Economic sociology
Labor market sociology
Sociology of religion
Historical social research
Philosophy of science

Since 2021Employee at the working group Sociology and Quantitative Methods at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
2019-2020Academic staff member at the Chair of General Sociology (Prof. Mark Lutter) at the University of Wuppertal
2015-2019Academic staff member at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (Cologne) in the research group “Transnational Diffusion of Innovation” (Prof. Mark Lutter)
2017Visiting scholar at the Department of Sociology at Columbia University, NYC
2023Doctorate in the subject of Sociology at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal
2015-2019Doctoral candidate at the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (MPIfG, Cologne)
2013-2015Program of study in Sociology (M.A.) at the University of Mannheim
2010-2013Program of study in Sociology (B.A.) with a minor in Psychology at the University of Mannheim

Dr. Nico Sonntag

Institute of Sociology
Working Group Sociology and Methods of Quantitative Social Research
Jakob-Welder-Weg 12
55128 Mainz
Room 03-438, Georg-Forster-Building

Phone: +49 6131 39 24017
Fax: +49 6131 39 26157

E-mail: nsonntag@uni-mainz.de

By arrangement
  1. Projektseminar: Religion und Integration (Teil 2)
    Instructor: Dr. Tim Sawert; Dr. Nico Sonntag
  2. Tutorium: Religion und Integration (Teil 2)
    Instructor: Dr. Tim Sawert; Dr. Nico Sonntag

WiSe 2025/26

Sonntag, N. (2026). Are we all Cistercians now? Capitalist work ethic as a legacy of religious orders. Review of Regional Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10037-025-00270-y
Sonntag, N. (2025). The East in wolf’s clothing. Wolf attacks correlate with but do not cause far-right voting. Electoral Studies 96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102957
Sonntag, N. and D. Balzer (2024). Über Feldwege und Holzwege: Relationieren relativieren. Soziale Welt 75(3), pp. 362-376. https://doi.org/10.5771/0038-6073-2024-3
Sonntag, N. and D. Balzer (2024). Regressions, relations and the independence of independent variables: On Bourdieu’s critique of regression analysis. Social World 75 (3), pp. 295-328.
Sonntag, N. (2023). Many suggestions for quality: Quality criteria of qualitative research from an analytical-empirical perspective. Journal of Sociology, 52 (1), 7-25.
Sonntag, N. (2021). Analytical or analytical-empirical sociology? On critical rationalism and rational choice. Journal for Theoretical Sociology 10 (1), 114-131.
Sonntag, N. (2019). Notes on the use of network analysis in neoliberalism research. Berlin Journal of Sociology 29 (1), pp. 151-169.
Sonntag, N. and M. Lutter (2018). Who benefits from the master craftsman requirement? The reform of the Crafts Code as a natural experiment to test the theory of occupational closure. SozW Soziale Welt 69 (3), pp. 213-251.
Klein, O. and N. Sonntag (2017). Ethnic differences in the impact of institutional U3 childcare. Journal of Educational Science 20 (1), pp. 41-60.
Breznau, N., E. Rinke, A. Wuttke, … (+181 Autoren) … & N. Sonntag (2025). The reliability of replications: a study in computational reproductions. Royal Society Open Science, 12(3), 241038. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.241038
Breznau, N., E. Rinke, A. Wuttke, … & N. Sonntag (165 Autoren) (2022). Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(44), e2203150119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2203150119
Sonntag, Nico (2023): Can’t See the Forest for the IVs Re-examining the Cistercian “Pre-reformation Roots of the Protestant Ethic”. Working Papers 2316, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics. https://ideas.repec.org/p/jgu/wpaper/2316.html
Sonntag, Nico (2023). Can the CDU/CSU parties benefit from a rapprochement with the AfD? The answer from Political Science is unclear. DVPW Blog. https://www.dvpw.de/blog/koennen-die-unionsparteien-von-einer-annaeherung-an-die-afd-profitieren-die-antwort-der-politikwissenschaft-ist-unklar-ein-beitrag-von-nico-sonntag
Sonntag, Nico (2020). Methodological individualism. In: Freedom Encyclopedia, Prometheus Institute. https://freiheitslexikon.de/methodologischer-individualismus/.
Breznau, Nate et al. (2021) How Many Replicators Does It Take to Achieve Reliability? Investigating Researcher Variability in a Crowdsourced Replication. SocArXiv. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/j7qta/.
Breznau, Nate et al. (2019). The Crowdsourced Replication Initiative: Investigating Immigration and Social Policy Preferences. Executive Report. http://hdl.handle.net/10993/38856.