Berthold Vogel is the managing director of the Sociological Research Institute (SOFI) in Goettingen, Germany, apl. professor at the University of Kassel, and guest professor at the University of St. Gallen. Before becoming the managing director of the SOFI Goettingen, he was project head at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research and researcher and project head at the SOFI Goettingen. He received his PhD at the Georg August University Goettingen in 1989 and his Habilitation in sociology at University of Kassel in 2009. His research focuses on the sociology of work, the sociology of the state and the judiciary and the sociology of public goods. Major works deal with questions of economic and social transformations in Eastern Germany after 1989 (PhD thesis), questions of social inequality and of social integration, of the development of the welfare state, transformations of work and society, of work in public services and within the legal system.