The Hard Edge of Soft Power

Sven Daniel Wolfe

ISBN 10: 9819635179 / ISBN 13: 9789819635177

Published by Springer Verlag Gmbh Mai 2026, 2026

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Hard Edge of Soft Power
• Publisher: Springer Verlag Gmbh Mai 2026
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9819635179
• ISBN 13: 9789819635177
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu

About this title

Synopsis

This open access book explores the linkages between geopolitics and hosting mega-events. It encompasses and transcends the international and domestic dimensions of soft power to unpack how mega-events shape cities and societies through notions of unity and greatness, but also investigates local developments beneath the Potemkin surface of the global spectacle. Drawing on a global range of case studies from Eastern Europe, Western Europe, North America, South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia, this volume features the sensitivity of grounded local research framed within geopolitical perspectives. Together, they present an international and transdisciplinary understanding of the local and global political implications of hosting mega-events. The volume reveals what hides under the mega-event spectacle: problems that­ – regardless of national context – most often occur to the detriment of host populations. 

This is an open access book.

About the Author

Sven Daniel Wolfe is a political and urban geographer. He is Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione fellow in the Spatial Planning and Urban Policy group at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He works on the planning and impacts of mega-events, with a specific focus on urban sustainable development and everyday geopolitics. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles on mega-events, as well as the monograph More Than Sport (2021, LIT Verlag). He has lectured widely on the problems and potentials of mega-events, to audiences ranging from academics to members of local and national governments, in numerous countries including Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Germany, Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.