Jörg Stolz

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• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Lausanne

Sociological general theories (or “grand theories”) have been criticized for being too abstract to be of any practical use for empirical sociological work. This paper presents the outline of a general theory that claims to be better linked to empirical social research than previous theoretical attempts. The theory analyzes social life as a multitud...

Secularization theory allows for transitory religious revivals under certain conditions, such as extreme societal crises or state weakness. The country of Georgia has witnessed the largest religious revival of Orthodox countries and one of the most striking religious resurgences worldwide. This paper gives both a statistical and historical descript...

Germany was a divided country from 1949 until 1989. During this period, West Germany remained a rather religious country, while East Germany became, under socialist rule, one of the most secular regions in the world. We use this case of socialist state intervention as a natural experiment to test Voas' model of secular transition, which states that...

This article argues that quantitative secularization research has made important progress in the last 20 years in seven areas. We have gained knowledge of how religion and religiosity are connected to insecurity, education, socialization, secular transition, secular competition, pluralism, and regulation. This has led to a better understanding of t...

Les groupes religieux locaux tels que les paroisses, les mosquées, les synagogues, et les centres spirituels restent la principale forme d'organisation de la religion en Suisse. La deuxième vague du National Congre- gation Study Switzerland analyse l'évolution du paysage religieux en Suisse entre 2008 et 2022. Cette enquête recense tous les groupes...

Lokale religiöse Gruppen wie Pfarreien, Gemeinden, Synagogen, Tempel, Moscheen oder Kultur-zentren sind weiterhin die wichtigste Organisationsform von Religion in der Schweiz. Wir präsen-tieren Ergebnisse der zweiten Welle der National Congregation Study Switzerland, welche Verän-derungen in der religiösen Landschaft der Schweiz zwischen 2008 und 2...

In western societies, secularization in the sense of declining individual religiosity is mainly caused by cohort replacement. Every cohort is somewhat less religious than its predecessor, indicating that religious transmission is incomplete. The puzzle is just what causes this incomplete transmission and whether there is one or a restricted number...

Religious diversity is often described and measured statically. This article goes a step further by describing how congregational religious diversity changes over time, and by exposing the mechanisms underlying these changes. We combine data from two censuses (from 2008 and 2020) of congregations in Switzerland with a sample‐based national congrega...

Secularization theory is often criticized by pointing to counterexamples where— apparently or really—revivals of religion have coincided with modernization. But secularization theorists have responded to such criticisms by arguing that secularization is compatible with temporary religious upswings. Recently, Stolz and Voas (2023) have proposed a ty...

Apesar do enorme sucesso do conceito de "mercados religiosos", ainda não está claro o que são "bens religiosos", e sob quais condições um "mercado religioso" de fato existe em uma determinada sociedade. O autor integra diferentes conceitos dos teóricos da escolha racional e de Max Weber em uma nova tipologia de bens religiosos individuais e sociais...

Secularization theory has often been criticized for not being able to explain counterexamples. However, secularization theorists argue that transitory religious resurgences are expected to occur even in modernizing conditions. The aim of this article is to identify mechanisms that can explain the temporary upswing of religion against the backdrop o...

For quite some time now, scholars have debated the importance of the 1960s for religious decline in western countries. Some scholars argue that secularization only started in the 1960s, others believe that the 1960s were a period of increased speed of a much larger secularization process and still others doubt that the 1960s had a significant impac...

Muslims and Jews are among the minorities in Switzerland who are most disliked and discriminated against, but the frequency with which the two groups report racist incidents to official bodies and initiate court proceedings differs greatly. The goal of this paper is to establish the extent of these differences and to explore the reasons for them. W...

Zusammenfassung Dieses Buch versammelt Beiträge zur Beschreibung von Trends in der Religionslandschaft der Schweiz. Die vergleichende Betrachtung der Texte zeigt, dass sich die in den früheren Studien beschriebenen Trends in den letzten zehn Jahren weitgehend fortgeschrieben haben. Es ist zu einer weiteren Säkularisierung und religiösen Individuali...

