Arne Niemann

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz | JGU

The formation of European identities is a pivotal issue for the cohesion of the European community in times of multiple crises. Based on theories of identity formation through habitualisation, we posit that football fandom—a ubiquitous, emotional, strongly Europeanised activity in everyday life—holds unique potential for fostering a sense of a shar...

The ability of the European community to respond to the multiple crises threatening the European Union and Europe depends in part on citizens' shared European identity giving legitimacy and support to communal action. Men's elite European club football is an example of a cultural practice that is highly Europeanised, reaches diverse audiences and i...

This chapter focuses on the individual football fans who ideally typify the attitudes and features of football fandom of their clubs. The analysis is based on 75 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with fans of the eight selected clubs. Findings indicate that the participation of clubs in European competitions and the Europeanisation of player...

This chapter elaborates on the current state of the art in identity research within the context of Europeanised identities and social identity more generally. Based on an understanding of identity as a tripartite structure of identifications, self-understandings and forms of communality (Brubaker and Cooper, Theory Soc 29(1):1–47, 2000), it highlig...

This chapter uses the concept of Europeanisation to highlight key developments in European club football since the 1990s while pointing to their possible impact on football fans and fan identification. The central premise is that football’s governance structures have undergone various Europeanisation processes in recent decades. The uploading, down...

This chapter examines the current state of the art in football fan-related research. It starts with a discussion and refinement of the notion of “football fandom” and continues with a thematic and temporal contextualisation of fan identification research, covering heterogeneous literature traditions in sociology, sport studies and sport management...

Our first empirical chapter analyses the discourses among fans of eight selected football clubs across Europe. Based on the results of a thorough qualitative discourse analysis of online message boards, we show how fans position themselves towards the Europeanisation of football. Our inquiry is structured around three sets of four paired comparison...

This chapter develops the conceptual base for the book. A two-dimensional framework for a football-related operationalisation of identity is developed, covering different aspects of belonging on the one hand and aspects of local, regional, national and European frames on the other. Furthermore, the research design is elaborated. Eight football fan...

In this chapter, the heterogeneity across football fans is quantitatively investigated to find common patterns across fans regarding their attitudes and behaviour. Based on latent class analysis, different types of football fans are identified who differ significantly regarding their attitudes related to national belonging. They are distinguished a...

With the need to decarbonize sectors that have hard-to-abate emissions, hydrogen as an energy carrier has increasingly gained attention. Within the European Union (EU) and its member states, hydrogen is assumed to be key for decarbonizing different sectors in the fight against climate change. Hence, state and private actors have engaged in a variet...

The war in Ukraine and the looming threat of climate change are driving the strategic need to diversify sources of energy, including renewables. Therefore, the European Union aims to develop energy relations with non‐EU member states, and Morocco has become a key priority. Both Brussels and Rabat are pursuing ambitious green policies and cooperatio...

In recent decades, the administrative and competitive structures of men’s elite club football in Europe have undergone a profound transformation toward Europeanization. As a result, football fans are increasingly exposed to European influences. These dynamics shape fans’ perceptions of and orientations toward Europe and contribute to constructions...

While the EU’s external migration policy arguably constitutes the most dynamic strand of EU migration policy, especially since the 2015/2016 asylum crisis in Europe, and while there is also a growing body of research on this dimension, more comprehensive, conceptually informed social science publications analysing this policy area in a more encompa...

In 2020/2021, the EU and its member states had to tackle the largest shock of the twenty-first century yet, the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 led to an unprecedented health and economic crisis. In this article, we analyse public opinion on redistributive EU measures based on an original survey in Austria, Germany and Italy and ask whether EU citizens...

The article explores how Austrian football fans, in a country outside the “Big-five” leagues and (semi-)peripheral to European top football, relate to the European elite competition. Our research builds on interviews with fans of Sturm Graz and Wacker Innsbruck. These clubs represent two different fan milieus at the sidelines of the Champions Leagu...

How has the Europeanisation of football at the level of governance (due to for example the effects of the Bosman ruling and the formation of the UEFA Champions League) – influenced the identities of football fans? This paper explores how such structural Europeanisation in football is influencing identifications among fans. Based on an analysis of a...

Multiple crises are endangering the project of European integration, increasingly threatening social cohesion in Europe. Countering these dangers is necessary for the persistence of the European project. While international cooperation continues, it regularly remains in the sphere of political institutions, and interpersonal contact and exchange ac...

While Brexit has spurred the study of differentiation within the European Union (EU), its global ramifications remain largely out of focus. Yet, the Brexit referendum and the ensuing and drawn-out negotiations between the EU and the United Kingdom (UK), both on the terms of the divorce and their future relationship, have resonated globally and caus...

