On 28th November OxTalks will move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events' (full details are available on the Staff Gateway).
There will be an OxTalks freeze beginning on Friday 14th November. This means you will need to publish any of your known events to OxTalks by then as there will be no facility to publish or edit events in that fortnight. During the freeze, all events will be migrated to the new Oxford Events site. It will still be possible to view events on OxTalks during this time.
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Why do rentier states seek out hosting rights for major international events? This talk investigates this question through a qualitative case study of mega-events programs in Azerbaijan. Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, hydrocarbon exports have formed the backbone of the country’s economy and the main source of rents for ruling elites. Focusing on the development of Azerbaijan’s events industry in the 2000s and 2010s, the talk uses available evidence and process tracing techniques to develop the hypothesis that Azerbaijan’s elites sought out hosting rights, at least in part, to diversify their sources of private rents. By problematising the direction of causality between mega-events and rent-seeking behaviour, this analysis expands current theories on states’ motivations for hosting these events and contributes to existing understandings about how these proceedings serve to support and sustain rentier regimes.
