The widespread idea that politics is mediatised needs to be revised. Although media attention heavily influences some political processes, this is not the case when it comes to lawmaking. Lotte Melenhorst, a political scientist at Leiden University, analysed three heavily covered legislative processes…

Security seems to most people a basic necessity of life, a prerequisite for a good life. But if you think about it a little longer and deeper, as political philosopher Josette Daemen has done, you realise that security sometimes comes at the expense of other important goods, such as freedom and equality.…

Political philosopher Nicholas Vrousalis (Leiden University) has been awarded a EURIAS Fellowship at Aarhus University’s Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS). From from 1 October 2018 to 31 July 2019 Vrousalis will work at the Danish research institute on his project ‘Inequality against Freedom: Economic…

The Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) is pleased to introduce a new research seminar series. The FGGA Research Seminar will be a forum for the presentation and discussion of current, high-quality research on topics covered by the faculty.

The Ecuadorian Pachakutik party is one of the oldest indigenous political movements in Latin America. Despite not being very successful at the polls and hardly having organisational resources at its disposal, Pachakutik is still part of Ecuador’s political landscape. In her dissertation, Political Scientist…

From research on the first human ancestors to leave Africa to mathematical models in random disturbances. For Leiden researchers have been awarded a prestigious Vici grant by the Dutch Research Council.

The English edition of Rijpkema’s Weerbare democratie is published in Routledge’s Extremism and Democracy series, one of the leading series in the field, edited by Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin.

Few details, relatively few words. The coalition agreement presented is one of the shortest in the past 20 years, Arco Timmermans knows. Consequently, the outlines were not negotiated for very long, which has its advantages and disadvantages. 'Over the next few weeks, we are mainly going to see the…

Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR), Thursday 10 and Friday 11 November 2016

The aim of this project is to study the influence of Longinus’s treatise ‘On the sublime’ on practice and theory of architecture and theatre in seventeenth-century Paris and Amsterdam.

In January 2014, the research project The Promise of Organization hosted a fruitful three-day conference:

University lecturer Casper Wits wrote an opinion piece on the ongoing diplomatic tensions between the European Union and China for POLITICO. In this article, he argues that 'rather than shrinking from the fight, the EU must develop a China policy that prioritizes progressive values and human rights.…

Dr Thomas Fossen (Institute for Philosophy) has been awarded with an NWO Veni grant for his research project 'Critical moments: How do events affect how we should judge the legitimacy of political authorities?'

Transparency is seen as an important value for democratic government policy. Does that mean that we should do away with state secrets, such as confidential information involving intelligence agencies and political deals made behind closed doors? Political philosopher and ERC grant recipient Dorota Mokrosinska…

This summer, political scientist Thijs Vos received the Kaare Strøm prize for his paper ‘Power or Ideology? What structures legislative voting behaviour in Dutch municipal councils, ideology or coalition-opposition dynamics?' He was awarded the prize during the ECPR summer school on parliaments in F…

Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in premodern European history in its global context, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent. We have a strong track record in leading larger research teams and work together with colleagues across Europe…

Christmas is coming, which means that 'Our Talents and Discoveries 2016' has been distributed. This also means that it is time to vote for the 'Discoverer of the year 2016'. Each of the eight institutes nominated one researcher that excelled in the past year. Who is your favourite?

A new study carried out by Leiden archaeologists Hadar Ahituv and Amanda Henry, together with international colleagues, reports the identification and analysis of 650 starch grains preserved on basalt percussive tools (anvils and hammerstones) found at an early Middle Pleistocene site in Israel. These…

The Rutte-III coalition agreement has been presented and the commentary is flooding in. Public administration experts Arco Timmermans and Gerard Breeman examined the new agreement – as they have done for every coalition agreement since 1963 - and made a systematic analysis of it: it is very much about…

Maritime conflict management is the regulation of conflict in relation to the sea. It comprises conflict enforcement, conflict resolution and conflict avoidance. How did victims of maritime conflicts claim and obtain damages or demand compensation or reparation?

Peter Grol and Edwin Bakker, professor of Terrorism and Counterterrorism at the University, presented their book ‘Dutch Jihadists’ for a large audience. The book tells individual stories of jihadists in Holland and of Syria-goers and should contribute to a better insight into their backgrounds and m…

On June 16, 2025, the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University hosted a panel debate about the ongoing mass student-led protests in Serbia. The protests have shaken the increasingly illiberal regime in Serbia to its core and have grown into the largest student protests in Europe since 196…

Assistant Professor Juan Masullo of the Institute of Political Science has been awarded the 2025 Alexander George Best Article Award for his work on interviews and process tracing.

Leiden University's Kiem grants aim to help develop new interdisciplinary and interfaculty collaborations and encounters. In the first round, a Kiem grant was awarded to a group of researchers from the Faculty of Archaeology, the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the LUMC for the organisation of a symposium…

Conference

Lecture

Joana Cook talks about the Islamist parties increasingly taking power in the last four decades on ABC News.

In the late 19th century, the Dutch government introduced a tax system in the Dutch East Indies, with the intention of transforming the colony into a modern state. PhD student Maarten Manse wrote his thesis on this development and discovered how grandiloquent colonial ideals became bogged down in daily…

Over 30.000 pages of new material have been added to the online collection of unofficial poetry publications from China in the Leiden Digital Collections. Produced outside the system, these journals and books are hugely influential yet very hard to find. To address this paradox, Leiden University Libraries…

That it was students who started the protests in China against its zero Covid policy makes things more dangerous for politicians. China expert Frank Pieke explains the role of students in China, what makes the protests unique and what might happen next.

Plants are vital resources throughout human history, but we know little about how they were used and valued prior to agriculture. Sandrine Gallois, an ethnoecologist working in the ERC-funded HARVEST project, has developed an interdisciplinary approach, combining anthropology and botany to explore how…

In the nineteenth century many Dutch people believed in the end of time and the coming of God's thousand-year reign. This belief effectively slowed down the process of modernisation that was taking place in the Netherlands at that time, concludes historian Rie Kielman. PhD defence 13 April.

Corinna Jentzsch and Wouter Veenendaal, two political scientists affiliated with Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, have been awarded a NWO ‘Veni’-grant. This grant brings them official recognition as ‘young outstanding researchers’, as well as financial support for conducting independent…

The Economist published an article about a working paper about the effects of democratic elections on satisfaction with democracy. The paper was written by Dimiter Koshkov, Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Administration and Honorata Mazepus, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security…

Vasiliki Kosta participated in the García Pelayo Seminar of the Center for Political and Constitutional Studies, Madrid entitled: ‘Discretionary Powers and Judicial Review: What Destiny for the Principle of Proportionality?’

Diana Dávila Gordillo, PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science does field trips to her native Ecuador.

Four researchers from Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science have been awarded a grant to jointly investigate attitudes towards Venezuelan immigrants among youths in Ecuador. Combining their expertise and collaborating with the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, they will focus on school-going…

In tracing the deeper historical roots of what Xi Jinping contemporarily frames as a “Chinese dream” of “wealth and power,” the article discerns key actors, events, and organizing principles in a long process toward restoring China’s deemed rightful place in the regional system.

What is the impact of Indonesia’s democratization process on everyday state-citizen relations?