I am a Professor of Political Science and Empirical Democracy Research in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim and scientific director of the German Internet Panel (GIP). I was born in Austria but grew up in Mexico, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Thailand, and now commute to and from Slovenia. Before coming to Mannheim, I held academic positions at Goethe University Frankfurt, the University of Essex, the University of Berne and the University of Konstanz. I study the socio-structural and psycho-cultural requisites of democracy with a strong focus on problems of social cohesion and conflict. My current research involves the politics of free speech and censorship, citizens’ preferences for migration policy, and the civic consequences of wartime sexual violence. I also have a keen interest in quantitative political methodology, including Bayesian methods, data visualization and survey experiments. My work has been published in American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and Political Analysis, among others.
Today, I will give a talk on “Subjective Free Speech and Social Media Regulation” in St. Leon-Rot organized by the local group of the Green party.
The result of our adversarial collaboration on cancel culture in academia “Students’ motives for restricting academic freedom: Viewpoint discrimination and pro-social concerns.” (with C. Diehl, M. Revers, N. Weidmann, and A. Wuttke) has been accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)!
Yesterday, I gave a talk on “The Cost of Speaking Freely in a Liberal Democracy” in the E866 Research Seminar in Economic Policy at the University of Mannheim. Thanks for organizing, Hans!
Empirical democracy research, the way I understand it, is applied parrhesia. Parrhesia is an ancient Greek concept (παρρησία) that stands for freedom of speech, frankness, and the courage to speak the truth – even if this entails personal risks or incurs the wrath of those in power. The Parrhesia Politics Lab takes this ethos as its guiding principle, advancing the empirical-analytical study of democracy across three interrelated domains: the culture and practice of free speech, the confrontation of cultural elites with their blind spots and contradictions, and the systematic investigation of sensitive or controversial topics often left unexplored.
This research area investigates the conditions under which individuals experience and practice freedom of expression. The lab examines both public and private contexts, analyzing perceptions of speech freedom, practices of self-censorship, and the social and institutional mechanisms that foster or inhibit open democratic discourse. A central concern is how cultural norms and sanctioning dynamics shape who dares to speak, what can be said, and at what cost. By grounding these debates in systematic empirical evidence, the lab contributes to a deeper understanding of free speech not only as a legal right but as a lived democratic practice.
Current project: The Cost of Speaking Freely in a Liberal Democracy
This research area aims to challenge the views of cultural elites by confronting them with their blind spots, biases, and contradictions as well as the unintended consequences of their positions. By cultural elites, I refer to what Nassim Nicholas Taleb describes as “the circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking ‘clerks’ and journalist-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy League, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think… and 5) who to vote for.” By conducting research to expose the limits of this milieu’s world view and self-understanding, the lab enacts parrhesia in practice: speaking truth to cultural power, even or especially when that truth is unwelcome.
Current projects: Adversarial Collaboration: Free Speech at the University, The Dignity Hypothesis
This research area addresses questions that are often neglected or avoided because they are socially sensitive, politically charged, or morally contested. Such topics frequently attract controversy, stigma or sanction, leading to avoidance rather than open inquiry. The lab approaches them with empirical rigor, demonstrating that controversial subjects can and should be studied systematically rather than suppressed. A key methodological focus lies on the use of list experiments and related techniques to uncover sensitive attitudes and behaviors that individuals may otherwise conceal. In doing so, the lab broadens the scope of democratic research and models parrhesia by insisting that intellectual courage requires engagement with precisely those issues that others prefer to leave untouched.
Current projects: Antisemitism in Germany, Police Racism
CV Traunmueller Google Scholar Profile SSRN Author Page
Under Review
Arnold, L. & Traunmüller, R. Religious Bridging and Bonding in Social Networks. New Evidence from a Cross-national Comparison of Eleven Democracies. (R&R)
Traunmüller, R. Testing the ‘Campus Cancel Culture’ Hypothesis.
