I am a Associate Professor (W2) at the Fliedner University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf and Guest Researcher at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institut of Political Science, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich.

 

I am specialized in comparative public policy-analysis and legislative behavior. My main areas of research interest include morality policy, social care, religion, gender, governance and policy implementation. I completed a Ph.D in political science at the University of Konstanz and author the book "Morality politics in a secular age: strategic parties and divided government in Europe." Furthermore, I am member of the Steering Committee of the standing group "Religion & Politics" of the ECPR, as well as of its pendant in Germany - AK "Religion und Politik", DVPW.

15 March 2024

Program out for our workshop "Digital religion meets politics" ! Please let us know if you would like to join and discuss with us; both is still possible. Date: 10-11 of May 2024 at the Evangelishe Akademie Landau. 

 

13 March 2024

Radio Interview - Bayern 2, Theo.Logik: Happy to have contributed to a reportage by Jesper Rieman on "Kirchliche Wohlfahrtsverbände in der Krise".

 

18 December 2023

ANOTHER PAPER IS OUT: In the realm of Francois Fortet's fantatic project on "Religion in the European Parliament", we conducted a second round of surveys among MEPs. In our sub-project, we focused on German MEPs and enriched the survey with in-depth interviews. The product of the intensive work is titled: "Vertical inroads of religion into European parliamentary politics: how socialisation and national party affiliation shape German MEPs’ consideration of religion"; please contact me if you want to have the full version. Many thanks for Francois for putting together this European project team.

27 October 2023

PAPER IS OUT:  Another product of our larger DFG-SNF project is out, titled "Securing Moral Authority: A Cross-National Analysis of Protestant Engagement in the Implementation of Morality Policies in Western Europe" published in the journal Voluntas.      

 

16 October 2023

CALL FOR PAPERS: I am thrilled to annouce our new Call for Papers titled "Digital religion meets politics" for a Special Issue in the journal "Frontiers in Political Science". The deadline for abstracts is 1st of December 2024. We organizing a paper workshop from 10-11 of May 2024 in Germany. The workshop is co-organized by the Standing Group on Religion & Politics of the German Political Science Association and the Section Public-Policy and Public Administration of the very same group.      

 

9 October 2023

I am organizing a LIVE ONLINE lecture on "International Social Work" with excellent speakers and very exciting topics! Please find here the programm. It is Thursdays, from 12:30-13:15, please drop me a note if you want to join, it is open for the larger public.   

 

15 October 2023

A big thanks goes to Matthias Krotmann for organizing an excellent workshop on "Religion, Secularism and party politics" at the TU Dortmund. Great papers and colleagues!    

 

15 July 2023

Finally: Our Special Issue titled "Reconceptualization social care: Contrasting Classical and Contested Care Policies and their Gendered Implications" is out with the European Journal of Politics and Gender!!! A big thanks goes to all contributors,  Jessica Fortin-Rittberger - our journal editor- and Agnes Blome, my co-guest-editor! I am very pleased and thanksful for all the effortsand support giving us the courage to bring this to a successful end, despite being challenged very much by the Covid-19 crisis and different kind of care duties. A special thanks goes also to my husband and kids, supporting resp. allowing me to work on this project even during maternity leave. Please give me note if you need any of the final pdf-versions. 

 

 

 

 

 

15 February 2023

After having finalized the term and the exams, I am happy to let you know that I am "joining two new teams": 1) First, I am honoured to be a "Review Editor" of the new, open-access journal "Frontiers in Political Science", and 2) I am happy to be selected as member of the ELSA-research group of the "Stammzellnetzwerk NRW".

 

3 January 2023

Happy New Year!! For our project, it brings good news: an other article is out with titled "Christian churches and social welfare in secular times: How goal congruence shapes religious involvement in morality-based social services" . Many thanks to Olivia Mettang, my co-author, and the journal editors of "Politics and Religion".

 

3o November 2022

I am extremely honoured that our article “Political parties and Muslims in Europe: the regulation of Islam in public education“ inWest European Politics has been awarded one of the two Gordon Smith and Vincent Wright Memorial Prizes! I am very glad and thankful for the amazing collaboration with Irina Ciornei and Ilay Yesil!

