Football Politics in Central Europe and Eastern Europe

A Study on the Geopolitical Area’s Tribal, Imaginal, and Contextual Politics

Edited by Roland Benedikter and Dariusz Wojtaszyn - Foreword by Lukas Zahner - Afterword by Krysztof Ruchniewicz - Contributions by Roland Benedikter; Mirjam Gruber; Bogdan Popa; Tomasz Sahaj and Dariusz Wojtaszyn

Football in Central-Eastern and Eastern Europe has long functioned as a carrier of the three “non-normal” socio-political drivers that were effective below the surface of modernity, including the official self-image of European political systems, since the second half of the 20th century: Tribal Politics, Imaginal Politics, and Contextual Politics. All three are trends that are currently surfacing prominently on an international and global level. Long before the return of the now proverbial “Political Tribes” by the means of populisms and neo-authoritarianisms in societies around the world, football in Central-Eastern and Eastern Europe worked as a subconscious vehicle of group instincts and political moods that represented, mirrored, informed and influenced political behavior and governmental decisions both in the post-WWII communist and then, after 1989, the neo-capitalist societies located east of the former iron curtain. Football has always been used by both governments and their opponents, including the dissident civil society, to further coherence and to symbolically represent specific readings of power relations, system ideologies and history. Football in Central and Eastern Europe was always able to attract and include large parts of the population, inducing them to symbolically express protest against the government or to sustain the “politics from above”. Through football politics, aspects of the area’s specific political mechanisms are introduced and explained.

Lexington Books

Pages: 160 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9½

978-1-7936-2246-4 • Hardback • July 2020 • $105.00 • (£81.00)

978-1-7936-2247-1 • eBook • July 2020 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: Lexington Research in Sports, Politics, and International Relations

Subjects: Political Science / International Relations / General, Political Science / World / European, Political Science / International Relations / Diplomacy, Sports & Recreation / Soccer

Football Politics in Central Europe and Eastern Europe

A Study on the Geopolitical Area’s Tribal, Imaginal, and Contextual Politics

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Football in Central-Eastern and Eastern Europe has long functioned as a carrier of the three “non-normal” socio-political drivers that were effective below the surface of modernity, including the official self-image of European political systems, since the second half of the 20th century: Tribal Politics, Imaginal Politics, and Contextual Politics. All three are trends that are currently surfacing prominently on an international and global level. Long before the return of the now proverbial “Political Tribes” by the means of populisms and neo-authoritarianisms in societies around the world, football in Central-Eastern and Eastern Europe worked as a subconscious vehicle of group instincts and political moods that represented, mirrored, informed and influenced political behavior and governmental decisions both in the post-WWII communist and then, after 1989, the neo-capitalist societies located east of the former iron curtain. Football has always been used by both governments and their opponents, including the dissident civil society, to further coherence and to symbolically represent specific readings of power relations, system ideologies and history. Football in Central and Eastern Europe was always able to attract and include large parts of the population, inducing them to symbolically express protest against the government or to sustain the “politics from above”. Through football politics, aspects of the area’s specific political mechanisms are introduced and explained.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 160 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9½

978-1-7936-2246-4 • Hardback • July 2020 • $105.00 • (£81.00)

978-1-7936-2247-1 • eBook • July 2020 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: Lexington Research in Sports, Politics, and International Relations

Subjects: Political Science / International Relations / General, Political Science / World / European, Political Science / International Relations / Diplomacy, Sports & Recreation / Soccer

Author

Roland Benedikter is research professor of multidisciplinary political analysis in residence at the Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies at the University of Wroclaw.

Dariusz Wojtaszyn is professor of history at Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies of the University of Wroclaw.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Football and Politics in Europe: A Complex Relationship. A Very Short State of the Art

Mirjam Gruber

Chapter 2: Russia’s 2018 Football World Championship: A Case of Imaginal Politics

Roland Benedikter, Mirjam Gruber, Tomasz Sahaj, Dariusz Wojtaszyn

Chapter 3: Football Politics in Central-Eastern Europe: A Symptom of Growing Anti-Europeanism and Anti-Globalization?

Roland Benedikter, Dariusz Wojtaszyn

Chapter 4: “Identity Football” in Poland: A Driver of Tribal Politics and Re-Nationalization? Tomasz Sahaj, Dariusz Wojtaszyn

Chapter 5: Borderline Football in Historically Contested Eastern European Areas: The Case of Lviv-Lemberg, Western Ukraine

Dariusz Wojtaszyn

Chapter 6: Never Just a Game. Football National Team Matches as a Binational Rivalry Game: The Case of Romania-Hungary

Bogdan Popa

Chapter 7: Between East and West: Football in Divided Berlin

Dariusz Wojtaszyn