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht, inwiefern das in anderen westlichen Ländern nachgewiesene Phänomen der Kohorten-Säkularisierung auch für die Schweiz gilt. Nach dieser Theorie kommt die Säkularisierung zustande, weil religiösere durch weniger religiöse Kohorten ersetzt werden – und nicht weil die Religiosität von Individuen im Le...

Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht, inwiefern das in anderen westlichen Ländern nachgewiesene Phänomen der Kohorten-Säkularisierung auch für die Schweiz gilt. Nach dieser Theorie kommt die Säkularisierung zustande, weil religiösere durch weniger religiöse Kohorten ersetzt werden - und nicht weil die Religiosität von Individuen im Lebensverlauf abni...

Le présent article examine dans quelle mesure le phénomène de sécularisation des cohortes, démontré dans d’autres pays occidentaux, vaut également pour la Suisse. Selon cette théorie, la sécularisation se produit par le remplacement de cohortes plus religieuses par des cohortes qui le sont moins, et non parce que la religiosité des individus diminu...

This article examines how far the phenomenon of cohort secularization that has been demonstrated in other Western countries also applies to Switzerland. According to this theory, secularization occurs because cohorts of more religious people are replaced by cohorts of less religious people – and not because the religiosity of individuals declines o...

The Titanic quantitative dataset has long been used to teach statistics. However, combining the quantitative dataset with a qualitative dataset of survivor testimonies shows that the Titanic case is an even better example to teach mixed methods. This article offers practical tools to teach mixed methods to undergraduate or postgraduate students in...

While scholars have often pointed to the fact that France might be an exceptionally irreligious country, this hypothesis has not yet been tested with longitudinal data; and nor have researchers tried to account for this alleged irreligiosity. The present article tries to fill this gap in the literature by comparing France to other Catholic countrie...

The sociological literature has produced a remarkably consistent picture of the quantitative patterns of religious disaffiliations in Western countries. This article argues, and demonstrates, that strong changes in a social context may lead individuals to disaffiliate rapidly, leading to very different aggregate effects from those in the “western m...

This article is a response to the articles published in this issue of Social Compass by François Gauthier, Tobias Müller, David Voas and Sarah Wilkens-Laflamme about the presidential address given by Jörg Stolz at the SISR Congress in July 2019 and titled Secularization theories in the twenty-first century: Ideas, evidence, and problems.

Religious diversity is often captured in “mapping studies” that use mostly qualitative methods in order to map and assess the religious communities in a given area. While these studies are useful, they often present weaknesses in that they treat only limited geographic regions, provide limited possibilities for comparing across religious groups and...

Establishment of churches is a central feature of the church-state regime in most European countries, and understanding the nature of such privileges is of key importance for both theoretical and political reasons. Yet, there is little empirical research on how establishment influences the organizational behavior of congregations. This article look...

Many studies have found that Muslims in Western countries perceive more discrimination than most other religious groups. However, less attention has been paid to the life domains and correlates of this perceived discrimination. The aim of this study is to determine the scope of perceived discrimination among Muslims and to test hypotheses regarding...

Despite tremendous interest in social games and game studies, the potential of game heuristics for the field of mixed methods remains unknown. This article introduces game heuristics to mixed methods research, showing how it was used in a specific study on the survival probabilities on the Titanic. Specifically, we describe how game heuristics was...

This article describes and explains patterns of growth and decline undergone by evangelical, fundamentalist, and Pentecostal/Charismatic (EFPC) denominations in Switzerland from 1970 to 2013. We combine data from different censuses, membership registers of denominations, and a National Congregation Study (NCS) to establish and explain patterns of g...

Does establishment suppress the political activities of religious congregations? Evidence from Switzerland—ERRATUM - Jörg Stolz, Christophe Monnot

and Keywords In the second half of the 20th century, theories on secularization and secularism have been dominated by three approaches: secularization theory, individualization theory, and market theory. In the new millennium, approaches that both built on and revised these neoclassical approaches emerged: deprivation and insecurity theory, the the...

Women’s access to positions of leadership in religions is a highly contested issue in Western societies, both inside religions themselves and in societal discussions of religion. Reliable data on actual female leadership are, however, scarce, especially in European countries and regarding minority religions. This article describes and explains stat...