Selected Recent Publications
Diehl, C., Revers. M., Traunmüller, R., Weidmann, N. & Wuttke, A. (2025). Students’ motives for restricting academic freedom: Viewpoint discrimination and pro-social concerns. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) (accepted)
Lu, X. & Traunmüller, R. (2025). Improving Studies of Sensitive Topics Using Prior Evidence: A Unified Bayesian Framework for List Experiments. Political Science Research and Methods (conditional accept)
Helbling, M., Ivarsflaten, E. & Traunmüller, R. (2025). Zero-sum thinking and the cultural threat of Muslim religious rights. Comparative Political Studies (online first).
Munzert, S., Traunmüller, R., Barberà, P., Guess, A., & J.-H. Yang (2025). Citizen Preferences for Online Hate Speech Regulation. PNAS Nexus 4(2): pgaf032.
Koos, C. & Traunmüller, R. (2024). The Gendered Costs of Stigma: How Experiences of Conflict-related Sexual Violence Affect Civic Engagement for Women and Men. American Journal of Political Science doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12863.
Ivarsflaten, E., Helbling, M., Sniderman, P. M. & Traunmüller, R. (2024). Value Conflicts Revisited: Muslims, Gender Equality and Gestures of Respect. British Journal of Political Science doi:10.1017/S0007123423000637.
Helbling, M., Maxwell, R. & Traunmüller, R. (2024). Numbers, Selectivity and Rights: The Conditional Nature of Immigration Policy Preferences. Comparative Political Studies 57(2): 254-286.
Gonzalez, B. & Traunmüller, R. (2023). The Political Consequences of Wartime Sexual Violence: Evidence from a List Experiment. Journal of Peace Research https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433231183.
Stoetzer, L., Leemann, L. & Traunmüller, R. Learning From Polls during Electoral Campaigns. Political Behavior doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09837-8
Stoetzer, L. et al. (2022). Affective partisan polarization and moral dilemmas during the COVID-19 pandemic. Political Science Research & Methods doi:10.1017/psrm.2022.13.
Murr, A., Traunmüller, R. & Gill, J. (2022). Computing quantities of interest and their uncertainty using Bayesian simulation. Political Science Research & Methods doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2022.18.
Helbling, M., Jäger, F. & Traunmüller, R. (2022). Muslim Bias or Fear of Fundamentalist Religion? A Survey Experiment in Five Western European Democracies. Research & Politics doi.org/10.1177/20531680221088491.
Traunmüller, R. & Helbling, M. (2022). Backlash to Policy Decisions: How Citizens React to Immigrants’ Rights to Demonstrate. Political Science Research & Methods 10(2): 279 – 297.
Leemann, L., Stoetzer, L. & Traunmüller, R. (2021). Eliciting Beliefs as Distributions in Online Surveys. Political Analysis 29(4): 541-553.
Helbling, M. & Traunmüller, R. (2020). What is Islamophobia? Disentangling Citizens’ Feelings Toward Ethnicity, Religion, and Religiosity Using a Survey Experiment. British Journal of Political Science 50(3): 811-828. (Lead Article)
Claassen, C. & Traunmüller, R. (2020). Improving and Validating Survey Estimates of Religious Demography Using Bayesian Multilevel Models with Poststratification. Sociological Methods & Research 49(3): 603–636.
Traunmüller, R., Kijewski, S. & Freitag, M. (2019). The Silent Victims of Sexual Violence During War: Evidence from a List Experiment in Sri Lanka. Journal of Conflict Resolution 63(9): 2015-2042.
Helbling, M. & Traunmüller, R. (2016). How State Support of Religion Shapes Attitudes Toward Muslim Immigrants. New Evidence from a Subnational Comparison. Comparative Political Studies 49(1): 391-424. [Online Appendix; Erratum Figure 3].
Traunmüller, R., Murr, A. & Gill, J. (2015). Modeling Latent Information in Voting Data with Dirichlet Process Priors. Political Analysis 23(1): 1-20. (Lead Article)
Lecture: Introduction to Working Scientifically (BA lecture, University of Mannheim, Fall Term 2025)
Free Speech & Censorship (MA course, University of Mannheim, Fall Term 2025)
I am happy to write reference letters for students. Conditions: You have attended at least two of my courses and your grades in my courses are a 2.0 (“good”) or better. Please contact me at least two weeks before the deadline and remind me again (!) two days before the deadline. Please send me a full CV plus a transcript of your grades. I will write a reference letter for a maximum of three institutions.
currently under construction 🙂