“We Are All True Believers in Democracy”

Anti-Olympics can materialize both during the bid phase when cities are vying for the Games and after a city has been granted hosting rights by the International Olympic Committee as locals respond to negative externalities associated with the mega-event such as overspending, displacement, police intensification, and a marked democracy deficit. In January 2015, after the United States Olympic Committee named Boston its favored candidate city to compete for the 2024 Olympics, a multifaceted coalition comprised of two groups–No Boston Olympics and No Boston 2024–vociferously challenged the bid, using the tenets of democracy to jumpstart a robust discussion of the event’s potential downsides. Creating an effective event coalition, activists managed to derail Boston’s Olympic bid, forcing US Olympic powerbrokers to instead name Los Angeles as its host-city candidate in September 2015. This chapter analyzes the successful campaign by Boston anti-Olympics activists, zeroing in on its strategies and tactics.