion-consent balance as one of the key aspects of urban governance in the semi-periphery is a contribution particularly in line with the idea of fomenting more insights from and for the so-called “Global South” cities, which was initially prompted by the critics of the Global cities literature. However, the emphasis on the specific semi-peripheral condition to the detriment of a supposed general “Global South” character also helps to contest the approach developed by those criticizing the Global cities paradigm. In fact, the use of the world-systems analysis as a relational complementary qualification is essential to understand the dialectical implications between the urban and international dimensions. Nonetheless, this emphasis on the semi-peripheral specificities should not be seen as a “monotopic” approach fetishizing the semi-periphery but rather as part of efforts for a new “dialogical process” combining the pluralization of perspectives rooted in particular contexts and the search for “universality” (Vainer, 2014, p. 53). The application of the Gramscian conceptual framework and its particular result epitomized by the semi-peripheral domination complex does not preclude its application to the study of other regions’ and countries’ realities. In this vein, the notion of the semi-peripheral domination complex adds depth to the comprehension of the ramifications tied to the introduction of sports mega-events’ infrastructure in cities positioned within the semi-periphery of the world-system. Despite the prevailing trend

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of global mega-events’ policy mobility (Oliveira, 2020), the empirical evidence amassed here revealed a pronounced departure in the realization of the so-called urban “best practices” in nations like Brazil and South Africa, differing significantly from the paradigmatic cases of core countries. The distinct dynamics of the semi-peripheral domination complex can offer insight into specific issues, such as the substantial human displacements stemming from urban development initiatives linked to the Olympics and the World Cup. While the physical expanse required for constructing Olympic Parks and regenerating areas around World Cup stadiums remains relatively uniform, the magnitude of population displacement varies considerably—typically reaching hundreds of thousands in semi-peripheral regions as opposed to hundreds in core areas, as seen in Chapter 1. These disparities can likely be attributed to distinctive socio-spatial characteristics within semi-peripheral contexts. The presence of expansive grey spaces, coupled with the historically recurring prominence of coercive state mechanisms and fluctuating hegemonic deficits in countries like South Africa and Brazil (and potentially in cases like China and South Korea), emerges as a pivotal semi-peripheral attribute that warrants attention when investigating the triggers behind these scale discrepancies. The deeply ingrained planning and political practices shaped by the semi-peripheral domination complex have exerted substantial influence over decisions favoring more extensive displacements, regardless of the potential legitimacy concerns for local semi-peripheral elites. The prevailing hegemonic deficits, alongside the coercive strategies employed to address them, have become integral components of the local political landscape. This aspect holds particular significance, given that the last two FIFA World Cups were hosted by countries possibly fitting the semi-peripheral version of an “Eastern” integral state model, exemplified by Russia and Qatar. It is hoped that analyses of these instances will not only enrich our understanding of them but also offer further insights to refine the framework of the semi-peripheral domination complex. Last but not least, the results also suggest that a greater counterhegemonic civil society mobilization can be found in the semi-periphery due to the hegemonic vulnerability faced by local and national elites, whereas dissenting groups in the core countries tend to share a more

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weakened position. However, further research is needed, as these issues can only be fully addressed through new studies on other semi-peripheral and core cases. Importantly, the contemplation of future struggles concerning forced urban displacements, juxtaposed with the prospect of counterhegemonic political actions, assumes paramount importance within an epistemological stance grounded in the interplay between theory and practice. This approach diverges from a detached intellectual reflection, emphasizing active intervention in the chosen research domain. Echoing Gramsci’s perspective, theory not only mirrors practice but systematizes, corrects, and conceptualizes it. Correspondingly, practice begets new questions for theory (Buci-Glucksman, 1980; Thomas, 2010). In alignment with this philosophy, the results can deepen our comprehension of the overarching contradictions in urban governance that influence the power dynamics within which political movements are enmeshed and contribute to their actions. In the contemporary era of globalization, wherein capital operates globally while labor remains confined within national boundaries, adopting an internationalist outlook toward such struggles is crucial. This approach elevates comprehension to a global, relational level by underscoring the significance of reflecting upon semi-peripheral urban circumstances. Therefore, emerging from an amalgamation of theoretical scrutiny and empirical examination of recent challenges confronted by anti-mega-events-eviction groups across diverse nations, the concept of the semi-peripheral domination complex stands poised to inform future grassroots political endeavors. Recognizing the interconnections between grey spacing, the heightened use of pro-displacement coercive tactics, and the persistent shortcomings of semi-peripheral elites underscores the potential for multifaceted counteractions. While the frequent employment of coercive state apparatuses poses an additional obstacle for those on the receiving end, demanding specific resistant strategies, it also underscores the inherent fragility of semi-peripheral dominant classes’ hegemony. This opens up avenues for challenging domination by formulating genuine counter-hegemonic responses. This, in turn, necessitates a departure from reactive solutions and the construction of alternative worldviews. And the transnational

