How do you measure political secularism at the individual level?

For better (seriously?) or worse (you betcha!), politics and religion are intimately intertwined. While everyone and their grandfather (and especially their grandfather) gets worked up about immigration from Muslim-majority countries, the more relevant development in much of Europe is secularisation. https://youtu.be/z_s-ab2YCMY Secularisation as a process has many facets (e.g. a decline of religious membership, practice,…

Secularism and genetic testing in Germany – new research video

Just for the fun of it, I have turned my recent article on Germans’ support for pre-implantation genetic diagnostics (PGD) into a short video. If you want to know why Germans would rather have laws along the lines of Belgium or the UK, and why they don’t get them, but do not want to read the full 8,000 piece, look no further – just click on the video below.

Secular citizens, pious MPs: Attitudes about genetic testing are more permissive than German laws

German men like stem-cell research, gene-editing. Abortion? Not so much

Men are more positive about (some) reproductive science and technology than women Here is a by-catch finding from my recent article on the micro-foundations of the two-worlds theory of moral policy (full article, ungated). In the article, I look at the effect of a) party identification, b) religiosity, and c) political secularism (a desire for the separation…

MPs under investigation, dying in Germany, quanteda goes 2.0, and academic chapters: 4 links I liked

MPs under investigation, dying in Germany, quanteda goes 2.0, and academic chapters: 4 links I liked 1

Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution (i.e. the spooks) begins to build dossiers on 3 sitting MPs for the AfD. All of them are prominent members of the most radical faction within the party (in German) In a landmark ruling, Germany’s highest court declares ban on assisted suicide unconstitutional. Judges say right to…

Does deliberation reduce the gap between citizens’ and legislators’ ethical preferences? (Or: Mr A goes to Oxford)

Does deliberation reduce the gap between citizens' and legislators' ethical preferences? (Or: Mr A goes to Oxford) 2

I’m enormously flattered that the good people over at Nuffield College have invited me to their Political Science Seminar Series. I’m talking about a current project of mine that looks into the extent of the gap between citizens’ and legislators’ preferences on bioethical issues in general and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) in particular. Here is the…

Why is Germany’s bioethics legislation so restrictive?

Germany’s restrictive bioethics legislation in general, and its very tight rules on embryology and fertilisation in particular, present a puzzle for political science. Early on, the country has enacted liberal rules in other moral policy domains, most notably the abortion law of 1975 (Richardt, 2003: 113). The full range of prenatal diagnosis is available to…