28 July 2025
Olympic Games Do Not Effect Democratization in Host Countries
Photo: Universität Hamburg / Engels
Many German cities are currently discussing a bid for the Summer Olympics. Host awards have sparked protests again and again over the past few decades where hosts were under criticism for human rights violations. The International Olympic Committee—like organizers of other major sporting events—has argued that the Olympics promote democratization, press freedom, and equal rights in autocratic countries.
However, a research team led by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Maennig, a professor of economics and economic policy at the University of Hamburg, recently conducted the first comprehensive econometric study and found no evidence to confirm this claim. They recorded the development and change of democracy in more than 102 countries between 1972 and 2019 and linked this to the Olympic Games.
Their statistical calculations are based on various democracy indicators used in research, such as the V-Dem democracy indices, which record the protection of individual rights and the level of political participation in a country, among other things. These calculations controlled for influencing variables such as educational equality, the degree of democracy in the surrounding countries, and gross domestic product per capita. Circumstances that could have a negative impact, such as dependence on oil and other natural resources, were also taken into account. A total of 21 variables and various calculation and investigation methods were applied.
“In our calculations, we could determine that the level of democracy changed in the countries over the course of the study period, but we could not identify any significant effects of the Olympic Games—neither positive nor negative,” says Prof. Maennig. This applies to democratic and autocratic countries alike.
In order to rule out distortions and hidden effects, the team took into account, among other things, the heterogeneity of the host countries, the different dates and related associated political situations around the globe, possible differences between the Winter and Summer Games and any democratization processes that may have started earlier, for example during the bidding process.
“Based on our data, it cannot be ruled out that the host countries experience a short-term increase in optimism or—depending on the successful implementation—government reputation,” says study author Maennig, who was himself an Olympic rowing champion in 1988. However, these effects appear to be so short-term that they did not have a significant impact on the level of democracy in the study. According to Maennig, this result is likely to apply to other major sporting events such as soccer World Cups as well.
As many research publications question the democratic effect and economic growth, the research team concludes that the actual effects of the Olympic Games remain unclear. “These results are probably good news for the current bids in Germany, because they refute the argument that awarding the Games to less democratic bidding countries can impact politics more positively,” says Maennig.
Original publication:
Leo M. Doerr, Elias B. Leppert, Wolfgang Maennig: Olympic Games and democracy, Economic Analysis and Policy, Volume 87, 2025, ISSN 0313-5926, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eap.2025.07.004.