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This book elucidates the socio-political and symbolic-cultural aspects of football as a "different form of politics" in Central-Eastern and Eastern Europe, drawing on both contemporary and historical aspects and including insights from different disciplines.

In this paper we built a model of political economy to explain the tenure of coaches in Brazilian soccer. According to the model, a club's board of directors maximizes its reputation by choosing the grade of the technical committee. Then, based on data from the Brazilian National Soccer League, we used coaching continuity as a proxy for the grade variable and duration analysis techniques to test the model's propositions. According to the empirical analysis, and in line with the theoretical model, a coach's performance is key to determining his continuity at a club. This model allows us to identify a parameter that gives, literally, the effect of the club's performance upon the supporters' perception about the board's work. This parameter is an important determinant of the stability of a coach in charge of a soccer team. ; In this paper we built a model of political economy to explain the tenure of coaches in Brazilian soccer. According to the model, a club's board of directors maximizes its reputation by choosing the grade of the technical committee. Then, based on data from the Brazilian National Soccer League, we used coaching continuity as a proxy for the grade variable and duration analysis techniques to test the model's propositions. According to the empirical analysis, and in line with the theoretical model, a coach's performance is key to determining his continuity at a club. This model allows us to identify a parameter that gives, literally, the effect of the club's performance upon the supporters' perception about the board's work. This parameter is an important determinant of the stability of a coach in charge of a soccer team.

Soccer in Spain functions as a powerful ideological apparatus. Historically, the under-performance of the national selection ("Spanish Fury") was attributed to a lack of patriotism on part of players from ethno-regional peripheries. The recent successes (2008, 2012 Euro Cup and 2010 World Cup) of Spanish soccer are hailed as proof of a modern country that has finally overcome its regional divisions. Or has it? This article will explore soccer as a contested ideological terrain between Spanish, Basque and Catalan nationalism. The peripheries have been instrumental in the development of Spanish soccer and the "Spanish Fury," as I will show in this paper, while they remain at odds with the idea of a central "Spain." This paper explores soccer as a schismogenic system of integration and disintegration that affect center–periphery relationships. I will explore the historical-particular mechanisms, achievements and impasses of ethnic, racial and national identity construction in three epochs: the pre-Franco dictatorship, when soccer was established as the hegemonic sports culture; the Franco dictatorship, an era of intensive homogenization; and the current democratic era in a supra-national Europe, where the peripheries emerge with renewed separatist energies.

This paper argues that an industrial firm may exist on a regional, national, continental, or world scale. This dimension may be different for market, actual selling space, basic social existence, and plant location. A review of the main industrial sectors in present day Europe shows that most major firms are European-sized for market, circulation of commodities, and plant-location aspects, while they are definitely national for government help and subsidies, and that very often these helps and subsidies are vital for their survival. This contradiction helps to explain the difficulties, hazards, and accidents on the European scene. The internationalization of the economy pushes towards European integration; but the necessities of reproducing the basic conditions of production are dependent on the specific situation in each country: the function of political and ideological reproduction can nowadays be exerted only by national governments. European unification seems to be both necessary and impossible at the same time; its pursuit necessarily involves a collision course.