 

31 October 2022

A new piece related to our research project on "Religion and morality policies" is out: Regulatory intermediaries and value conflicts in policy implementation: Religious organizations and life-and-death policies in Belgium. Regulation & Governance (online first). Thanks so much to my co-authors Irina, Michalina and Ilay! Please let me know if you need an pdf-version.

 

5 October 2022

Finally, our Special Issue "THE GOVERNANCE OF PROSTITUTION VIA INTERMEDIARIES" is out with Regulation and Governance. Thanks so much to all the collaborators, reviewers, the editorial team and especially my colleague, Nicolle Zeegers from the University Groningen! It was a very demanding process, which finally came to a very happy end :-)

 

1 October 2022

I am back from maternity leave, and full of energy to "go back to work," while also enjoying the evenings with my lovely daughter. 

 

25 November 2022

We are extremely happy to announce that our paper titled "Political parties and Muslims in Europe: the regulation of Islam in public education." is out with West European Politics! Thanks so much to my co-authors Irina Ciornei and Ilay Yesil for this great collaboration!

 

6 October 2021

Happy to chair the panel "Platz schaffen für Sorge. Warum eine Care-Revolution notwendig ist" with the key-note speaker Prof. Gabriele Winker at my new "home institution", the Fliedner Fachhochschule Düsseldorf.

 

4 October 2021

Happy to be re-elected into the Steering Committee of the ECPR Standing Group "Religion & Politics"! Looking forward to working together with new and old colleagues - Luca, Matthias, Frederic and Sultan!

 

23 July 2021

Hi,

for those of you who are already back from holidays or not yet on vacation, please feel free to join our workshop titled „Reconceptualizing social care: Contrasting classical and contested care policies and their gendered implications” as virtual guest.

The workshop will take place as hybrid event from 11-13^th of August 2021 at the Akademie für Politische Bildung Tutzing (a beautiful place in the south of Munich https://www.apb-tutzing.de/programm/tagung/32-2-21). It is supported by the ECPR Standing Group on Religion & Politics and the DVPW AK Religion & Politik. Please find here the preliminary program. If you want to participate virtually, please let us know and we will send you the Zoom link.   

 

 

25 June 2021

New chapter out titled "Solving Europe’s value deficit via economic well-being? The complex relationship between morality issues and economic well-being" in Francois Foret's and Jana Vargovčíková's edited volume "Value Politics in the European Union: From Market to Culture and Back" published with Routledge. Many thanks to Francois and Jana for their patience and effort in finishing the project!

 

23 June 2021

Many thanks goes to Luca Ozzano, my colleague in the ECPR Standing Group on Religoin & Politics, who initiated a great ECPR Summer School on "Religion and Far-right populism: friends or foes?", hosted by the University of Turin. It was a pleasure for me to teach a session on "Religion, populism and welfare", and discuss with very engaged PhD-students!

 

15 June 2021

Very glad to share with you our new publication titled "Political parties and Muslims in Europe: the regulation of Islam in public education" just published in West European Politics. Thanks so much to my colleagues, Irina Ciornei and Ilay Yesil, for the amazing collaboration!! Please find here some free copies.

 

3 June 2021

Happy to have "survived" my inaugural speech  titled "Governancestrukturen in der Bereitstellung von sozialen Diensten und ihre Auswirkungen". Many thanks for the warm welcome by my future colleagues!

 

29-30 April 2021

Together with Agnes (Blome), I co-hosted a  great virtual workshop on the topic "Reconceptualizing social care in challenging times". Thanks for all the excellent presentations and paper drafts, tacking social care through very different angles, facilitating a truely interdisciplinary exchange. I am very much looking forward to the second round and meeting in August 2021 to get all papers ready for our planned Special Issue with the European Journal of Gender and Politics!! 

 

15 April  2021

I am very much looking forward to my new job as Associate Professor in Social Policy at the  Fliedner University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf. 

 

15 November 2020

Happy to let you know that I was awarded for the "Nachwuchsförderungsfond" of the LMU with my new research project titled "The invisible caring hand". More to follow soon.

