Mapping The Right: No. 1

While established parties tend to approach cultural issues as a matter of lesser importance and, faced with budgetary constraints, are increasingly reducing funding, the new political right and its representatives consider cultural policy as a key political lever. Their goal is to establish a nationalist dominant culture as groundwork for an authoritarian restructuring of the state and its institutions. This involves overuse of parliamentary questions, calls for boycotts, hate mail, doxing and coordinated media campaigns that are intended to contribute to a wide-ranging societal restructuring designed to undermine democracy.

Our series Mapping the Right examines the strategies used to influence discourse, gain control over the narrative and restrict the scope of action of cultural institutions. With each instalment, a publicly accessible archive is being created to provide a map of right-wing political influence across the cultural sector. The collection of incidents reported by affected parties helps identify strategic approaches used to deliberately destabilise and dismantle democratic structures. In a first step, we will focus on the concept of what is often referred to as ‘culture wars’. Sitting down with experts from the field of science, civil society and from the cultural sector for a conversation, we will explore the origins of this label and ask what it actually means.

Anne Schneider is a presenter, concept developer and freelance director. She is actively involved in many networks and associations, and a member of the Berlin Council for the Arts. From 2017 to 2021, she was managing director of the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts; and from 2014 to 2017 artistic director of the Hauptsache Frei festival.

Moderation: Anne Schneider
Guests : David Begrich, Heinrich Horwitz, Suraj Mailitafi, Simon Brost (Mobile Beratung gegen Rechts)