From Europhilia to Europhobia?

This chapter introduces the author’s argument about Europeanization in the period since 1989, including the idea of a “Eurocentric-Orientalist Cultural Gradient” that guides understandings about Europe on both sides of the former Iron Curtain. It identifies three main phases of Europeanization since 1989: Europhoria, Europhilia, and Europhobia; three sets of actors working together to produce new institutional and ideational understandings of Europe since 1989: European gatekeepers in European institutions, the other great power in the region (Russia), and the ex-Soviet republics themselves; and three forces that animate the processes of Europeanization: the Eurocentric-Orientalist Cultural Gradient, values-based commitments of European institutions like the EU and NATO, and the instrumental concerns of Russia and the post-Soviet states. The chapter also briefly explores the three realms within which these processes of Europeanization play themselves out—the cultural-civilizational, the political, and the security realm.