On 3 December 2019, Meda Couzens defended her thesis 'The application of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by national courts'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. T. Liefaard and Prof. J.J. Sloth-Nielsen.

On the 24th of October, Nurenzia Yannuar successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Nurenzia on this achievement.

Research into the evolutionary backgrounds of our diets can help us make the right choices in diet, health and lifestyle.

LUCAS members are experts in the fields of literary history and theory, film and media studies, and art, architectural, and book history. Members of LUCAS teach in a wide variety of Bachelor's, Master’s, and Research Master’s Programmes.

The Laiseang archiving project ensures the preservation of unique records of languages in the region which have been gathered by more than two dozen linguists at, and in collaboration with Dutch universities over the last 40 years.

This PhD project investigates how grammatical features and lexical elaboration in Fulfulde Juguureere reflect aspects of cattle culture.

The Latin America and Caribbean Security and Intelligence Network (LACSIN) brings together scholars, practitioners, government agencies and the diplomatic community to develop novel and interdisciplinary approaches to addressing key areas of security and intelligence in Latin America and the Caribbe…

This project investigates how early print media covered distant but urgent geopolitical conflicts, using newspapers from the Low Countries, north and south.

How was the racial landscape of citizenship and democracy in antebellum America characterized, and how did free Black populations in various states navigate such landscapes?

The history of sign languages of deaf people is severely understudied. The historical linguistics of sign languages offers a fundamentally new perspective on the history of human languages. This project addresses the dearth of knowledge about historical sign language linguistics through a large-scale…

Research at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies is primarily carried out under its Research Programme ‘Exploring the Frontiers of International Law’.

In Freedom on the Offensive, William Michael Schmidli illuminates how the Reagan administration's embrace of democracy promotion was a defining development in US foreign relations in the late twentieth century.

Dario Fazzi

This book explores how public health concerns and political agendas influenced each other in the US over the past century.

To be eligible for MSc International Relations and Diplomacy (Advanced) at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Research at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) focuses on linguistic variation and diversity. In order to create more awareness and scientific understanding of this topic, research activities are clustered around six (overlapping) umbrella programmes. Many of our researchers are active…

Expand your knowledge, gain international experience, and explore global challenges. From summer schools and online courses to virtual exchanges, Leiden University students at all levels (bachelor’s and master’s students, and PhD candidates) can participate in a range of learning opportunities.

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 11 June 2026 at 6:00 pm.

This focus area adresses the social context of health and well-being, with a particular emphasis on social inequality.

Lecture, COGLOSS Seminar

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…

Find out how to apply for Culture and Politics at Leiden University by following our step-by step guide.

If you want to continue your academic studies after completing the International Studies bachelor's, the next step is a master’s degree (MA) at a Dutch or international university. Leiden University offers an excellent environment in which to pursue your master's.

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.

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?

At LUCIS we offer a varied programme of scholarly meetings (conferences, workshops) which reflect our multidisciplinary and comparative view on Islam and Muslim societies in past and present.

View the programme structure for the MSc in Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and Development at Leiden University: semester breakdown, credits, core and elective courses.

Until recently the Congo’s isolated Boa community had never read a single letter in their own language: quite simply, there was no alphabet to describe the language. A crowdfunding campaign by guest staff member Gerrit de Wit has changed that. He plans to use the rest of the money to work with a Congolese…

The Rabobank has awarded Leiden University 50,000 euro for a ‘study-related' purpose. The gift is to be used to allow two African students to follow the research master’s programme in African Studies in Leiden.

On Wednesday 21 March 2018 Jeroen Dijsselbloem, former Minister of Finance, and former President of the Euro Group and the Board of Governors of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), gave a guest lecture at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs.

The Social and Cultural Plan Bureau (SCP) published the report “The social state of the Netherlands”. In this research is it stated that there is no such thing as a political shift to the right. In view of the fact that the right wing is better represented in the House of Commons, this is a remarkable…

On May 13, prof. Tom R. Tyler (Yale Law School) will hold a lecture at Leiden Law School on

This network brings together scholars whose work explores how contemporary frameworks of crisis produce experiences of the present, rehash or disrupt established narratives of the past, and broker specific outlooks on the future. We collaborate in studying these crisis-scapes and exploring how they…

We are pleased to invite paper proposals for the 1.5-day interdisciplinary workshop: “Who rules over migrants? Autocratic elements in migration policies”, that will take place at the University of Leiden on 14 and 15 November 2024.

The announcement by US President Donald Trump on 9 March in response to the invitation for a summit meeting with the North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un came as a big surprise. Media analyses vary from being very positive to almost cynically negative. However, according to researcher on Korea Koen…

‘‘Stop focusing on the money and start creating a heart for Europe’’ This Friday, the 29th of April, Bernard Steunenberg and his co-authors will launch their book ‘Fit for the Future’. We spoke with him about issues presented in the book, the EU Presidency and why people should read the book.

There was a lot of fuss last week about the ‘dragnet law’, in which intelligence services are now authorised to conduct large-scale tapping of cable communications. The public image here is that the privacy of innocent citizens will almost certainly be violated. Paul Abels, professor of governance of…

This month Johan Christensen, assistant professor at the Institute of Public Administration, published his new book: ‘The Power of Economists within the State’. The book explores four countries, Denmark, Ireland, Norway and New Zealand and analyses why these similarly sized and wealthy countries have…

In the second and final round of the French elections this Sunday, the French will vote for who is going to become their next president. In an article for the Washington Post, Alexandre Afonso, assistant professor at Leiden University, has tried to project the votes in order to predict whether Marine…

On Tuesday 30 September 2025, PhD candidate Jonathan Collins will defend his dissertation A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of the Far-Right Alt-Tech Social Media Movement in Leiden’s Academy Building. His work examines the communication dynamics of far-right communities on alternative…

PhD defence

How did disability become a global concern? In this project we will identify the contribution of international agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations and, just as importantly, disabled people themselves, to the IYDP and by showing the connections, interactions and entanglements between…

As a Leiden University’s master’s student in Political Science you conduct independent research and report your findings to fellow academics and, who knows, to a larger audience. Your thesis is a showcase of your academic skills and personal interest, and perhaps even passion. Easier said than done,…