Kiran Klaus Patel is Professor of European and global history at Maastricht University.

Culture is one of the most complex and contested fields of European integration. This book analyzes EU cultural politics, both at the central as well as at local levels, since their emergence in the 1980s with a particular focus on the European Capital of Culture program, the flagship of EU cultural policy.

1. Introduction Kiran Klaus Patel 2. The European Capitals of Culture in Context: Cultural Policy and the European Integration Process Uta Staiger 3. The Changing Concept of the European Capitals of Culture: Between the Endorsement of European Identity and City Advertising Jürgen Mittag 4. Europe's Several Capitals of Culture: From Celebration over Regeneration to Polycentric Capitalization Monica Sassatelli 5.Integration by Expertise: Transnational Experts and the European Commission in European Cultural Policies Kiran Klaus Patel 6. Florence European Capital of Culture 1986 and the Legitimization of an EEC Cultural Policy Oriane Calligaro 7. Wall-City Visions: Representations of Europe in the Context of 'Berlin - Kulturhauptstadt Europas' (1988) Marc Schalenberg 8. Peripheral ECOCs between Cultural Policy and Cultural Governance: The Case of Sibiu 2007 Daniel Habit 9. 'We keep on building': The 'unsuccessful' application of Görlitz/Zgorzelec 2010 Annina Lottermann 10. Europeanization from the Margins? Istanbul's Cultural Capital Initiative and the Formation of European Cultural Policies Banu Karaca 11. Mediating European Heritage: Practices and Appropriations of European Heritage Policy in Serbia Claske Vos 12. Lefkosia/Lefkosa: Europeanization and the Politics of Culture in a Divided City Gisela Welz