Securitising Culture During the Cold War: The Geopolitical Aspect of Culture in European Discussions, 1949–1974

Abstract

Most of the existing academic analysis contend that culture and identity—as a security policy—appeared in the political discussions of European institutions as late as after the Cold War. While adopting a historical and contextualist approach, this paper challenges this account, analysing the geopolitical aspect of culture inside the triangle of political union, beside foreign policy and defence, identifying culture as an independent factor that influences foreign policy and its management. Analysis of the political documents of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe from 1949 to 1974 demonstrates that notwithstanding the CoE’s character as being neutral and maintaining its distance from pure military functions, culture became security policy, an extension of the ‘political aspects of the defence question’ from the early 1950s on. Culture was lifted as a necessity above normal politics and as a question of survival, that is, it was securitised.