In this chapter, the focus is on “football governance” and “football fandom” as two domains, which substantially broaden and enhance our understanding of European integration dynamics. First, “football” – in contrast to the fields of action conventionally studied – offers a seemingly non-political arena, which has been dramatically transformed in t...

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected nearly everybody around the world. The risk of getting infected as well as the risks posed by the economic consequences of the containment measures do not stop at borders or class differences. How do citizens react to such a transboundary crisis? Do such crises have an equalising effect across different social str...

Across Europe, national professional football leagues have seen increasing numbers of players from other EU states, while the Champions League and the Europa League have become a focal point for many teams. This article seeks to investigate how far this Europeanisation on the organisational level of football is reflected in identities and discourse...

Objective The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis has led to shutdowns of the cultural, associational, and economic life in many parts of the world and had a severe impact on gender relations in many societies. This study engages with gender differences in public support of severe infringements of personal and economic freedoms. Metho...

The past 25 years have seen an unprecedented Europeanisation of the structures and governance in football across the continent. A European (and global) transfer market for players and managers has become the norm and a pan-European league system has been established that regularly exposes supporters to transnational competitions and players from al...

This article explores the empirical relevance of researching outside‐in politicization processes in European studies. To this end, it examines to what extent and how civil society organizations (CSOs) have contributed to the politicization of EU policies towards Western Africa in two cases: the negotiation of Economic Partnership Agreements and the...

This chapter describes and examines the origin, nature and development of the so-called “European refugee crisis” and particularly analyzes the internal and external measures taken by the EU and its Member States in response to it. Our inquiry focuses on the following measures: (1) hotspots and emergency support for affected Member States, (2) relo...

The UK decision to leave the EU poses a challenge to European integration theory at the supranational end of the spectrum. This process of horizontal disintegration by popular vote constitutes a particularly hard case for neofunctionalism, which has assumed a forward-moving integration project based on a "permissive consensus" among European citize...

Discursive approaches to Europe usually focus on elite discourses and target a narrow political understanding of Europe. Against the backdrop of rising Euroscepticism and the known elite-mass divide on issues of European identity, it seems important to shift the focus toward non-elite discourses on Europe. Given that club football is largely Europe...

This volume brings together contributions that conceptualize and measure EU perceptions in the strategic regions around the world in the aftermath of the UK referendum. Contributors assess the evolution of EU perceptions in each location and discuss how their findings may contribute to crafting foreign policy options for the "new EU-27". Brexit is...

The Brexit vote of June 2016 has prompted global audiences to look at the EU afresh. These perceptions of the EU post Brexit referendum have been investigated in the contributions to this volume. This concluding chapter reviews the country-cases presented in this volume and summarizes their results with regard to the three guiding research question...

The US and the EU, the world’s most closely connected entities regarding economics, security nd politics, have worked hand in hand to build and maintain the liberal world order. Yet, the US also maintains a special relationship with the UK. This twofold singularity of the transatlantic relationship has suffered two severe shocks in 2016: the Britis...

Discussing the UEFA Champions League (CL) as a political myth, we want to focus on specific renderings of this continent-wide competition in club football. Two broad narratives are identified in this article: a unifying one that seems to contribute to the formation of a positive Champions League myth in terms of (political) integration across Europ...

Together with 6 universities in Germany, we organised a seminar on the inter-relations between crises in Europe and their effects on European foreign affairs. The seminar was conceptualised with regard to two dimensions: (1) weekly live-interaction between more than 150 students with a clear schedule for discussions and presentations, and (2) an e-...

This special section seeks to extent our knowledge on teaching innovative methods in European Union (EU) Foreign Affairs in time of challenges, politicisation, and digitalisation. It shares the experience of established and early career colleagues on how they designed, implemented, and applied specific innovations in their teaching. The section foc...

While the (upcoming) withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) has been heavily discussed in Europe, this debate revolves mainly around the future of the UK and UK-EU relations. By contrast, little attention has been paid to the reactions of third countries and the effect of their perceptions on the role of the changing EU...

It’s often said that football – the ‘beautiful game’ – brings us together. As Reinhard Grindel, the former president of the German Football Association, put it: “… in the globalized and digitalized world, sport, especially football, is the last great campfire around which all layers of society gather – poor and rich, men and women, people with and...

Between 2015 and 2017, the European Union (EU) was confronted with a major crisis in its history, the so-called “European refugee crisis.” Since the multifaceted crisis has provoked many different responses, it is also likely to have influenced individuals’ assessments of immigrants and European integration. Using data from three waves of the Europ...

In 2009 the EU adopted the Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities, its first-ever strategic document focusing specifically on mediation. Reflecting on past experiences in mediation engagements, the Concept provided an important impetus for further institutionalising the EU’s capacities in mediation and providing some systemat...

