What Is the European Union? A Cultural Shared Risk Community!

In this commentary, the author continues his first reflections on European Union cultural history, which opened up this field and introduced the theory of ‘paradoxical coherence’. Revisiting sociological and cultural-historical works by Beck and Gumbrecht, he argues that the EU can be seen as a ‘cultural shared risk community’, the sources of identity-building and sense-making consisting of the European citizens’ shared cultural risks and fears. From this he suggests a new agenda for cultural-historical research on the EU.