The question of how and with what methods the social sciences should explain phenomena is fiercely contested. While several scholars have argued that mixed methods may help to improve sociological explanations, there is a lack of highly visible examples that show the added value of this methodology. The goal of this paper is to show that the case o...

In Europe, Muslims are more likely to be unemployed than non-Muslims. Many studies try to explain this employment gap by human capital and contextual factors on the one hand, and by ethno-religious penalties (discrimination due to religious affiliation, religiosity, or migration factors) on the other. In these studies, it is normally assumed that h...

In congregation studies, scholars must define and operationalize their unit of observation. While most mapping studies routinely give a definition of congregation, there has been no attempt to show just what techniques of operationalization are needed to apply the definition to the field, what problems may arise and how they can be solved. This cha...

At least since the work of Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu, scholars have claimed that established and newcomer groups may compete for resources and power in religious fields. Remarkably, even though the religious field concept rests in important ways on the relationships between religious suppliers, there have, to date, been few quantitative studies...

This volume describes and maps congregations of Christian confessions and denominations, as well as groups with Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and various other spiritual faiths, in different European countries. Consisting of three parts, it presents concrete sociological studies addressing how established and not established, old and new congreg...

According to ideas in contemporary economics of religion, religious disestablishment will lead to religious vitality: more strictness, more evangelising, and more growth. The present article puts this theory to the test by inspecting the historical record (1900 to the present) of the two Swiss cantons where disestablishment went farthest—Geneva and...

This article gives an interdisciplinary account of the societal causes as well as individual and organizational effects of religious consumer society. It integrates and systematizes contributions from economics of religion, marketing, and sociology of religion. The article presents the causes of religious consumer society and the most frequent indi...

Die Theorie rationalen Handelns und die erklärende Soziologie sind zwei verwandte, aber durchaus zu trennende Forschungsrichtungen, die in der Religionssoziologie wichtige Anwendungen erfahren haben. Die beiden Richtungen versuchen, religiöse Phänomene in reduktionistischer Weise aufgrund der Annahme intentionalen Handelns der Individuen zu erkläre...

This article presents basic elements of a theory of religious-secular competition on the individual level. The theory claims that individuals in many societies may choose between religious and secular options, creating a situation of competition between religious and secular institutions. The competition between religious and secular suppliers is i...

In the literature on religion and secularity, scholars often use mono-method strategies, either quantitative or qualitative, in order to identify broad social groups – “milieus” or “social aggregates” and thus gain better understanding of the great diversity of religious beliefs and practices in a given population. This paper identifies different v...

Economists and sociologists of religion have claimed that religious establishment dampens religious vitality, leading to lower recruitment efforts, low attendance, declining membership within established congregations, and the 'crowding out' of non-established congregations. Conversely, these authors have told us, disestablishment will lead to more...

A second type consists of Alternatives (13.4% of our sample). The people grouped together here have holistic and esoteric beliefs and practices. What can be noticed immediately is that the vocabulary that they use is very different to that used by the institutional type. For example, they speak in terms more of “spirituality” than of “religion,” an...

Die Evangelikalen sind eine der am schnellsten wachsenden religiösen Bewegungen weltweit und gewinnen zunehmend auch im deutschsprachigen Raum an Bedeutung. Dieses Handbuch vermittelt erstmals in deutscher Sprache einen Gesamtüberblick über die christlichen Gruppen, die im weitesten Sinne unter dem Begriff »Evangelikalismus« zusammengefasst werden...

This article argues that analytical sociology an approach that attempts to study social mechanisms ‘without, black boxes’ can benefit from the use of explanatory mixed methods. Analytical sociologists mainly relate their theoretical and agent-based models to representative surveys and experiments. While their central claim is to find and test the a...

This study sheds new light on the ques-tion of what has happened to religion and spirituality since the 1960s. It presents a theory of religious-secular competition and distinguishes four ways of being religious/ secular: 'institutional', 'alternative', 'distanced' and 'secular'. The authors show how and why these forms have emerged as a result of...

