In the 2015 QS World University rankings the area of Politics and International Studies at Leiden University, which includes Public Administration, has climbed to the 23rd place worldwide. Politics and International Studies at Leiden University holds the first position in The Netherlands and a top 10…

A big performance by André Rieu, food trucks in The Hague and more contact with the Royal Family: grand plans were announced in April to make the State Opening of Parliament (Prinsjesdag) a real ‘crowd puller’. For this year, however, we will just have to make do with slight differences in emphasis.…

Alain studies Public Administration and is politically active. He talks about why it is important for young people to be politically active and vote.

How should the international community of states respond to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity? How can the perpetrators of international crimes be brought to justice? How can international crimes be prevented? How can the international community of states promote international consensus…

University lecturers Pepita Hesselberth and Joost de Bloois (UvA) were interviewed in a Hermetix podcast about their co-edited book Politics of Withdrawal: Media, Arts, Theory.

On 13 November 2025, the project team and experts on insurgency and counterinsurgency across Africa and beyond came together in The Hague to discuss current trends in research on government and community responses to jihadist insurgencies in Africa.

Students taking the new bachelor’s course ‘Social Movements and Political Violence’ are about to do something new. In addition to studying textbooks and academic articles, they will actively work with multimedia materials and engage in online storytelling. Course instructor Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden…

On 19 September 2023 Tabitha Speelman successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Why do sexual violence policies still fail to systematically address men and masculinities, when the need for cultural change among men has been central in public debates since #MeToo?

All students receiving their bachelor diploma in Political Science last week had a reason or two to celebrate. Two of them especially so: they won the annual award for the best thesis in the International Relations and Organisations and the Politicologie/Internationale Politiek programmes. Congratulations,…

On 30 August - 3 September 2021, Valentina Carraro and Jan Aart Scholte presented their papers during the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) in Innsbruck, Austria.

Max Bader has been awarded a € 300,000 grant by the WOTRO Science for Global Development of NWO for a project about the role of civil society in fighting corruption in Ukraine. The project will be implemented jointly with the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv.

Rick van Well has won the 2018 Thesis Prize of the research master’s programme Political Science and Public Administration. Offering an insight into the hiatus of the literature on government-parliament relations, as well conducting an extensive empirical study on the working of local councils, Van…

For almost ten years now Lamin Sow, a cleaner working at the Kamerlingh Onnes Building, has been collecting discarded pens he comes across throughout the day. When he returns to his home country he takes the pens with him as gifts for children.

During the annual graduation ceremony, not only were the Bachelor's students in Political Science honoured, but also those students who had written exceptional theses. The thesis prizes reward work that excels in originality, social relevance and academic quality. This year's winners are Ronny Wijling…

The MA International Relations program at Leiden University convened a roundtable forum at Leiden University The Hague Campus to examine the international and domestic stakes of Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and detention under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.

All Political Science graduates have good reasons to be proud of themselves, having successfully completed their studies and having demonstrated considerable personal growth. This October, fifteen bachelor students can be extra proud: their theses were nominated for a thesis prize. In the class of 2023,…

This video accompanies the article "Navigating Discretion: A Diplomatic Practice in Moments of Socio-political Rupture", published in Vol. 14, Issue 4 of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

Prof.dr. Henk te Velde is appointed as the new President of the Association for Political History.

Teba al-Samarai has won the Political Science Master’s Thesis Prize 2018. Teba’s study deals with the distinction between ‘allochtoon’ and ‘autochtoon’, and how these terms are understood by various kinds of foreign- and local-born subjects in the Netherlands.