 

15 October 2020

Just finished teaching a summer-school course on "Care meets Politikwissenschaft: Politische and administrative Bedingtheit von Sorge im 21. Jahrhundert", jointly with my colleague Olivia Metting. I very much enjoyed it, and it seems as the students did so as well. Please check out here our syllabi and the excellent student evaluations.

 

23 September 2020

Agnes (Blome) and I are organizing a workshop on “Reconceptualizing social care in the 21st century: new policies, politics, and beneficiaries.” See Call for Papers here. Please send us your abstract at the latest until the 15th of October 2020.

 

09 September 2020

So happy to let you know that our piece on gender quotas and parliamentary activity in the European Union is out with Parliamentary Affairs!!! Check out here: https://academic.oup.com/pa/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/pa/gsaa016/5902021

24 August 2020

It was a pleasure to chair the panel "Religion across boundaries" at the ECPR General Conference 2020 and share the discussion with my excellent colleague, Marko! 

29 July 2020

I am very much looking forward to participate in the event "Hart, aber unfair: Diversity in der Politikwissenschaft" of our students' organization at the GSI!

21 July 2020

Many thanks goes to Prof. Dr. Willems for joining my MA-seminar on "Religion & Politik" today! His reflections on "Religionspolitik heute" were very inspiring.

 

20 July 2020

Happy to share with you some excellent student evaluations of my online-courses "Gender & Politics" (BA-level) as well as "Religion & Politik" (MA-level, taught together with Olivia Mettang)! A big thanks goes also to my students, being very open for new tools and methods!

 

14 July 2020

Many thanks goes to Anika Rehorn, who joined our "Religion & Politics"-course today and shared her experience on working and coping with the COVID-19 pandemic in her job as female and young Protestant priest. We learned a lot about digitization processes and related challenges within the Protestant Church in Germany.

 

29 June 2020

Please check out my presentation "Islamischer Religionsunterricht aus politikwissenschaftlicher Sicht: Regulierungsmodelle und Erklärungsfaktoren" at the Ringvorlesung "Islamischer Religionsunterricht," Akademie der Weltreligionen, University of Hamburg. Many thanks to Dr. Ana Körs for the invitation and the organization!

 

14 June 2020

Together with my colleague, Olivia Mettang, I will contribute to the LMU-Summer School "CARE" with a course titled "Political Science meets CARE: political and administrative conditions of organizing CARE in the 21st century." The registration deadline is open until the 30th of June 2020. Looking forward to meeting you there. 

 

6 June 2020

Happy to let you know that our new blog post "Speaking or drafting? How parties' candidate selection procedures shape the prioritization of parliamentary activities in the European Parliament" is out. It summarizes the main findings of the latest publication with my wunderful co-author, Elena Frech. A big thanks goes also to Sarah (Dingler) and Corina (Kroeber) for this great opportunity to contribute to their highly inspiring blog "Counting Counts."

 

15 May 2020

Me and my students from the MA course "Religion and Politics" participated in the new "Imagevideo" of our department! It was a pleasure to support this very good idea!

 

20 April 2020

After some intensive preparation, my BA course "Gender and Politics" and MA course "Religion and Politics" are ready to be taught online and via Zoom. Very much looking forward to the discussions with and the feedback from the students!

 

14 February 2020

Our new publication titled "Candidate Selection and Parliamentary Activity in the EU's multi-level system: Opening a black-box" is out at Politics&Governance. In this piece, is interesting for both, scholars of legislative behavior and scholars of EU policies as Elena Frech, my co-author, and I am disentangle the  complex interaction between candidate selection rules and parliamentary activity.

 

31 January 2020

Just received the students' evaluations of my MA-course "Christian Churches and politics" and my BA-course "Research Design". Please check out here. I am very grateful for the excellent feedback!

 

27 January 2020

I am very proud to announce that I will speak about gender quotas in a research seminar of the fantastic ERC-funded research group "EUGENDEM- Gender, Party politics and Democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament's party groups" at the University of Tampera, Finland. The topic of my talk is "Gender Quotas in the elections to the European Parliament: Design, pattern and consequences." Many thanks goes to Petra Ahrens who put this all together and just send my a great poster.

 

25 January 2020

Looking forward to the up-coming SVPW Conference in Luzern and the Panel "Religion and Political Conflict across European Nation-States", where I am going to present a paper titled "Hearts and minds at stake: How religious organizations sustain moral authority in secular regulatory states". Thanks, Antonius Liedhegener, for putting this together!

