Citizen (dis)engagement during assessment of sports mega-events: the case of the 2013 Universiade in Kazan,Russia

Based on the environmental case of the 2013 Universiade in Kazan, this research highlights that despite the variety of tools employed for citizen engagement, the key procedures can be claimed as ‘false dialogues’. The study identifies the key factors for such a discrepancy. The main external barriers for post-socialist Russian cities include the limited time frame for building sports venues, poor execution of environmental legislation, and complicated bureaucratic procedures maintained by governmental actors. The internal factors are polarized positions in the community due to the complexity of the project, the gap between the citizen environmental concern and actual engagement in environmentally friendly behaviours associated with the lack of the environmental knowledge, time, and financial resources, lack of knowledge of the environmental impact assessment process, and dominance of the material and paternalistic values and low trust in government proponents.