In the context of the summer school "Medieval Religon" prof. Christopher M. Bellitto (Kean University) will give a keynote lecture on June 26th: "Politics and Religion in the Middle Ages and Today: Thoughts of an American Medievalist". This lecture is also open to those interested who do not participate…

Liesbeth van der Heide, Education and Research Staff Member at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), wrote on 20 April in the American news publication, Foreign Policy about the March’s deadly massacre in Mali, which exposed the lack of progress since the country’s peace accords. Furthermore,…

What do the election results say about the Netherlands today? Students and experts discussed this at an Election Breakfast organised by study association Diqit. Analysts, including Hans-Martien ten Napel, Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, notice a new dividing line in Dutch…

In our HANDS!Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies, we run projects pertaining to sign language linguistics with a focus on Africa. In addition, we are running projects on sign language teaching, tactile signing, deaf people’s experiences with the legal system, and deaf history.

The BA in African Studies draws on Leiden University’s renowned expertise on Africa to bring students a wide range of subjects and themes covering the entire continent. During the programme, you will learn an African language and explore Africa from an internal perspective. By doing so, you will discover…

Vincent Bakker has won the 2017 Thesis Prize of the research master’s programme Political Science and Public Administration. His study of labour market effects of social investment policies is the crowning achievement of Bakker’s work as a MSc student. It also marks the start of his academic career.…

In the 2020 presidential elections, voters in several, mostly southern, electoral districts of the United States saw ‘their’ polling stations closed by the local authorities. In order to cast their vote, they had to travel further or use the mail ballot. Media reports and civil rights activitsts often…

This open access book explores the role of continuity in political processes and practices during the Age of Revolutions.

It occurs on a regular basis: a public administrator resigns or is dismissed when their integrity is at stake. To what extent does that damage their image? Geerten Boogaard, Professor of Local Government, discusses this in an item published by regional public broadcaster ‘Omroep Gelderland’.

Jorik ter Veer studied Political Science in Leiden. How does he look back on his student days?

Where did the new generation of antislavery activists get their inspiration to organize in large-scale pressure groups?

In the Master's programme Crisis and Security Management, specialisation Terrorism and Political Violence, we focus on the academic body of knowledge on different form of protests, contention, resistance and violence. We explore and explain the emergence of radical and extremist movement.

Issues such as climate change, the depletion of natural resources or social inequality are too complex to be addressed from a single scientific discipline or by a single country. Leiden University has the expertise to bring the resolution of these enormous problems a small step closer.

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

Inequality and violence are the two biggest issues in South Africa. What is the underlying cause? Could they be linked to rivalling groups, economic factors, government policy or all of the above? To understand social issues, it is important to study them within their context. The extended case study…

Archaeologist Dr Gerrit Dusseldorp's research project was covered by a South African newspaper. Dusseldorp and his team investigate the evolution of human behaviour through artefacts dug up in South African caves.

This article explores how ISIS and the Taliban have fostered support through their parallel legal systems.

For early modern Europeans, the past was a measure of most things, good and bad. For that reason it was also hotly contested, manipulated, and far too important to be left to historians alone.

European integration is under pressure. At the same time, the notion of a European administrative space is being explicitly voiced. But does a shared idea of the public servant exist in Europe?

Gold Matters: Sustainability Transformations in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining: A Multi-Actor and Trans-Regional Perspective.This project explores whether a transformative approach towards sustainability can arise in Artisanal and Smallscale Gold Mining (ASGM).

Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a significant rise in terrorist acts and radicalized youth since the appearance of Boko Haram in 2009 and the fall of Libya in 2012. This book investigates the deeper layers of radicalization in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is situated in a larger global tendency.

Researchers from Leiden see hungry villagers in the north of Cameroon steal meat from the prey of lions. The researchers from Leiden University's Institute for Environmental Sciences (CML) reported on this kleptoparasitism in the online publication of the African Journal of Ecology in July.

Leiden Law Cast is a podcast made by Leiden Law School, Leiden University, for everyone who wants to learn more about current legal issues.

From memorials to the armed forces to memory stones for individual victims. It was only later that the Holocaust took a central role in Western remembrance culture, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree notes. ‘Nationalists and human rights activists both invoke the experience of the Holocaust.’