In an opinion piece in Dutch newspaper NRC, Corné Smit, teaching and research staff member at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law, discusses the possibilities and possible advantages of a minority government.

The King’s Speech delivered by King Willem-Alexander on the third Tuesday of September in 2017 will be written by an outgoing cabinet. What effect will this have on its content? Professor Arco Timmermans (Public Affairs) and public administration expert Gerard Breeman analysed other King’s Speeches…

When Dutch citizens request information under the Open Government Act (Woo), third parties can ask the public authority to withhold certain information. Leiden research reveals that the position of these third parties is unclear and accessing information is a difficult process.

The emergence of the Köprülü household that imprinted its stamp on the latter half of the seventeenth century in the Ottoman Empire. What is the power struggle they carried out against Ottoman dynastic power?

The image of the European Union (EU) as a remote law-making machine is widespread. Quite often journalists and politicians deliberately depict ‘Brussels’ as bureaucratic, even undemocratic, bypassing its citizens. And many of us buy into that image. Nikoleta Yordanova, Anastasia Ershova and Aleksandra…

Take a walk through any city, and you are likely to come across a brightly coloured mural. Although these paintings often seem to serve solely as a backdrop for Instagram snapshots, art history professor Minna Valjakka says there are rich traditions and intricate histories that uncover more critical…

Terrorism experts Daan Weggemans (Leiden University) and Beatrice de Graaf (Utrecht University) conducted one of the first scientific studies on the societal reintegration of jihadist former detainees. They showed that the reintegration process isn't without problems. Their conlusions are presented…

Turkish politics was shaken by the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, along with dozens of others from the main opposition party.

Alumnus Stan van Haasteren went to Northern Ireland in 1995 as a freelance journalist with a guitar strapped to his back and recently wrote a book about his experiences in Belfast. ‘The big difference with then is that today there is no more violence. But it's still a divided city.’

In recent years, freedom of movement within Europe has come under increasing pressure as a result of transboundary crisis situations. In his inaugural lecture on 22 October, Professor Jorrit Rijpma argues that what is needed is even closer cooperation to provide the best protection.

AI has huge societal and economic potential and is widely used. But it also brings challenges: how do we combine human values with AI, how do we make AI more transparent and understandable, and what can AI and human cognition learn from each other, for example about language learning?

Aileen Schuurmans finished her MA International Relations this summer. She wrote an article titled 'How to Change the Story of the Pandemic with Daoist IR', which got published on E-International Relations, the world’s leading open access website for students and scholars of international politics.

Expert in public affairs and politics Arco Timmermans advised the informer Kim Putters.

In this article, Gerrit Dijkstra and Jos Raadschelders from the Institute of Public Administration, argue that Bosnia-Herzegovina survives so far on the basis of negative legitimacy.

From colonial times through to the present day, large numbers of Javanese have left their homes to settle in other parts of Indonesia or much further afield. Frequently this dispersion was forced, often with traumatic results.

Groupcard provided prepaid cards to Dutch municipalities for welfare recipients, informal carers and volunteers. Now it is bankrupt, the cards are worthless and consumers and municipalities have lost money. Associate Professor Jessie Pool is investigating whether vulnerable people need better protection…

Joris Larik, Assistant Professor at Leiden University College in The Hague, was interviewed live on Al Jazeera on 2 April 2021 about the current political upheaval in The Netherlands and the difficult process of forming a new government.

Juan Masullo (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) receives a grant from the Elise Mathilde Fund/Leiden University Fund to conduct his research project ‘Forging an Anti-Mafia Culture: Observational and Experimental Evidence from Italy’. Masullo aims to find out what ordinary Italians think…

Political scientists Joop van Holsteyn and Tom Louwerse (Leiden University) find that the Dutch government is having a hard time coping with referendum outcomes in general, and ‘anti-European’ sentiments among voters in particular.

The Bachelor Honours Class 'Homo Ludens: Why We Play' combines games, theory, and practice. Students dive into all aspects of humanity in which games play a part and discuss them, both on a theoretical an experiential level: 'Occasionally, you touch upon what play is, but then it eludes you.'

Endangered languages can survive if they are taught properly to new speakers, such as people with a migrant background. This is what Professor by Special Appointment Felix Ameka will say in his inaugural lecture on 30 September. Dutch people can do their bit by being less ‘polite’ to people whose mother…

Esteban Szmulewicz, PhD candidate at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law of Leiden University and expert on decentralisation issues, gave an online presentation of his research before the subcommittee on Political System, Constitutional Reform and Form of State in Chile and reported…

The most densely populated country in Africa, Nigeria, is fighting a war on two fronts. Not only is Nigeria being confronted with violence on a national level by terror group Boko Haram, on a regional level there are conflicts between shepherds and farmers.

Promotores: Prof.dr. H.J.M. de Groot, Prof.dr. J. Matysik (Universitaet Leipzig)

The Graduate School of Governance and Global Affairs offers PhD programmes that address the pressing societal challenges of our time.

Resilient future generations that will shape a healthy society.

The gripping story of a collective passion for freedom that shook the world.

This book addresses the definition of history and how people are influenced by it.

This book explores the Indian tradition of liberalism through a critical intellectual biography of Valangaiman Sankaranarayana Srinivasa Sastri (1869–1946).

Jessica Vance Roitman and Wouter Veenendaal, researchers at the KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, investigate the origins, development, and consolidation of political oligarchy in the Caribbean island nation of St. Maarten.

After an initial suggestion of a move toward Israel, India’s Prime Minister Modi has signaled a significant recalibration of his government’s engagement with the Middle East region. Now, India seems to be prioritising strong ties with the Gulf states.

Political scientists Huib Pellikaan and Niels van Willigen (Leiden University) use and elaborate on the theoretical insights from game theory in order to understand nuclear security in changing environment. Now that the relations between the US and Russia have deteriorated and smaller nuclear states…

Citizens’s attitudes towards trade are not only about the (perceived) economic effect. Commerce also has a variety of security implications. Employing an original experiment, political scientists Matthew DiGiuseppe (Leiden University) and Katja Kleinberg (Binghamton University) demonstrate that security…

Political scientists Rebekah Tromble and Michael Meffert (Leiden University) address the question why certain frames persist over time in the media while others fade away and still others disappear very quickly. They suggest an approach based in event-history methodologies for assessing the causes of…

Article in the journal Irish Political Studies discussing the challenge of aggregating opinion polls and presenting a method to better model major sudden political and societal events. This can can enhance opinion poll reporting in the media.

Political Scientist Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) asks how international organisations can be compelled to comply with respect human rights. She finds that this is done through ‘pluralist accountability’: external third parties such as courts, NGOs, or regional organisations holding international…

Citizens in multiple crime-ridden countries strongly support the militarization of security—that is, placing the military in charge of traditional policing duties. Yet, we know little about the determinants of such support. Do people approve of militarization even in the face of human fatalities? Political…