From Apoliticality To Actor Of Security : Geopolitical Spillover And Russia’s Exclusion From Eurovision And The Olympic Games

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines how the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) shifted from formally apolitical institutions into actors involved in security responses following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. While Russia remained a legitimate participant after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, both institutions implemented exclusionary measures in 2022, raising the question of how this shift became possible. Drawing on social securitization theory, the thesis employs qualitative discourse analysis through a comparative case study of the IOC and EBU across the 2014 Crimea annexation and the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The findings show that exclusion was not a direct consequence of the invasion itself, but the result of successful threat construction through securitization. More broadly, the thesis demonstrates how security logic can spillover into cultural and sporting institutions, revealing an increasing fragility in the distinction between political and apolitical arenas in contemporary International Relations.