Cultural Patterns of Enlargement: Do Small Central European States Share Common Values?

Abstract

The ongoing process of Europeanization raises the question of citizen support. Political actors in the relevant states seek to promote the acceptance of civil society for this development. The political bid for consensus building around EU integration and the enlargement process is accompanied by public campaigns. Against this background this paper deals with selected images that figure prominently in these campaigns, using three small EU members of the Central European region – Austria, Hungary and Slovakia – as examples. Starting from the assumption that national and European images used in the respective campaigns refer to underlying cultural patterns as frames of political orientation one may analyse commonalities and differences in the perception of political roles of the respective states in the new Europe.