 

9 January 2020

Please pass by at our expert talk with PfarrerIn Ulrich und Marlies Gampert on the topic "Kirchenasyl ein Instrument der Flüchtlingspolitik?". It will take place next Wednesday, 15th of January at 16:15 in room D Z003, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, Hauptgebäude LMU. This event is part of my master course "Christliche Kirchen und Politik: Sozialpartner, sinnstiftender Intermediär oder Widersacher?" and organized together with my wonderful colleagues, Olivia Mettang and Lisa Riedel!

 

03 January 2020

I very much looking forward to my talk on "Prostitutionsregulierung im internationalen Vergleich" at the University of Stuttgart coming Thursday, 9th of January 2020 at 5:30pm in the Sozialwissenschaftliches Institute! Thanks to Achim Hildebrandt for organizing this!

 

02 January 2020

Happy New Year to you! The good new: Our paper "Candidate Selection and Parliamentary Activity in the EU's multi-level system: Opening a black-box" just got accepted by the Journal Politics and Governance! My co-author, Elena Frech, and I am are grateful for the support of the editors of the Special Issue: Daniela Braun, Berthold Rittberger and Martin Gross! Thanks for putting this together!

 

16 December 2019

Happy to inform you that my new paper is out:  Ruling under a shadow of moral hierarchy: Regulatory intermediaries in the governance of prostitution. Regulation & Governance (online first). Many thanks goes to Nicolle, Benjamin and David for the strong support!

 

13 November 2019

Our new blog post "Katholische Wohlfahrt: Politikimplementation im Spannungsfeld zwischen sozialer Arbeit und katholischem Auftrag" is out! Many thanks for the NRW School of Governance for their support!

 

16 September 2019

 My new blog post "Secular Politics of Sexuality and Christian Churches" is out! Many thanks to Emma and her colleagues from the Woolf Institute in Cambridge for promoting this!

 

7 September 2019

Many thanks to those of you who contributed to my section titled "Religion and politics in a secular age" at the ECPR General Conference in Wroclaw 2020! We had eight great panels and some fantastic discussions! Thanks!

 

30 May 2019

My new book is out!! Please check here: "Morality politics in a secular age: strategic parties and divided government in Europe."

 

13 May 2019

Good news, my new article is out:  Morality policy In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford University Press. It is particularly useful for those teaching morality policies to undergraduates and/or those of you who wants to get a quick overview of the main definitions, findings and controversies in the research on this specific policy field. 

 

28 March 2019

In the next weeks, I will be a visiting researcher at the Woolf Institute in Cambridge, which is specialized in examining inter-religious communication between people of different beliefs, including particularly Jews, Christians and Muslims. I am very much looking forward to presenting and discussing my work with the excellent people working at the Institute. Moreover, I am very grateful having the change to stay in Britain during such important political times, and make a first-hand experience.

 

26 March 2019

I attended the conference "Strictly observant religion, gender and the state" at the Woolf Institute in Cambridge and presented a paper titled "Secular politics of sexuality and the response of Christian Churches: supporting, undermining or boycotting state goals in policy implementation?". Many thanks Tobias for organizing this! This discussion in this interdisciplinary setting were truly inspiring!

 

15 March 2019

I finally received and checked the proof of my book "Morality politics in a secular age: strategic parties and divided government in Europe." I  can not wait holding the printed version in my hands!

 

18 February 2019

Many thanks for all the highly interesting proposals for our section proposal on "Religion and politics in a secular age" at the up-coming ECPR General Conference 2019. We received more than 50 submissions. So, I am sure we can put together some highly interesting panels.

 

24 January 2019

I was invited for a talk on the regulation of prostitution policy at the University of Stuttgart (Institut für Sozialwissenschaft) and enjoyed very much the inspiring comments and welcoming atmosphere! Thanks a lot, Achim Hildebrandt, for organizing this!

 

3 January 2019

I am happy to announce that my essay "Morality policy" was accepted for publication by the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics and is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.

