Ruud Koopmans

Ruud Koopmans (* 1961 in Uithoorn ) is a Dutch social scientist .

Life

Ruud Koopmans studied ecology at Wageningen University and political science at the University of Amsterdam , where he wrote his dissertation Democracy from Below in 1992 . New Social Movements and the Political System in West Germany . From 1994 to 2004 he was employed at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). From 2003 to 2010 he was Professor of Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam . Since 2007 he has headed the Migration, Integration and Transnationalization department at the WZB in Berlin . In 2013 he became Professor of Sociology and Migration Research at the Institute for Social Sciences at Humboldt University . He described Angela Merkel's refugee policy as an “absolute failure”.

Koopmans researches the integration and assimilation of migrants. As a result of a WZB study, good language skills, the predominant use of German media and interethnic contacts are decisive success factors for migrants in the German labor market. In another WZB study on fundamentalism and xenophobia among Muslims and Christians in Europe, Koopmans came to the conclusion that a considerable number of Muslims living in Europe hold fundamentalist views. Three quarters of the Muslims surveyed in the six countries surveyed said that there was only one possible interpretation of the Koran , 60 percent rejected homosexuals as friends. 45 percent were convinced that Jews could not be trusted and that the West wanted to destroy Islam. European Christians questioned for comparison purposes agreed to analogous statements to a far smaller extent. This study is, however, controversial. While the Washington Post rates the survey as professional, others complain that the survey only included immigrants who themselves or their parents came from Turkey and Morocco, or that Koopmans in the media equates fundamentalism with fanaticism.

Koopmans was involved in the Dutch countryside until their Group Chairman Mohamed Rabbae a ban of the book in 1994 , The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie was considering.

In June 2017 his book “Assimilation or Multiculturalism? Conditions for successful integration ”(LIT-Verlag), which offers a German-language overview of its research results.

In February 2020 CH Beck (Munich) published "The dilapidated house of Islam. The religious causes of bondage, stagnation and violence". It is a revised version of a work that was first published in 2019 by Prometheus Verlag (Amsterdam) for the German-speaking area. The daily NRC Handelsblad called it "a milestone in contemporary sociology". Regarding the German edition, Cem Özdemir said : "Enlightenment is criticism of religion. In this sense, Ruud Koopmans wrote an enlightenment book in the best sense of the word". Ayaan Hirsi Ali called it "a standard work for everyone who deals with the challenges of the Islamic world and the integration of Muslim minorities in Europe". The book offers a fact-based analysis of the crisis in the Islamic world in the areas of democracy, women's rights, homosexual and religious minorities, civil war and terrorism, economic development and the integration of migrants from Muslim countries. According to the central thesis, this crisis has religious causes, which, however, are not rooted in unchangeable characteristics of Islam, but rather in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism since the 1970s.

In addition to migration, integration and religious fundamentalism, Koopmans also published on social movements, right-wing extremism and European integration. He is one of the most cited European social scientists.

Opposing positions

In some circles and publications, Koopmans is accused of “vulgar racism ” or accused of at least “creating a breeding ground for racism” because he thinks “multiculturalism is a bad idea” and because his research shows that he believes Muslims themselves less integrated than other groups.

Fonts

Monographs

The ruined house of Islam. Munich: CH Beck, 2020. ISBN 978-3-406-74924-7

Essays

Ruud Koopmans: The Dynamics of Protest Waves: West Germany, 1965 to 1989 . In: American Sociological Review . tape 58 , no. 5 , October 1993, ISSN 0003-1224 , pp. 637 , doi : 10.2307 / 2096279 , JSTOR : 2096279 .
The suspicion against the many , in: Die Zeit , June 14, 2017, p. 44.
with Ines Michalowski: Why Do States Extend Rights to Immigrants? Institutional Settings and Historical Legacies Across 44 Countries Worldwide . In: Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2017, pp. 41–74.
Does Assimilation Work? Sociocultural Determinants of Labor Market Participation of European Muslims . In: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2016, pp. 197-216
Religious Fundamentalism and Hostility against Out-groups. A Comparison of Muslims and Christians in Western Europe . In: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2015, pp. 33-57
with Bram Lancee, Merlin Schaeffer (Eds.): Social Cohesion and Immigration in Europe and North America. Mechanisms, Conditions, and Causality . Routledge Advances in Sociology, Vol. 137. London / New York, NY: Routledge, 2015
“Society as a whole has to ask itself questions”. The sociologist Ruud Koopmans considers a ban on the NPD to be counterproductive - right-wing violence would then presumably increase - Interview . In: Horst Meier (Hrsg.): Ban on the NPD - a German state theater in two acts. Analyzes and reviews 2001–2014. Berlin: BWV Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2015, pp. 360–361. (First published in: Der Tagesspiegel , December 5, 2011)
with Susanne Veit: Cooperation in Ethnically Diverse Neighborhoods. A lost-letter experiment . In: Political Psychology, Vol. 35, No. 3, 2014, pp. 379-400.
Multiculturalism and Immigration. A Contested Field in Cross-national Comparison . In: Annual Review of Sociology, 2013, pp. 147-169
with Sarah Carol: Dynamics of Contestation over Islamic Religious Rights in Western Europe . In: Ethnicities, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2013, pp. 165-190.
with Ines Michalowski, Stine Waibel: Citizenship Rights for Immigrants. National Political Processes and Cross-National Convergence in Western Europe, 1980–2008 . In: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 117, No. 4, 2012, pp. 1202-1245.
with Paul Statham (Ed.): The Making of a European Public Sphere. Media Discourse and Political Contention. Communication, Society and Politics . Cambridge et al. a .: Cambridge University Press, 2010