After cross-site teaching in a lecture series on the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in 2016, six universities organized a seminar on the inter-relations between crises in Europe and their effects on peace in Europe in summer 2017. The seminar was conceptualized with regard to two dimensions: (1) weekly live-interaction betwee...

Ein wichtiger Ansatz, um die Beziehungen zwischen verschiedenen Akteuren innerhalb einer Organisation zu untersuchen, ist der Prinzipal-Agenten-Ansatz. Der ursprünglich aus den Wirtschaftswissenschaften stammende Ansatz, der in der Politikwissenschaft zunächst vor allem als theoretischer Rahmen für die Analyse von Beziehungen zwischen Parlamenten u...

This chapter focuses on neofunctionalism, one of the earlier theories of regional integration. Neofunctionalist theory was first formulated in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but began to receive increasing criticism from the mid1960s, particularly because of several adverse empirical developments, the culmination of which was the Empty Chair crisi...

The article seeks to describe and discuss the UEFA Champions League as an eventually emerging political myth. This continent-wide competition in top-level European club football has been rendered both an „integration engine“ (contributing to a further amalgamation of societies of supporters and interested Europeans in a lifeworldy sphere) as well a...

Particularly in the aftermath of the refugee crisis, the relationship between immigration and anti-immigrant sentiment and Euroscepticism has become salient in public discourse in European Union member states. The scientific literature has also devoted increasing attention to these relationships over the past dozen years. In this short research not...

In this introductory article of the special issue, we examine European Union (EU) mediation practice and identify different conceptual and empirical perspectives from which it can be analyzed. We present different understandings of mediation in research and practice a definition and conceptual clarification of EU mediation practice, and offer a def...

This article concludes this special issue on the European Union as international mediator that set out to advance our theoretical and empirical knowledge about EU mediation. Providing a comprehensive reflection of EU mediation activities and the diverse settings where they take place, this concluding article identifies some connection points betwee...

In their recently published JCMS article, Gezim Visoka and John Doyle have proposed the concept of 'neofunctional peace' as a means to conceptualize the EU's peacemaking practices in the case of the EU-facilitated Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. This article challenges the 'neo-functional peace' on conceptual and empirical grounds. We critically discus...

Simulationen, im Sinne von komplexen Rollenspielen, sind heutzutage in der (Hochschul-) lehre verbreitet. Ziel ist es, Studierende aktiv zu beteiligen, um inhaltsspezifisches interaktives Lernen, Verstehen und Kommunizieren zu fördern. Dieses Kapitel diskutiert einige wichtige Aspekte von EU-Simulationen als Einführung und Grundlage in Hinblick auf...

Für Lehrkräfte der sozialwissenschaftlichen Fächer gibt es viele Gründe die Methode des Planspiels in ihren Unterricht zu integrieren. Gerade in Bezug auf die schulische Vermittlung der Europäischen Union und deren Komplexität sind die Vorteile von Planspielen bereits mehrfach in der politikdidaktischen Literatur identifiziert. Die seltene Nutzung...

In einem abschließenden Fazit werden die Beiträge des Sammelbandes zusammengefasst und die wesentlichen Aspekte der Diskussion rekapituliert. Im ersten, stärker forschungsorientierten und fachdidaktischen Teil des Buches wurde die EU-Lehre in Form von Simulationen reflektiert und Möglichkeiten, aber auch Grenzen und Probleme diskutiert. Dabei sollt...

Initial literature on the ‘European refugee crisis’ discerned intergovernmental tendencies in its management. This paper examines whether neofunctionalism may be able to explain a major case of ‘European refugee crisis’ policy-making, the negotiations on the European Border and Coast Guard regulation. We argue, somewhat counterintuitively, that the...

Der Band diskutiert die Möglichkeiten, aber auch Grenzen und Probleme von EU-Simulationen und liefert wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse zur Konzeptualisierung, zum Simulationsdesign und zur systematischen Evaluation von Lernergebnissen. Ferner werden EU-Simulationen als Forschungsinstrument betrachtet, beispielsweise für den Bereich Didaktik und in de...

The UEFA Champions League (CL) has arguably evoked much attention, fascination as well as criticism over the years. While it quickly developed into a commercial success story and a brand name which seemed to draw financially well-endowed sponsors all too easily, it has also increasingly been criticised for its changes in format, its focus on nurtur...

The European Union (EU) takes pride in having promoted integration, peace and democracy among its member states. This European success story, as perceived by third states interacting with the EU, has a huge bearing on the Union's soft power and thus on the effectiveness of its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The British decision to leave...

This chapter discusses conceptualisations of the European Union as an international actor in the European Neighbourhood Policy, evaluating the concepts of EU presence, actorness and effectiveness for EU Studies more generally, and the ENP in particular. We argue that the concrete circumstances, measures and levels of power enabling the EU to act (e...