 

14 December 2018

I was invited to contribute to "Faktencheck @ Maischberger" with regard to the question if Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the new president of the CDU, has a more left-wing position in terms of social policies compared to Angela Merkel.

 

6 December 2018

I am glad to announce the our section proposal titled "Religion and politics in a secular age: pattern, dynamics and consequences" was accepted for the ECPR General Conference 2019! Marko and I am are looking very much forward to your panel and paper proposals!

 

19 November 2018

I am very grateful for having the opportunity to present my research in the Institutskolloquium of the Political Science Department at the University of Tübingen this week. The title is "Politik, Macht und Moral: Regulierung von moralpolitischen Fragen in postsäkularen Zeiten". I am very much looking forward to discussing my research with scholars from such a prestigious department! Date: 21 November 2018, 16:15, room 124.

 

16 November 2018

I attended a great workshop on the "Politics turn in EU studies" organized by Daniela Braun and Martin Gross at our department. It was the perfect environment to present the first draft of a new paper titled "Speaking to the (national) Principal? An analysis of MEPs' legislative Activities in the European Parliament", which I developed together with Elena Frech from the University of Geneva.

 

10 November 2018

Good news: my paper proposal "A new culture of parliamentary politics in post-secular times? Religion as strategic resource of the opposition-government game" was accepted by Gert Pickel and Oliver Hidalgo, who will organize a panel titled "Rückkehr der Religionen und Transformation der politischen Kultur" at the conference of the DVPW-Sektion "Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft", TUM Munich, March 2019.

 

25 September 2018

I enjoyed very much attending the DVPW Kongress in Frankfurt this year! Many thanks goes to Stefan Thierse and Martin Florack, who organized an excellent panel on "NGOs im Politikgestaltungsprozess" and where I received very valuable feedback on the paper "Is policy implementation a playground of loser of decision-making?", which is part of our larger research project on  "Religion and morality policies".

 

20 September 2018

I am pleased to let you know that our panel proposal "New challenges of welfare states in (il)liberal times: How policy ambiguity promotes third-sector engagement in policy implementation"  for the 3-Ländertagung in Zurich was accepted.  Moreover, I am very grateful that Fritz Sager will take over the role as discussant! I am very much looking forward to the conference!

 

10 September 2018

I was elected as Co-Convener of the ECPR Standing Group on Religion and Politics and I am very much looking forward to the collaboration with Luca Ozzano and Marko Vekovic!

Moreover, I enjoyed very much the discussion in our panel on "Moral authority of churches in secular times: Religious actors and their engagement in policy implementation". The papers spoke to each others in a very nice way!

 

18 June 2018

We are organizing a panel titled "New challenges of welfare states in (il)liberal times: How policy ambiguity promotes third-sector engagement in policy implementation" at the 3-Ländertagung in Zurich (14-16 February 2019). We are still search for more contributions. Please send us your abstract until Saturday, 23 of June!

 

1 June 2018

Our panel "Moral authority of churches in secular times: Religious actors and their engagement in policy implementation" at the ECPR General Conference 2018 will take place on Friday, 28 August at 9:00am. Looking forward to meeting you there!

 

22 April 2018

We had a very inspiring and intense discussion in our workshop "Value politics in the 21st century" at the ECPR Joint Sessions in Nicosia! Many thanks to all participants!

 

9 March 2018

I am happy to announce that I published a new paper: Dropping the Curtain: The Religious-Secular Party Cleavage in German Morality Politics. Politics and Religion (first view, co-author Caroline Preidel).

>>>The study proposes a new perspective on how party cleavages can be re-examined, namely by exploring politicization behavior of individual MPs in between elections, and shows that German politics is still structured by a conflict between Catholics and non-Catholics, whereas the influence of religiosity is secondary.<<<

 

22 February 2018

I am looking forward to the ECPR Joint Sessions in Nicosia, 10-14 April 2018, where I organize together with Isabelle Engeli a workshop titled "The Politics of Values: Actors, Institutions, and Dynamics in the 21st Century". We received many excellent paper proposals!

 

26 January 2018

Call for papers "Moral authority of churches in secular times: Religious actors and their engagement in policy implementation" for the ECPR General Conference in Hamburg, 22-25 August 2018. In case you are interested, please send us an abstract until February 10, 2018.