The "European Capital of Culture" programme between local and international cultural policies: an observation and analysis of debates and strategies employed by German cities when applying to be European Capital of Culture 2025

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The current EU programme for the European Capital of Culture is based on an initiative from the 1980s which was aimed at setting up a counterweight to purely economic or technocratic understandings of the European unification process. In a unique manner, cultural, urban and Europe-related discourses and practices are condensed within this programme; an academic study of it seems to be a highly promising entry point for analysing and contextualizing current cultural, urban and European debates. In 2025, in accordance with the agreed schedule, one of the two European Capitals of Culture will be in Germany. The city will be chosen on the basis of a two-step selection procedure in 2019/2020. At the moment of the submission of this project, several German cities are preparing their application to be considered as European Capital of Culture 2025. The research project aims to observe and to make a comparative analysis of the cultural, urban and European debates and decision-making processes related to the drafting of their applications, grounded on qualitative social research methods. In contrast to previous research, this project is based not only on the analysis of the final application documents and retrospective interviews, but also on the debates and decision-making processes in the candidate cities. It can be described as multi-sited ethnographic research, and is thus able to reconstruct these processes in a comprehensive way. Thus, the project will fill a gap in the existing research literature on the European Capital of Culture programme, and will offer new empirical insights and analyses, not least in respect of the often controversial societal evaluations of the programme. It will provide analyses and interpretations relating to a) the contemporary functions of cultural activities in urban societies (between societal and individual meaningfulness, place branding, tourism development, and social integration tool), and b) the shaping of the European unification process which is commonly diagnosed as critical. Beyond its specific subject, the project offers an in-depth understanding of current cultural policies within cities and of Europe-related discourse.