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construction of such a counter-hegemonic alternative holds the promise of increased efficacy.

References Anderson, P. (2016). The heirs of Gramsci. New Left Review 100, July-August 2016. Buci-Glucksman, C. (1980). Gramsci and the state. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Gramsci, A. (2003). Selections from the Prison Notebooks, translated and edited © by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Guha, R. (1997). Dominance without hegemony: History and power in colonial India. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Jessop, B. (2000). “Governance Failure”, in: Stoker, G. (ed.), The new politics of British Local Governance, Macmillan, 11–32. Jessop, B. (2003). “Governance and meta-governance. On reflexivity, requisite variety, and requisite irony”, in: Bang, H. (ed.), Governance as social and political communication, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 101– 116. Klijn, E.H. (2008). Governance and Governance Networks in Europe. Public Management Review, 10 (4), 505–525. Oliveira, N.G. (2020). Mega-events, city and power. London: Routledge. Parnell, S. and Robinson, J. (2012). (Re)theorizing cities from the global south: Looking beyond neoliberalism. Urban Geography, 33 (4), 593–617. Peters, G. (2000). “Governance and comparative politics”, in: Pierre, J. (ed.), Debating Governance—Authority, steering and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 36–54. Rhodes, R.A.W. (2000). “Governance and public administration”, in: Pierre, J. (ed.), Debating Governance: Authority, steering, and democracy. Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 54–90. Robinson, J. (2002). Global and world cities: A view from off the map. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 26 (3), 531–554. Robinson, J. ( 2014). “New geographies of theorizing the urban: Putting comparison to work for global urban studies”, in: Parnell, S. and Oldfield, S. (eds.), The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South, London: Routledge, 57–70.

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Roy, A. (2011). Slumdog cities: Rethinking subaltern urbanism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35 (2), 223–238. Thomas, P. (2010) The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism, Chicago, Haymarket Books. Vainer, C. (2014). “Disseminating “Best Practice”? The Coloniality of Urban Knowledge and City Models”, in: Parnell, S. and Oldfield, S. (eds.), The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South, Abingdon: Routledge, 48–56. Watson, V. (2007). Seeing from the South: Refocusing urban planning on the globe’s central urban issues. Urban Studies, 46 (11), 1–17. Whitehead, M. (2003). ‘In the shadow of hierarchy’: Meta-governance, policy reform and urban regeneration in the West Midlands Area, 35 (1), 6–14.

Correction to: The Hegemonic Weakness of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Project

Correction to: Chapter 3 in: E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_3 The original version of this book was inadvertently published with incorrect figure captions in Chapter 3, which have now been corrected. The book and the chapter have been updated with the changes.

