Global sport competitions such as the Olympics and the World Cup were founded following universal principles of unity and peace and aiming to be celebrations of sportsmanship. Nowadays, however, they go beyond sport, being constructed as global media events in which both politics and media play an essential role. Caught in this triangle, the Olympics and the World Cup have re-emerged in the past years as sites of protests, after decades of relative calmness in this sense. This represents the point of entry into the analysis of global broadcasters, giving the chance to examine the way in which Al Jazeera English, BBC World News and Russia Today represent the protests they put in relation to sport competitions happening in different parts of the world. The chosen case studies are the London Olympics 2012, Sochi Olympics 2014 and Brazil World Cup 2014. The comparative analysis allows the drawing of similarities and differences between both the case studies and the broadcasters overall. The findings show that protests are dealt with differently according to the sport event they are related to, since some of them are legitimized and others are not. A major distinction, therefore, results in the manner in which the broadcasters use the protests in order to depict a certain version of the world. Global broadcasters offer, thus, multiple perspectives on the world as they carry what appears to be a heavy cultural baggage of the societies of origin.

This thesis focuses on the British human trafficking prevention policies adopted for the 2012 London Olympics using mixed methods including participation-observation, qualitative interviews, theoretical analysis and policy evaluation. I was invited to observe the Human Trafficking Network and London 2012, the Mayor of London’s official response to the claim that human trafficking would increase at the London Olympics. My presence enabled me to witness first-hand the key policy debates surrounding human trafficking intervention and to conduct a series of in-depth interviews with members of the Human Trafficking Network as well as associated professionals such as the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre, MPs, governmental and non-governmental agencies, law enforcement officials, anti-trafficking groups, sex workers, sex workers outreach services and academics. In addition to collecting rich empirical data, I contexualise these policy debates within two relevant theoretical frameworks. First, I draw upon the work of Weitzer (2007) to examine the construction of the four underlying claims that human trafficking increases before and during large sporting events. Significantly, this perspective is built upon an anti-prostitution agenda of the partial criminalisation proponents, which collapses all migration for prostitution together with human trafficking (Weitzer 2005, Kempadoo 2005, Milivojevic and Pickering 2008, Kinnell 2009, Mai 2009, Mai 2012, Weitzer 2014). This same conceptualisation of human trafficking as the nexus of prostitution, migration and crime is replicated within the global anti-trafficking framework (Milivojevic and Pickering 2013), resulting in two approaches to human trafficking prevention policies — Security Governance and Human Rights — which together resulted in preventions measures that target prostitution and control migration. Finally, I draw upon my empirical evidence to critically examine the effects of the claim that human trafficking increases over the Olympics and, moreover, situate the response by the Mayor of London within the global anti-trafficking framework. This framework highlights the contradictions and, in some instances, failures between the approaches to human trafficking and the stated purpose of the Human Trafficking Network. The thesis concludes with two innovative policy recommendations for human trafficking prevention programmes.

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This thesis seeks to address a research gap concerning the relationship between the Localism Act 2011 and planning’s central purpose of achieving sustainable development. In addition it uses a physical example in urban space to illustrate the main arguments, and in doing so adds to the growing literature on the various outcomes since the Localism Act was enforced across England in 2011. The thesis asks four inter-related questions: Firstly, regarding the theoretical bases of sustainability and localism from the various ontologies of ‘scale’ and ‘the natural’; secondly, regarding the general conflicting assumptions within localism and sustainable development; thirdly, regarding the ways in which sustainable development is inherently multi-scalar; and lastly how our case study example highlights the need for policy-makers to examine the often overlooked trade-offs which exist in normative sustainable development models. The thesis also demonstrates the role that site-specific research can play in grounding theoretical and policy discussions. The research is situated in the rapidly changing sub-region of East London, particularly in the shadow of the 2012 Olympic regeneration of Stratford and the Borough of Newham. We take the example of a failed upgrade due the Localism Act, of a multi-scalar and multi-functional ‘Greenway’ to consider the relationship between localism and sustainable urbanism in the context neo-liberalism. Methods comprise site-based analysis in the form of walking, photography and note-taking, the analysis of national, metropolitan and local planning documents, as well as interviews with officials related to policy and design in the area and local residents. The research finds that national and metropolitan conceptions of sustainable development are weighted differently to those at local scales. In addition the Localism Act exacerbates planning capacities between Local Authorities and the communities they serve. There are some opportunities for neighbourhood planning but these are dependent on local capacities, widening already-existing socio-spatial inequalities. The thesis concludes by destabilising the widely used idea of sustainable development as a ‘balance’ between social, economic and environmental needs. Viewing sustainability through a scalar lens, in our case using a physical site and the policy of Localism, we are able to reveal the material differences between sustainable development agendas which have been criticised for masking over conflict in a post-political manner for the continuation of ‘status quo’ economic development trajectories.