Polyphony for a City in Germany: Actors and enunciators of a European capital of culture in the trenches of the radical right's Kulturkampf

The European radical right (RR), including parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD), promotes a cultural war against liberal elites, minorities, the European Union, and extra-European migrants. This political positioning has attracted a growing share of citizens residing in urban areas affected by uneven development. However, little is known about whether and how the RR's cultural stance is addressed by representatives of the liberal elite when they define culture-driven regeneration policies in deprived areas increasingly voting for the RR. This article explores that phenomenon by analyzing the dialogic imagination produced by German cities competing for the 2025 European Capital of Culture title and engaging with a panel of experts evaluating their candidacies. Using an enunciative polyphony approach to discourse analysis, the study reveals that the cultural war advanced by the AfD infiltrates the dialogic imagination of the liberal elite responsible for shaping urban cultural policies. For the RR, winning this cultural war is not limited to gaining executive power; rather, it entails exerting influence over the reflexivity of the liberal elite.