Page 29 - THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE’S ACCOUNTABILITY FOR HARMFUL CONSEQUENCES OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES- A MULTI-METHOD INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ANALYSIS Ryan Gautier

Chapter One – Introduction
relation to the IOC and the Olympic Games. The other two methods are used to examine the accountability of the various actors responsible for organising the Olympic Games.
4.1. Case Study
This research is conducting a case study of the Olympic Games. A case study is an “empirical enquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-life context.”78 Case studies are particularly useful when examining international relations and international legal phenomena, as large-n studies are often unavailable. Although case studies are often critiqued as a means of avoiding methodology altogether,79 the method has seen a growth in sophistication in recent years. This research uses two particular case study methods: process tracing, and two-case comparisons.80 Process tracing is an examination of a single case, using various hypothesized explanations. The researcher can then explain the case, but also test the hypothesis as to the case. Two-case, or ‘small-n’ comparisons are often divided into either ‘most-similar’ or ‘least-similar’ cases. This study uses a ‘most-similar’ comparison, discussed in more detail below.
The purpose of the case study method, as used here, is twofold. First, the case study uses theories of legitimacy and global administrative law to understand the phenomenon of the Olympic Games, and their worst outcomes. These theories are also applied to inform the understanding of the IOC as an actor. Second, the case study, by considering the IOC, hopes to inform the theories of legitimacy and global administrative law. The IOC is not a ‘traditional’ actor that has been examined in international law. This is largely due to old biases in international legal studies that are only now beginning to subside. In the past, NGOs were not seen as sufficiently important to examine, because they were not states or creatures of states, and not subjects of international law. In addition, the regime surrounding sport was seen as insufficiently serious to merit examination, a topic I
78 Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods (Sage 1989) 23.
79 Andrew Bennett and Colin Elman, ‘Case Study Methods in the International Relations Subfield’ (2007) 40
Comparative Political Studies 170, 172; Zeev Maoz, ‘Case Study Methodology in International Studies: From Storytelling to Hypothesis Testing’ in Frank P. Harvey and Michael Brecher (eds), Millennial Reflections on International Studies (University of Michigan Press 2002) 164–65.
80 See Andrew Bennett and Colin Elman, ‘Case Study Methods’ in Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Oxford University Press 2008) 502–04, 506–07.
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