The updated version of this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_3 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5_8

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Fig. 3.1 Vila Autódromo and the car racing track—Aerial view, 2009 (Credit Luiz Claudio da Silva)

Fig. 3.2 The Olympic Park Masterplan for 2016 (AECOM, 2011)

Correction to: The Hegemonic Weakness of the Rio …

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Appendix: Methodological Notes

These notes aim to provide a detailed account of the research methods employed in the original study that forms the foundation of this book. The purpose is to offer readers and fellow researchers a comprehensive understanding of the processes leading to the earlier-presented conclusions. The study’s primary objective was to delve into the nuances of semiperipheral countries, specifically focusing on the land clearance strategies employed by local authorities to meet the demands of urban renewal. This investigation sought to contribute to broader theoretical discussions surrounding state–civil society power dynamics and the corresponding urban governance structures in diverse nations. To facilitate a robust comparison of both commonalities and distinctions, a multiple case study design was chosen, as it aligns with the logic of comparison and allows for in-depth analyses. This approach enables the identification and explanation of similarities and differences between cases (Bryman 2012). Four distinct case studies were selected to facilitate two types of comparisons: a Semi-periphery/Core axis, examining the parallels between the construction of Rio 2016 and London 2012 Olympic Parks, and a Semi-periphery/Semi-periphery axis, comparing the redevelopment of a Rio de Janeiro stadium for the 2014 World Cup and the © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 E. Omena, The Games of Land Dispossession, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7536-5

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refurbishment of a Johannesburg stadium for the 2010 World Cup. The former aimed to analyze results derived from highly contrasting contexts, while the latter aimed to compare outcomes in more similar environments. The choice of cases was carefully made to ensure optimal conditions for comparison and thus yield reliable results. Analyzing projects with similar spatial and temporal demands (e.g., constructing Olympic parks with similar physical dimensions within seven years in the Semiperiphery/Core axis cases and refurbishing major stadiums and their surroundings within six years for the same event in the Semi-periphery/ Semi-periphery axis cases) minimized the influence of varying redevelopment project types on the land use disputes under scrutiny. Moreover, these cases, all occurring in the early twenty-first century, offered the highest degree of contemporaneity possible, reducing the influence of differing historical periods on comparisons. Additionally, a uniform set of parameters based on the Gramscian framework presented in Chapter 1 was employed to assess these cases. Essentially, differences and similarities were evaluated through the prism of variations in the balance between force and consent in each case. This exploratory approach was complemented by an examination of the underlying reasons for these differences, rooted in the specific socio-economic and political contexts of each case. Given the ongoing urban theory debates on the determinants of urban development, which acknowledge the influence of international capital demands and local factors, it was deemed reasonable to consider the possibility of multi-scalar influences on the force–consent balance in local land use disputes. Gramsci himself provided insights into his analytical focus on specific scales. He emphasized that while his analyses primarily held an international perspective, they began at the national level. This dialectical approach involved considering “the international situation” in its national aspect, which results from a unique combination that should be comprehended in its originality and uniqueness. This approach encourages exploring universality within national specificity, understanding that it is overdetermined by an international situation (Gramsci 2003; Thomas 2010).

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Keeping these observations in mind, the comparative analysis of the four cases was carried out in three stages, each corresponding to different geographical scales. The first stage delved into the implications of domination relations at the international level, exploring how geopolitical configurations influenced the national and local political landscapes and their respective force–consent balances. The second stage investigated the historical formation of the “original” and “unique” contemporary national and local contexts where the specific redevelopment projects unfolded. This provided insights into the national and local trends of state–civil society relations and their impact on the force– consent patterns observed in the land clearance processes. The third stage involved an in-depth exploration of domination relations within the specific context of the redevelopment projects, encompassing a microcontextual analysis of force–consent balances in the interactions between pro-redevelopment and anti-eviction agents. While the three stages were not of equal importance, the first and second stages complemented the third, which was the core of the original Ph.D. study (Omena 2017). Nevertheless, the results of the third stage, which identified specific manifestations of force–consent balance and local contextual influences, had to be analyzed in light of the broader information provided by the first two stages. The third stage primarily served an exploratory purpose, providing a portrayal of similarities and differences across the redevelopment projects. The causes of these variations were rooted in the local, national, and international contexts outlined in all three stages. Subsequently, an explanatory analysis was conducted as a synthesis of the general (stages 1 and 2) and specific (stage 3) explorations. But how was this overarching research framework operationalized empirically? Different strategies were employed for each stage. Stages 1 and 2 primarily relied on quantitative secondary data drawn from specialized literature. In stage 1, this encompassed statistics on international capital flow trends combined with established analyses of the role of international relations in domestic politics and economies. In stage 2, national socio-economic statistics were coupled with literary accounts of each country and city’s historical and political trends. These datasets were subsequently analyzed using the categories systematized