Employing an agent–principal perspective on EU conflict resolution and focusing on the politics of discretion, we argue that the context in which the agent acts affects the principal–agent relation. Our conceptualization draws on the agent’s actions as a source of discretion, which can be either an unintentional product of the characteristics of th...

Few events over the past few decades have given rise to an amount of debate and speculation concerning the state of the European Union (EU) and the future of European integration as the economic and financial crisis that began in 2007. In spite of substantial media, policy-making and academic attention, the fundamental questions of why and how the...

With the »Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities« adopted in 2009, the EU aims to further develop its capabilities in the field of peace mediation, building also on various mediation experiences made by EU institutions and actors in different conflict regions. Yet, the academic literature has not paid much attention to the EU...

Published in the framework of the Jean Monnet Multilateral Research Group “EU-Russia Relations: Developing a Transnational Perspective”, March 2016.

Simulations, understood as complex role plays, are nowadays widely used in (university) teaching to actively engage students and promote content-specific interactive learning, understanding, and communication. There is a growing debate about the functions and benefits of simulations in the university teaching context. Simulating the EU is not yet a...

This article examines how the EU's effectiveness as a mediator in peace negotiations can be appropriately conceptualized and analysed. Mediator effectiveness is analysed along two dimensions: goal-attainment and conflict settlement. Investigation of the conditions of mediator effectiveness is structured around four key sets of variables: mediator l...

This is the introduction to a special collection of contributions that analyse the financial and economic crisis through various theoretical lenses. Accordingly, it does four things. First, it describes the EU's institutional response to the crisis in order to provide a reference point for the contributions. Second, it summarizes the contributions....

This contribution analyses the relevance of neofunctionalist theory and the various spillover mechanisms for explaining the management of the crisis and the drive towards a more complete Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The management of the crisis resulted in integrative outcomes owing to significant functional dissonances that arose from the in...

The legal documents drafted in April 2013 to enable the EU's accession to the European Charter of Human Rights represented a further confirmation of the unprecedented victory of democracy and human rights in Europe. However, with the outbreak and evolution of the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, the victory of democracy and human rights i...

This study compares the US and EU security strategies of the first decade of the 21st century. Our paper focuses on whether the security strategies of both entities are converging or diverging. We argue that the literature has so far failed to compare US and EU security strategies across time, a gap that we seek to close. The paper applies a qualit...

In the academic literature it has become commonplace to assume that migration is treated as a security issue in the EU, and that EU migration policy has become "securitised". However, countervailing tendencies exist: some observers have recently recognised a certain liberal turn in EU migration policy, and securitisation is sometimes applied in the...

This article analyses the EU's Common Commercial Policy (CCP) at the level of Treaty revision and particularly focuses on the last Treaty negotiations that led to the Treaty of Lisbon. The analysis is based on a revised neofunctionalist framework that the author developed in previous work. It draws on the following concepts: (i) functional spillove...

The goal of this Special Issue is to improve our conceptualisation and empirical understanding of EU actorness and effectiveness in International Relations. While the European Union aspires to play a greater global role, its actorness and effectiveness cannot be taken for granted given the nature of the EU as a multi-level and semi-supranational po...

This article analyses the extent of European Union (EU) actorness and effectiveness at the 15th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. Although the EU has been characterised as a leader in international climate policy-making for some time, the COP 15 mee...

This article contributes to the under-researched literature on the Europeanization of sports. We distinguish between two modes of Europeanization (broadly signifying the impact of European integration on the domestic realm): the traditional top-down approach and the neglected societal/transnational Europeanization track. Both modes are examined wit...

This chapter assesses the European Union’s (EU) role in international climate change policy-making by comparing the EU’s degree of goal attainment at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancún in 2010. By making use of three analytical factors (coh...

Over the last two decades EU migration policy has undergone an astonishing ascent from modest and obscure beginnings to an increasingly mature and vibrant field of EU policymaking. The purpose of this chapter is to explain this development across the past three Treaty revisions. It particularly focuses on decision rules and the institutional set-up...

This paper focuses on the under-researched role of the European Union as a mediator in peace negotiations. It is explorative and mainly conceptual. We develop an analytical framework for investigating the European Union's mediator effectiveness. To probe its empirical plausibility, we apply it to the case of EU mediation between Serbia and Kosovo (...

This article compares the degree to which the European Union (EU) managed to play a leadership role at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Copenhagen negotiations in December 2009 and the Cancun negotiations in December 2010. Our notion of leadership is composed of (a) direction (i.e. the degree to which an actor p...

This paper addresses the puzzle of why Portugal has consistently supported the EU’s fifth enlargement. We argue that standard explanations, based on welfare maximisation, geopolitics, or rhetorical action, cannot persuasively account for this policy choice. Instead, we advance an alternative explanation – subsequently referred to as ‘identity endor...