08/11/2012 Bayes Workshop “Finding Thetas in Europe” Next week we will have our little Bayes Workshop “Finding Thetas in Europe” in Berne, Switzerland. When? November 16-17th. Where? Department of Social Sciences, University of Berne, Lerchenweg 36, 3012 Berne, Room S121. The final program is here.
23/09/2012 Article on Diversity and Social Capital Accepted for Publication! My joint work with Birte Gundelach “Beyond Generalized Trust: Norms of Reciprocity as an Alternative Form of Social Capital in an Assimilationist Integration Regime” got accepted for publication in Political Studies. Here’s the abstract: Scholars have recently stressed two important avenues for the study of cultural diversity and social capital –... View Article
23/09/2012 Panel on “Freedom, Pluralism, Civil Society” The working group “Politics and Religion“ will organize a panel at this year’s general conference of the German Political Science Association (DVPW) in Tübingen: “Freedom, Pluralism, Civil Society: Do the Promises between Democracy and Religion Hold?” Prof. Corwin E. Smidt, Ph.D., Calvin College, Grand Rapids MI Key Note Lecture... View Article
21/07/2012 New journal article on “Measuring Church-State-Relations” out now! My article on measuring church-state-relations just got published online first. Here’s the abstract: The renewed interest in the religious factor in politics has also led to an increased concern for the entanglement of the church and the state. However, quantitative comparative research efforts in political science so far have been inhibited due... View Article
13/07/2012 New book on “Religion and Social Capital” out now! My dissertation on religion and social capital in Europe is now out in book form! The role of religion in the creation of social capital – i.e. civic networks and social trust – is highly ambivalent, both theoretically and empirically. In this book I identify the conditions under which religion... View Article
21/06/2012 Talk at the Annual Conference of the EPSA This saturday I will give a talk on “The Dynamics of Social Context on Political Preferences in Germany” at the second annual conference of the EPSA in Berlin. Here’s the abstract: The paper investigates how geographically defined social contexts impact on political preferences over time. Berelson et al. 1954 argue in... View Article
05/06/2012 Call for Papers: “Finding Thetas in Europe — Applied Bayesian Statistics and MCMC Methods in the Social Sciences” We are pleased to announce the second conference “Finding Thetas in Europe — Applied Bayesian Statistics and MCMC Methods in the Social Sciences” at the University of Bern, Switzerland, from 16th to 18th of November 2012. This interdisciplinary conference is organized by young scholars from the University of Bern and... View Article
12/05/2012 New book on “Civil Society in Switzerland” out now! In this new book my colleagues and I provide the first Swiss-wide survey of civic engagement on the local level. Next to assessing the associational structures of more than 1200 local communities, we conducted a population survey of citizens in 60 representative communities, asking them about their civic engagement and... View Article
12/04/2012 New book chapter on Religious Pluralism and Social Capital in Europe In this chapter in an edited book I investigate the consequences of religious pluralism for the social capital (i.e. civic networks and social trust) of selected European societies. Based on data from the European Social Survey and using cross-classified multilevel models, I show that religious groups differ in terms of their... View Article
20/03/2012 Call for Papers: Quantitative Research on Religion and Socialisation Call for papers for the 4th Workshop of the AK Quantitative Religionsforschung on “Religion and Socialisation” in Leipzig, Okober 26/27. See here.