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Table A.1

Distribution of interviewees by case and group

Case London Olympic Park Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park Johannesburg Greater Ellis Park Development Project Rio de Janeiro Maracanã Refurbishment Project Total

Government interviewees

Private sector interviewees

Civil society interviewees

Total number of interviewees

5

1

6

12

5

3

5

13

6

3

6

15

7

2

5

14

23

9

22

54

within the general Gramscian framework, such as the normal exercise of hegemony, covert transformism, open transformism, passive revolution, and counter-reformation. Conversely, stage 3 predominantly depended on primary information. Initially, literature accounts were employed to identify government, civil society, and private agents involved in the land disputes associated with each redevelopment project. Most of these key agents were contacted and interviewed in 2015. The number and types of interviewees are summarized in the table below (Table A.1): The author conducted semi-structured interviews with each agent, following a consistent model. While a general guide was provided, room for interviewees to elaborate on their responses was allowed. The primary aim of these interviews was to enhance comprehension in the following key areas: 1. Project Objectives and Priorities: This entailed gaining insights into the project’s purpose, its role within the context of the related megaevent, and how different agents perceived their involvement in the project. Key questions included: What is the core objective of the

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project? How does the project fit into the framework of the megaevent? How do various agents view their participation in the project? 2. Construction of Hegemony: This aspect sought to understand how projects and related actions were presented to the public. It also explored the role, if any, played by subaltern groups in this presentation. Relevant queries included: How are the projects and associated actions presented to the public? Do subaltern groups have a role in this presentation, and if so, what is it? 3. Implementation of Land Clearance: This phase delved into the practical steps taken by project managers to clear land. It also examined key partners and opponents involved in the process, as well as the critical tools and resources utilized to achieve project objectives. Pertinent questions encompassed: What were the primary actions taken to clear the land? Who were the pivotal partners and opponents in this process? What were the most crucial tools and resources leveraged to attain the project’s objectives? 4. Handling Conflictive Situations: This segment explored the methods employed to address and resolve conflicts or challenges that arose during the project. It aimed to uncover the means utilized to overcome difficulties. Questions revolved around: How were conflictive situations managed? What strategies or resources were used to overcome challenges? This general orientation was translated into a set of specific questions, organized and detailed in the table below: The responses provided by the interviewees underwent a comprehensive analysis, initially aligned with the theoretical framework rooted in Gramscian conceptualization of capitalist domination and its variations. This analysis led to necessary adaptations, culminating in the development of new categories of domination patterns. These categories collectively formed a customized framework, as shown in the illustration below. The patterns above can be fundamentally categorized into two major types:

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Table A.2

Semi-structured interview model

Semi-structured interview: public and private organizations in charge of the project and civil society organizations mobilized around the project 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8

9

10

11

12

13

Objective Obtaining information about the agents’ objectives and how they interact with other agents to pursue their goals Levels of analysis to which the Semi structured questions question relates General objectives and priorities Could you please describe project of the project and their “X”? relations with other interests What is the importance of this (point 1 above) project for your city? What was the role played by your organization in the project “X”? Attempts to construct What impacts did you expect hegemony (point 2 above) from these planned urban interventions on their surroundings? Was there a “social legacy” to be delivered by the project? How was the relationship between the project and local communities? Repertoire of actions and the What were the steps taken by development of cooperative your organization to comply and conflictive relations with its objectives? (points 3 and 4 above) What kind and amount of resources were mobilized for that (investments, professionals, infrastructure, institutional mechanisms, etc.)? Who were the main partners of your organization? What were their roles? How did you relate to them? What were the main obstacles and constraints for the actions of your organization? Who do you think is responsible for such difficulties? How do you see them and their attitudes? (continued)

Appendix: Methodological Notes

201

Table A.2 (continued) Semi-structured interview: public and private organizations in charge of the project and civil society organizations mobilized around the project 14

Did you manage to overcome these difficulties? How? What is your relationship to and opinion about the following groups (name each of the other organizations interviewed)?

