Ph.d. Professor at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. Director of the "Institute for Interdisciplinary Research of Conflict and Violence". Head of various research programmes on rightwing-extremism, violence, xenophobia and ethnic-cultural conflict. Leading editor of the series "Jugendforschung" at Juventa Verlag (Weinheim and Munich), the series "Kultur und Konflikt" at Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt) and the series "Konflikt und Gewaltforschung" at Juventa Verlag (Weinheim and Munich).

Publications include: () Bedrohte Stadtgesellschaften. Soziale Desintegrationsprozesse und ethnisch-kulturelle Konfliktkonstellationen (Urban Societies in Jeopardy. The Processes of Social Disintegration and Ethnic-Cultural Conflict Constellations, ed, with Reimund Anhut, 2000), and Schattenseiten der Globalisierung. Rechtsradikalismus, Rechtspopulismus und Regionalismus in Westeuropa (The Dark Sides of Globalization. Rightwing Radicalism, Rightwing Populism and Regionalism im Western Europe, ed, with Dietmar Loch, 2001).