A comprehensive analysis of the state of play, the design of monitoring mechanisms, and creation of a toolbox of support measures.

Inaugural lecture

Competing Claims to an Idealized Past in Humanist Latin Poetry

On this page, you can find video's explaining the research of LUCAS members.

Comparative and Dutch Politics is one of the three organisational clusters of the Institute of Political Science.

LUCIR presentation and discussion

Nietzsche has often been considered a thinker independent of the philosophy of his time and radically opposed to the concerns and concepts of modern and contemporary philosophy. But there is an increasing awareness of his sophisticated engagements with his contemporaries and of his philosophy's rich…

Across Europe, the need for a more dynamic governance and a better societal integration of research and innovation is increasingly appreciated. Internal drivers of change (such as the digitalization of science) and political will to better align with societal needs and concerns are bringing about aspirational…

Over the next two years, CWTS and Dialogic will develop a robust and context-specific monitoring and evaluation framework for Open Science in the Netherlands. This will be accompanied by the development of a prototype dashboard to showcase how such an Open Science monitor could be made visible.

The Greater China Region Group develops and monitors Leiden University's cooperation with China.

This focal area is concerned with the development of responsible research assessment practices. It also focuses on fostering healthy research cultures, for instance in terms of social safety and open science practices.

It is often said that the true character of a person is only revealed in a crisis. In these days, the coronavirus causes concern about the true state of the multilateral system. Political scientist Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) is worried about the future of multilateralism.

Building cultures of legality: lawmaking and anxiety in the office of the Governor General.

This dissertation deals with Hegel’s theory of the sublime (das Erhabene). I focus specifically on die heilige Poesie (sacred poetry), a form of art that he identifies with the Judaic Psalms and which I claim to be the core of Hegel’s approach to sublimity. I claim that Hegel’s apparent lack of interest…

Using the League of Nations’ responses to early crises as an explorative historical case study, Political Scientist Gisela Hirschmann investigates how international organisations perceive and respond to existential threats.

On 29 April 2016 Rick Honings' book 'De dichter als idool. Literaire roem in de negentiende eeuw' (The poet as pop star) was presented.

Political scientist Matthew Longo (Leiden University) takes a detailed look at the evolution of border security in the United States after 9/11. Far from the walls and fences that dominate the news, he reveals borders to be thick, multi-faceted and binational institutions that have evolved greatly in…

The dissertation focuses on the work of German philosophers Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, founders of critical theory at the Frankfurt School. Specifically, it is a study of the “early” writings, dated between 1925 and 1940, to reconstruct the early stages of critical theory. The thesis argues…

This research aims to address the relationship between cinema and political thought in Latin America, in order to question a limited understanding of cinema politics, which has dominated the field of study since the middle of the last century, and to propose a different one that we will call politics…

What drives the restrictiveness of immigration reforms? Political scientists Katharina Natter (Leiden University), Mathias Czaika (Danube University Krems) and Hein de Haas (University of Amsterdam) analysed immigration reforms in 21 Western immigration countries between 1970 and 2012. They found that…

Is there a causal mechanism underlying the decision to attack another country when on the brink of war? If so, does this mechanism differ between regime-types? Political scientist Femke Bakker (Leiden University) addresses this question from a political psychological and comparative perspective and…

When we think of politics, we tend to think of adversary, antagonism, polarisation, a struggle for power. But politics should serve positive purposes, as well. Political psychologist and meditation teacher Femke Bakker (Leiden University) thinks that positive politics is first and foremost about tolerance.…

It is difficult to hold international organisations (IOs) accountable for human rights violations. Gisela Hirschmann (Institute of Political Science, Leiden University) introduces the concept of pluralist accountability, whereby third parties set the standards for IOs’ actions in relation to human rights,…

Spirited narratives of purpose and progress: church-society engagement alongside the (Company-) state

International organisations face the challenge of balancing conflicting norms. For instance the norms governing traditional UN peacekeeping missions and the the norm of international criminal accountability. Political scientists Tom Buitelaar (Leiden University) and Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University)…

This 48-month project is to contribute to a solid, accessible, domestically owned knowledge base for people-centred interventions aimed at strengthening access to justice in Libya (A2JiL), and to disseminate such knowledge among stakeholders, enhancing awareness and the capabilities required to provide…

Bacteria are everywhere. They are the most abundant organisms on earth and impact all aspects of our lives. They determine our health and shape our environment. Ariane Briegel, professor of Ultrastructural Biology, freezes bacteria super fast to gain a true-to-nature image of the internal and external…

Nietzsche’s concept of the agon or Wettkampf, a measured and productive form of conflict inspired by ancient Greek culture, has attracted a good deal of interest in Nietzsche studies and beyond. This book, by a leading expert on the topic, brings together research conducted over 20 years with a focus…

Currently the focus of the project is the development of a tool that utilizes dimensionality reduction techniques in order to analyze and interpret the lexical and phonological variation between different sign languages. Additionally, the application of deep learning techniques for the extraction of…

How can the support for a collaborative approach to global challenges be increased, in times when international organisations’ capacity to act is under threat? Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) and Cornelia Ulbert (University of Duisburg-Essen) suggest a number of options.

Political Scientist Katharina Natter (Leiden University) advances theory-building on immigration beyond the liberal state and demonstrates how immigration politics can provide valuable insights into the inner workings of political regimes. Connecting scholarship from comparative politics, international…

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…

Many dangerous diseases such as COVID-19, Ebola and Q fever have jumped from animals to humans. But it is not only because of these diseases that we should include animals in our health policy, but also because of their right to health.

An experimental comparison of the impact of liberal norms on a population residing and socialised within a democracy (the Netherlands) with a population in an autocracy (China) and their respective supports for war with another state shows that the level of liberal norms in the democratic experimental…

Why do some civil wars experience quagmire, a situation in which belligerents are trapped in fighting? To explain this puzzle, Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) analyses the overlapping strategic interactions between foreign powers and the warring parties. Studying…

The guest rooms are located on the top floor of our institute.

The Project “Excellence in science and innovation for Europe by adopting the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (NewHoRRIzon)” sets out to promote the acceptance of RRI in Horizon 2020 (H2020) and beyond. It will work out the conceptual and operational basis to fully integrate RRI into European…

The D&I Expertise Office works closely with the faculties of Leiden University.

There are five categories of members within the Research School:

The research study presented in this dissertation focuses on issues pertaining to the reliability, generalizability, and validity of authentic performance assessments of teachers.

Once you have decided on your field of research, you should start looking for a supervisor as early as possible.

This book is the first comparative study of estimative intelligence and strategic surprise in a European context, complementing and testing insights from previous studies centred on the United States. It does extensive empirical analysis of open-source material and interviews in relation to three cases…

Both play and politics have the potential to create worlds in which new rules apply, meanings are created, and possibilities emerge for collaboration, strategy and creative solutions. In this sense, play and politics have always been very much alike. But what happens to this kinship in a post-digital…

The IBL Education Office consists of:

Analysing the ways in which immigration structurally challenges and changes the organization and conceptual boundaries of national welfare states.

In the master’s programme in Archaeology, you can follow courses on the archaeology of Europe, deepening your understanding of the continent’s long history.