15

1. Hegemonic Tactics: These tactics primarily rely on consent-seeking approaches aimed at minimizing potential and actual opposition, thereby securing the acceptance and implementation of the project without significant disruption. 2. Coercive Tactics: These tactics involve the use of force, in varying degrees, either as a threat or in actuality, against individuals or groups attempting to challenge the original project plans. These overarching patterns are further subdivided into specific types of tactical actions. It’s important to note that these divisions and subdivisions are interconnected, collectively forming a strategic continuum that signifies the levels of consent-seeking and the use of force. The order in which these categories are presented within the continuum and their relative positions to one another denote the strategic approach taken. Let’s explore these categories in more detail: 1. Hegemonic Actions: 1.1 Legacy Promise: This strategy uses promises of positive future outcomes from the development project as a justification for any present inconveniences it may cause. It establishes a direct causal relationship between consenting to current disadvantages and the expectation of collective benefits in the future, often legitimized in the name of the collective will. 1.2 Publicity and Propaganda: Linked closely to legacy promises, this strategy involves utilizing various media outlets to disseminate promotional messages in favor of the development project. These

Delegitimation

More Hegemonic

Publicity and propaganda

Technical document

Tokenistic Consultation Participation

Lack of Surveillance Transparency Legislative Action

Fragmentation through individual negotiations

Land clearance tactics

Building the customized Gramscian framework

Legacy Promise

Table A.3

Data collection for future law enforcement Economic constraint

Compensation Cooptation

Judicial Action

More Coercive

Intimidation and threats

Police Violence

202 Appendix: Methodological Notes

Appendix: Methodological Notes

1.3

1.4

1.5

1.6

203

messages tend to downplay negative aspects and amplify potential positive outcomes. Delegitimation: Delegitimation aims to undermine opposition to the project through symbolic attacks. These attacks can demoralize dissenting sources or symbolically erase them from the public sphere, effectively rendering them nonexistent. Technical Documents: This tactic entails the creation and use of technical documents as sources of authority. Official reports generated by experts are employed to justify specific promotional claims, elevating them to the status of unquestionable “scientific” facts. Tokenistic Consultation: Tokenistic consultation procedures are designed to appear as if they value public input but are often seen as merely “theatrical”. They are structured to create spaces for contestation while tightly controlling them to easily dismiss any meaningful challenges. Conceded Participation: This strategy, associated with the Gramscian idea of passive revolution, is a last resort when faced with growing opposition. It involves partial concessions to appease dissenters, thereby reducing pressure on decision-makers and preserving the status quo.

2. Coercive Actions: 2.1 Lack of Transparency: Deliberate withholding of significant information about the development project is used to undermine the organization of potential opposition. This may include imposing barriers to accessing public data or making access difficult. 2.2 Surveillance: Surveillance relies on monitoring instruments that allow public and private agencies to explicitly or implicitly track the mobilization of opposition groups, making it easier to neutralize their actions. 2.3 Legislative Action: This involves creating or altering laws to hinder potential actions aimed at challenging the development plans.

204

Appendix: Methodological Notes

2.4 Fragmentation: Fragmentation aims to divide opposition groups, weakening their collective power. This can be achieved by forcing individual negotiations between project promoters and dissenters or fostering internal conflicts within the targeted group. 2.5 Data Collection for Future Law Enforcement: Gathering specific information about affected areas and individuals is often done through surveys. This data is crucial for future enforcement of the project on those affected. 2.6 Economic Constraints: Various economic barriers, such as fees and taxes, can be imposed to hinder opposition groups’ actions. These barriers may require material resources to access means of objection. 2.7 Compensation: Providing material benefits to specific groups as compensation for disadvantages caused by the development project. The size of compensation often correlates with the likelihood of challenges. 2.8 Co-option: This strategy involves offering material benefits to leaders of potential and actual opposition groups, converting them into allies of the development coalition. These leaders are then expected to discourage their groups from raising further challenges. 2.9 Judicial Action: The use of judicial courts to enforce the development project and its impacts on local communities, despite objections. 2.10 Threats and Intimidation: This involves the explicit intention or actual deterioration of physical and psychological conditions to weaken resistance against the development project. Actions may include denying basic services to opposition groups or threatening police intervention. 2.11 Police Action: Deployment of legitimate violence, usually by the police, to enforce a development project. This can involve arrests and physical attacks on dissenters. Utilizing NVivo software, these tactical categories were transformed into a comprehensive coding structure, where each type of tactical action

