Dr. Martin Weißmann

• Sociological theory
• Sociology of organisations
• Sociology of professions

• Sociology of the police
• Sociology and social criticism

• Sociology of the police: Particularly in my doctoral thesis and a number of subsequent shorter publications, my focus is on linking so-called ‘empirical’ (in fact, often ‘empiricist’) police research with more theory-oriented – and therefore analytically more powerful – approaches from the sociology of organisations, the sociology of professions, sociology of interaction and theory of (modern) society. The approach is to demonstrate the advantage of a form of research that no longer merely strings together empirical findings more or less without theoretical framework, but is systematically concerned with embedding the sociology of the police within a more general theory of (modern) society, its organisations and professional groups. In particular my research covers, amongst other things, police work in England in the 17th century prior to the invention of the police as an organisation, police questioning of suspects as a type of interaction, or the police ‘code of silence’ as a specific instance of professional solidarity.

• Sociology and social criticism: In this context, I am interested, on the one hand, in questions concerning the forms, (implicit) prerequisites and limits of sociological social criticism, particularly with regard to the ‘immanent criticism’ of Critical Theory, Max Weber’s concept of ‘conditional criticism’ and more recent forms of ‘systems-theoretical criticism’. On the other hand, with regard to specific empirical fields such as policing (and its critique) or journalism (and its critique), I adopt an approach that compares sociologically inspired or grounded forms of critique with non-sociological variants of critique (everyday critique, activist critique, criticism as a profession) in order to identify the respective substantive characteristics as well as the social prerequisites and effects of the various forms of criticism.

Current Events

• Visiting lectureship at the Turkish-German University of Istanbul, September 2026

• Since 2015: Member of the editorial board of “soziopolis” (Hamburg Institut für Sozialforschung)

• Since 2021, in rotation with colleagues from the non-professorial academic staff: Representative for Subject Area 1 (Sociological Theory) of the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University (including coordination of the teaching programme)

• Since 2023, together with PD Dr Torsten Strulik: Conceptual design and organisational support (including staff selection) for the approximately 18 tutorials on 'Soziologisches Arbeiten & Schreiben' as part of the module ‘Grundlagen der Soziologie’ (BA Sociology, 1st semester)

• Since 2025: Visiting lecturer in the Department of Sociology at TDU Istanbul (Turkish-German University of Istanbul), as part of the ‘Flying Faculty’ (DAAD): Teaching in the module "Einführung in die Soziologie" (BA Sociology, 1st semester) in October 2025 and September 2026 (BA Sociology, 1st semester)