Cultural-Civilizational Europeanization since 1989

Abstract

This chapter examines how understandings and practices of Europeanization are shaped in the cultural-civilizational realm since 1989, focusing specifically on the evolution of a European cultural space through the European Broadcasting Union’s yearly Eurovision song contest and the Union of European Football Association’s yearly EURO football championships. It demonstrates the importance that Russia and the non–Central Asian ex-Soviet republics place on being seen as “European enough” to participate successfully in both Eurovision and the EURO football championships, and the ways that participating in these cultural events forces these states to “act European” in political and economic ways, as well as cultural ones. The discussion of Eurovision highlights that event’s influence on spreading the idea of LGBTQ rights as a marker of “Europeanness,” while the EURO football championships are an arena where expectations about civility and racial tolerance as European norms are negotiated.