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205

was represented by a unique code. When references to specific strategic actions were found in the interviewee responses, the corresponding codes were applied. The codes assigned to fragments of each interview collectively produced a set of coded references. These references unveiled a hierarchical structure of categories, characterized by varying frequencies of occurrence in each case, as depicted in Figs. A.1, A.2, A.3, A.4: Categories that were coded more frequently within a case study occupied higher positions within the tactical hierarchy for that specific case. This tactical hierarchy was further categorized into three distinct levels: Forefront Tactics: These encompassed any tactics with more than 10% of the total coding references, signifying their prominence within the case. Supporting Tactics: Supporting tactics included those with a representation ranging from more than 5–10% of the total coding references. These tactics played a substantial role but were not as dominant as the forefront tactics. Rearguard Tactics: Rearguard tactics were defined as any tactics accounting for 5% or less of the total coding references for each case. These tactics held a comparatively lower level of significance in the overall context. The delineation of these limits between the different levels was based on the researcher’s observation of general patterns, reflecting the correlation between the perceived importance of certain tactics and their respective frequencies of citation by interviewees. But as the coding process is essentially a result of the interpretation of the coder (Bryman 2012), other steps were taken to minimize the influence of such subjectivity, including the analysis of other sources. First, interviewees were also requested to provide institutional documents pertaining to their involvement in the redevelopment projects. These documents were sought when they were not publicly available. They encompassed a wide range of materials, including official plans, tender documents, reports, manifestos, leaflets, open letters, and more. In addition to these institutional documents, media files documenting their participation in the respective projects and the ensuing disputes were gathered using the Factiva news international database. Factiva is a comprehensive source covering daily newspapers from around the world. To retrieve relevant information, searches were conducted using

Fig. A.1

The distribution of all the codes from the interviews of the London Olympic Park case

206 Appendix: Methodological Notes

Fig. A.2

The distribution of all the codes from the interviews of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park case

Appendix: Methodological Notes

207

Fig. A.3

The distribution of all the codes from the interviews of the Johannesburg Ellis Park case

208 Appendix: Methodological Notes

Fig. A.4

The distribution of all the codes from the interviews of the Rio de Janeiro Maracanã case

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209

210

Appendix: Methodological Notes

a combination of keywords comprising the names of each facility or community facing eviction and the name of the redeveloped facility. The only temporal constraint imposed was the day of each event, ensuring that the information gathered was pertinent to the specific context. Any occasional unrelated files were disregarded during the data collection process. Both the institutional documents and media files collected are detailed in the tables presented below: Then, a word frequency analysis was conducted on all the institutional documents and media files related to each case, resulting in a list of the 150 most frequently used terms, which are presented in the respective word clouds below (Figs. A.5, A.6, A.7, A.8 and A.9). These lists were then compared with the previously established tactical hierarchy derived from the coding of interviews in each case. In general, the meanings of many of the most frequently cited words in the institutional documents and media files tended to align with the more prominent categories identified through the interview coding process. Any minor disparities between the prevalences indicated by both methods are further elaborated in the original Ph.D. thesis, though they were not found to be significant (Omena 2017). The qualitative analysis of the interviews, institutional documents, and media files served as an additional validation and complemented the findings obtained through other analytical approaches. To qualify as a forefront tactic, a category not only needed to be frequently cited in institutional documents and media files but also had to be perceived by interviewees as a significant action in the land clearance efforts. A similar logic was applied in assessing the other hierarchical levels of supporting and rearguard tactics. In essence, the qualitative analysis of these three datasets collectively forms a substantial part of the analytical process in this study. It provides a more nuanced and detailed exploration of the general conclusions drawn from the coding process and word frequency analysis. In essence, it adds depth and context to the patterns identified in the earlier stages of analysis. Collectively, the use of three different data sources—interviews, institutional documents, and media files—combined with the application of three distinct analytical techniques—coding, word frequency analysis,

