Anti-Muslim discourses and practices between mechanisms of far-right normalisation and mainstream racism in German subnational politics – shaping, dissemination and preventing

Far-right currents and parties have become a visible part of the political landscapes in Germany, Europe and worldwide in recent years again. The causes, forms and mechanisms of their rise have once again been the subject of intensified research and debate (Brown, 2019; Mudde, 2020; Inglehardt/Norris, 2019). Since the long summer of migration in 2015, with the AfD in Germany, political forces with an alleged threat to white Christian Western European societies through (perceived Muslim) migration processes gained peaks of attention, institutionalisation and influence. At the same time an articulation and spread of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies and narratives can be observed almost across the entire spectrum of the political mainstream (Syeda/Molkenbur, 2022; Abdelkader, 2017). While a societal normalization and mainstreaming of far-right politics, discourses, in broader terms anti-democratic actions is currently being intensively studied for national party landscapes, debates in public sphere and media discourses (Krzyżanowski et al., 2023, Wodak 2020), the specific mechanisms in urban governance and spaces has so far been rather neglected in this regard (Domann/Nuissl 2022, Hafeneger et al 2018). The city is also of particular interest because it is considered a possible ‘bulwark’ against the far-right normalization (Turam, 2014). Moreover, the study of municipalities attaches importance to democratic everyday practice and encounters in the urban space (Lefebvre 2014/1991). In this context of far-right normalisation, shifting the focus to the local encounters, perceptions, and interactions of citizens in negotiating and combating far-right movements has already shed light on the important role of "everyday racism" in these processes (Friese et al. 2019). Have specific mechanisms of normalisation developed under the conditions of local governance and urban spaces in Germany? Whether, and how are they entangled with mainstream racism? How do they effect local communities and democracy? These questions are explored based on an exploratory interview case study in cities with a high degree of far-right normalisation. The study contrasts 2 regions in Germany with demographically highly and less pluralised populations, respectively. All interviewees are committed to an open, pluralistic democratic society in (religious/anti-racist) civil society and local city councils; the consideration of Muslim perspectives was central to the sampling. Results reveal a dual strategy of mainstreaming and implementing the AfD in local parliaments. On the one hand, local urban societies and parliaments are highly polarised and divided. On the other hand, strategies of depoliticisation in an ideology-free space with issues close to the people suggest an instrumentalization by inserting into the systems of local democracy. These tactics are applied to the respective local opportunity structures. At the same time, the high resilience and capacity of civil society to deal with conflicts and countering far right normalisation is evident in these particularly normalised spaces. However, results clearly bring out, mechanisms of normalisation cannot be understood independently of everyday racism in the communal space. This has to be considered for further inter-and transdisciplinary debate on far-right normalisation.