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.
22/12/2011 New journal article on the religious factor in family policy In this article Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen and I test classic versus new hypotheses on the religious factor in family policy in a comparison of 27 OECD countries. Stadelmann-Steffen, I. & Traunmüller, R. (2011): Der religiöse Faktor in der Familienpolitik. Ein empirischer Test klassischer und neuerer Ansätze im Vergleich von 27 OECD-Ländern. Zeitschrift... View Article
14/12/2011 Invited talk on civil war and social trust at the Institute of Sociology Next week, Markus Freitag, David Born, and myself will give a talk on the impact of civil war exposure on different dimensions of social trust. When? December 20th, 18.15-20.00. Where? University of Berne, Unitobler, Lerchenweg 36, room F-111.