Appendix: Methodological Notes

Table A.4

211

Number of institutional documents by type and case

Case

Type of document

London Olympic Park

Official programs, plans and projects Official publicity and communication Official reports Legislation Activist letters, manifestos and leaflets Alternative plans and reports Official programs, plans and projects Official publicity and communication Official reports Legislation Activist letters, manifestos and leaflets Alternative plans and reports Official programs, plans and projects Official publicity and communication Official reports Legislation Activist letters, manifestos and leaflets Alternative plans and reports Official programs, plans and projects Official publicity and communication Official reports Legislation Activist letters, manifestos and leaflets Alternative plans and reports

Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park

Johannesburg GEPD

Rio de Janeiro MRP

Number of files 22

Total 228

23 29 1 149 4 9

108

– 1 1 91 6 22

37

3 6 1 5 – 14 1 7 – 49 –

71

212

Appendix: Methodological Notes

Table A.5

Searches in the Factiva news database by case

Case London Olympic Park

Rio Olympic Park

Johannesburg GEPD

Rio de Janeiro MRP

Text searched in the Factiva News Database “clays lane”AND“olympic park” “waterden crescent”AND“olympic park” “manor garden”AND“olympic park” “marshgate lane”AND“olympic park”AND“business” “eastway cycle”AND“olympic park” “vila autodromo”AND“olympic park” “racing track”AND“olympic park”AND“rio” “vila autódromo”AND“parque olímpico” (Portuguese) “CBA”AND“parque olímpico” (Portuguese) “Ellis Park” and Bertrams “Ellis Park” and “Josana Court” “Ellis Park” and “priority block” maracanã and “celio de barros” maracanã and school and friedenreich maracanã and “julio delamare” maracanã and museum and indigenous maracanã and “celio de barros” (Portuguese) maracanã and escola and friedenreich (Portuguese)

Number of media reports found 54

Total 185

14

34 43

40 286

622

9 269

58 32 0

32

0 2

958

2 2 9 283 105 (continued)

Appendix: Methodological Notes

Table A.5

213

(continued)

Case

Text searched in the Factiva News Database maracanã and “julio delamare” (Portuguese) maracanã and índio and museu (Portuguese)

Number of media reports found

Total

184 371

and qualitative analysis—resulted in a “double triangulation” approach. This approach enhances the reliability and validity of the findings, as it validates the results through multiple avenues of inquiry and analysis, bolstering the overall robustness of the study’s findings and conclusions presented in this book.

Note 1. There were very few results in English language for the Maracanã case, making the respective word cloud unfeasible.

References Bryman, A. (2012). Social research methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gramsci, A. (2003) Selections from the Prison Notebooks, translated and edited © by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Omena, E. (2017). Exerting state power in core and semi-peripheral countries: Land clearance and domination strategies in London, Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg—Thesis at Oxford Brookes University. Thomas, P. (2010). The Gramscian moment: Philosophy, hegemony and Marxism. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Fig. A.5

The 150 most frequent utterances found in the institutional files and media archives of the London case

214 Appendix: Methodological Notes

Fig. A.6 The 150 most frequent utterances found in the institutional files and media archives of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park case—in English language

Appendix: Methodological Notes

215

Fig. A.7 The 150 most frequent utterances found in the institutional files and media archives of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Park case—in Portuguese language

216 Appendix: Methodological Notes

Fig. A.8 The 150 most frequent utterances found in the institutional files and media archives of the Johannesburg Ellis Park case

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217

Fig. A.9 The 150 most frequent utterances found in the institutional files and media archives of the Rio de Janeiro Maracanã case—in Portuguese language1

218 Appendix: Methodological Notes