Full Description
Football fans and football culture represent a unique prism through which to view contemporary society and politics. Based on in-depth empirical research into football in Poland, this book examines how fans develop political identities and how those identities can influence the wider political culture.
It surveys the turbulent history of Poland in recent decades and explores the dominant right-wing ideology on the terraces, characterised by nationalism, 'traditional' values and anti-immigrant sentiment. As one of the first book-length studies of fandom in Eastern Europe, this book makes an important contribution to our understanding of society and politics in post-Communist states.
Politics, Ideology and Football Fandom is an important read for students and researchers studying sport, politics and identity, as well as those working in sports studies and political studies covering sociology of sport, globalisation studies, East European politics, ethnic studies, social movements studies, political history and nationalism studies.
Contents
1. Introduction. 2. Football fans and their political engagement in Central and Eastern Europe. 3. Socio-economic and political transformation of Poland since the collapse of communism. 4. Football fandom in Poland in a historical perspective. 5. The pathological 1990s. 6. Polish political elites versus football fandom. 7. Contemporary Polish fandom and its civic, social and political engagement. 8. Ideology on Polish terraces. 9. Polish national team supporters. 10. Fans and politics: towards a typology. Conclusions.