This landmark study in the sociology of religion sheds new light on the question of what has happened to religion and spirituality since the 1960s in modern societies. Exposing several analytical weaknesses of today’s sociology of religion, (Un)Believing in Modern Society presents a new theory of religious-secular competition and a new typology of...

Religious diversity is often captured in mapping studies that use mostly qualitative methods in order to map and assess the religious communities in a given area. While these studies are useful, they often present weaknesses in that they treat only limited geographic regions, give limited possibilities of comparing across religious groups and canno...

During the twentieth century, religion has gone on the market place. Churches and religious groups are forced to 'sell god' in order to be attractive to 'religious consumers'. More and more, religions are seen as 'brands' that have to be recognizable to their members and the general public. What does this do to religion? How do religious groups and...

This article presents the basic elements of a theory of religious secular competition. The theory claims that individuals in many societies may choose between religious and secular options, creating a situation of competition between religious and secular organizations. The paper assumes (bounded) rationality for individuals and organizations and d...

Pentecostal miracles and healings have often been described and interpreted, but rarely explained in their sociological workings. As former research implies, actual biomedical effects of Pentecostal healings are possible (the so-called placebo effect), but quite limited. In Pentecostal healing services, however, very impressive miracles and healing...

This paper proposes a theory of religious and secular competition, focusing specifically on western democracies. The article shows that a wide variety of empirically observed phenomena can be explained as aggregated outcomes of individual rational adaptations to different states of competition between religious and secular institutions. The theory...

The article presents a unified theoretical model, explaining differences in Christian and 'alternative' religiosity at individual and collective levels. The model reconstructs and integrates the most important theories explaining religiosity (deprivation, regulation, socialization, cultural production, and ethnicity) as complementary causal mechani...

The three papers by Pollack, Woodhead and Lamine each make an original contribution to the state of the art: Pollack introduces and tests individualization theory against secularization and market theory; Woodhead suggests a ``gendered'' secularization theory and Lamine points to the complexities of micro-believing. The author assesses strengths an...

Die Schweiz hat sich von einem christlich geprägten in ein religiös plurales Land verwandelt. Neben etablierten christlichen Kirchen stehen heute Moscheen, Synagogen, buddhistische Zentren und Andachtsplätze vieler weiterer Religionen. Evangelikalismus, Esoterik und spirituelle Therapien boomen und die Glaubenswelten der Menschen werden immer indiv...

Die Schweiz hat sich von einem christlich geprägten in ein religiös plurales Land verwandelt. Neben etablierten christlichen Kirchen stehen heute Moscheen, Synagogen, buddhistische Zentren und Andachtsplätze vieler weiterer Religionen. Evangelikalismus, Esoterik und spirituelle Therapien boomen und die Glaubenswelten der Menschen werden immer indiv...

Die Schweiz hat sich von einem christlich geprägten in ein religiös plurales Land verwandelt. Neben etablierten christlichen Kirchen stehen heute Moscheen, Synagogen, buddhistische Zentren und Andachtsplätze vieler weiterer Religionen. Evangelikalismus, Esoterik und spirituelle Therapien boomen und die Glaubenswelten der Menschen werden immer indiv...

Die Schweiz hat sich von einem christlich geprägten in ein religiös plurales Land verwandelt. Neben etablierten christlichen Kirchen stehen heute Moscheen, Synagogen, buddhistische Zentren und Andachtsplätze vieler weiterer Religionen. Evangelikalismus, Esoterik und spirituelle Therapien boomen und die Glaubenswelten der Menschen werden immer indiv...

Die Schweiz hat sich von einem christlich geprägten in ein religiös plurales Land verwandelt. Neben etablierten christlichen Kirchen stehen heute Moscheen, Synagogen, buddhistische Zentren und Andachtsplätze vieler weiterer Religionen. Evangelikalismus, Esoterik und spirituelle Therapien boomen und die Glaubenswelten der Menschen werden immer indiv...

Die Schweiz hat sich von einem christlich geprägten in ein religiös plurales Land verwandelt. Neben etablierten christlichen Kirchen stehen heute Moscheen, Synagogen, buddhistische Zentren und Andachtsplätze vieler weiterer Religionen. Evangelikalismus, Esoterik und spirituelle Therapien boomen und die Glaubenswelten der Menschen werden immer indiv...

Die Schweiz hat sich von einem christlich geprägten in ein religiös plurales Land verwandelt. Neben etablierten christlichen Kirchen stehen heute Moscheen, Synagogen, buddhistische Zentren und Andachtsplätze vieler weiterer Religionen. Evangelikalismus, Esoterik und spirituelle Therapien boomen und die Glaubenswelten der Menschen werden immer indiv...

Die Schweiz hat sich von einem christlich geprägten in ein religiös plurales Land verwandelt. Neben etablierten christlichen Kirchen stehen heute Moscheen, Synagogen, buddhistische Zentren und Andachtsplätze vieler weiterer Religionen. Evangelikalismus, Esoterik und spirituelle Therapien boomen und die Glaubenswelten der Menschen werden immer indiv...

Die Schweiz hat sich von einem christlich geprägten in ein religiös plurales Land verwandelt. Neben etablierten christlichen Kirchen stehen heute Moscheen, Synagogen, buddhistische Zentren und Andachtsplätze vieler weiterer Religionen. Evangelikalismus, Esoterik und spirituelle Therapien boomen und die Glaubenswelten der Menschen werden immer indiv...

Die Schweiz hat sich von einem christlich geprägten in ein religiös plurales Land verwandelt. Neben etablierten christlichen Kirchen stehen heute Moscheen, Synagogen, buddhistische Zentren und Andachtsplätze vieler weiterer Religionen. Evangelikalismus, Esoterik und spirituelle Therapien boomen und die Glaubenswelten der Menschen werden immer indiv...

Abstract The three papers by Pollack, Woodhead and Lamine each make an original contribution to the state of the art: Pollack introduces and tests individualization theory against secularization,and market theory; Woodhead suggests a “gendered” secularization theory; and Lamine points to the complexities of micro-believing. I assess strengths and w...

The book for the first time systematically takes-took of the increasing plurality of religions having emerged in Switzerland. It analysis the at time conflicting processes of different faiths living together in towns, cities and the nation.

English In spite of the tremendous success of the concept of “religious markets”, it has remained unclear just what “religious goods” are and if, and under what conditions, a “religious market” actually exists in a given society. The author integrates different concepts from rational choice theorists and Max Weber into a new typology of individual...

Interdisziplinär konzipiert, zeigt dieses Buch in historischer und gegenwartsbezogener Perspektive die Komplexität und den Facettenreichtum des religiösen Pluralismus auf, der unsere gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeit zunehmend bestimmt. Die hier dokumentierten religionswissenschaftlichen, soziologischen, rechtlichen und philosophischen Zugänge sind da...

English The authors give the first description of evangelicalism in Switzerland using representative data. It is shown that evangelicalism can be conceived of as a “milieu” which is characterized by certain structural and cultural traits, boundaries and high internal communication. The relative success of the evangelical milieu compared to other re...

Ein Dilemma ist im Alltagsverständnis die Wahl zwischen zwei (gleich unangenehmen) Dingen.1 Es ist eine „schwierige Entscheidung“, schwierig deshalb, weil offenbar nicht klar ist, welche Alternative besser oder weniger schlimm ist. Sehr plastisch werden Dilemmata in vielen sogenannten Action-Filmen vorgeführt. Hinter dem Held ein Rudel hungriger Wö...

After a brief review of the Swiss religious landscape, it will be shown that the officially recognized churches are socially well-accepted, while many of the smaller groups have less credit in the eyes of the population. Legally, on the level of the Federation, Swiss law is very liberal, treating all religious beliefs in a like manner. However, the...

Depuis quelque temps, on entend régulièrement parler d'un « retour du religieux». Ce retour se verrait -pense-t-on -dans le succès rencontré par l'ésotérisme, le fondamentalisme, les nouvelles communautés religieuses ou encore la spiritualité. Il est vrai que le contexte religieux se pluralise et que les possibilités de choix individuels augmentent...