How do crises produce changes in specific European Union foreign policy areas, and how should we conceptualise these policy changes?

EU foreign policy has become increasingly politicised over the past years, amongst others as a consequence of the succession of crises. Crises may engender processes of crisis framing and contestation. This article focuses on how the policy demands being voiced in these processes of contestation are…

This paper develops a novel theoretical framework for the conduct of postmortems after major foreign policy surprises for the European Union and its member states.

This paper aims to understand the most common underlying problems causing strategic surprise in the context of the European Union.

EUMOTIONS explores the role of emotions expressed by political elites (at EU- and member state-level) in framing the EU’s policy options during international crises.

Ideology and Actions

Citizens, journalists and scholars notice that foreign policy in, and of, the European Union, is ‘de-Europeanising’. Political scientist Daniel Thomas (Leiden University) offers a theoretical exploration of the likely implications. He expects that it will become more difficult for the EU to achieve…

Dr. Gruni published an article on the impact on sustainable development in the EU Common Commercial Policy of recent Opinion 2/15 CJEU on the Global Trade and Customs Journal.

European countries struggling how to deal with the issue of returning foreign fighters, women and children from the Caliphate.

This research paper was requested by the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. It was published by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) in The Hague. Leiden University is one of the participating institutes in this publication and our researcher…

The policies relating to language pursued by European monarchies and states have been widely studied, but far less attention has been given to their linguistic and cultural policies in territories outside their own borders.

In this article Fisher, Klein & Codjo introduce the FOCUSdate Project and they show how the sentiment data provide unique abilities to analyze Russia's and Iran's reactions to US policies and events and NGO human rights campaigns.

The Master’s in European Union Studies at Leiden University offers students an opportunity to study the EU from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

The European Council and the European Commission have a similar role in agenda setting. Both place issues on the EU agenda. However, these institutions have distinct designs. They have different political attributes (the European Council has considerably more political authority) and information-processing…

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…

The researchers examine the Council of the European Union's voting behaviour between 2010 and 2021 and the impact of different independent variables.

The European Union acts as one of the most powerful economic actors in the global economy, presents itself as the most successful integration project in recent history, and deploys one of the largest diplomatic services in the world. The European Union Studies minor offers a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary…

How to explain the apparent high success rates of the EU infringement procedures, which are the major tools for enforcing EU law, against the member states?

The NWO-funded Vidi project “American foreign policy and liberalism” challenges the idea that the United States has created and sustained a “liberal international order” since World War II. It instead explores the ways in which illiberal ideologies – such as those underpinning racial hierarchy at home…

How is Indian foreign policy made? This special issue of the journal India Review, edited by political scientists Nicolas Blarel (Leiden University) and Avinash Paliwal (SOAS University of London) features a number of interesting case studies that bridge the gap between Foreign Policy Analysis and India’s…

Madeleine O. Hosli, Professor of International Relations, wrote this book in which she analyses the complex relations between the European Union (EU) as a regional organization and the United Nations (UN) as an international, global governance institution.

Are you thinking about studying European Union Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

The coronacrisis makes painfully clear that a transboundary crisis requires a transboundary response. The European Union could play a key role, but that has not happened so far. Political scientist Amy Verdun (Leiden University) explains why.

This special issue of the Journal of European Policy presents results from the research on the European Union Enlargement and its Integration Capacity. The Journal of European Public Policy is one of the leading journals in this field.

Müller, Braun & Fraussen examine the conditions under which commissioners appear in the news and which communication strategies they pursue.

The Law of the European Union is a complete reference work on all aspects of the law of the European Union, including the institutional framework, the Internal Market, Economic and Monetary Union and external policy and action.

European policy affects our lives: from air quality to the frequency of a bus service. Leiden researchers analyse how the European Union functions, how countries apply European policy and whether this policy actually provides solutions and delivers.

This article studies the influence of framing on preferences for cooperation with the EU.

The project focusses on how US views of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia influenced its strategic interpretations of the region. Being eleven million strong, dispersed across the region and sharing ethnic ties with Communist China, interpretations of the diaspora intersected with key Cold War…

English The purpose of this research is to identify and examine the challenges faced by African States in the field of foreign investment with a view to contribute not only to the academic debate, but also to foster awareness and develop the capacities of these States with regard to the drafting, negotiation…

Both Europe and Latin America face challenges globally and at home. Conflicts over land and resources have been resurgent in recent years.

Leiden experts research ways in which European legislation is converted into national legislation. Knowing how this process works can inspire policy-makers trying to achieve their aims while abiding to Europan legislation.

The Summer School ‘The European Union, the United Nations and Global Governance’ will focus on a range of topics relevant to interactions between the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) and the EU’s role within current patterns of global governance.

The Department of Child Law collaborated on a study on missing children in the European Union for the European Commission. The outcomes of the study aim to help to improve the mechanisms involved when children are missing in EU Member States.

This project investigates the capacities of EU institutions to coordinate the responses of member states to critical events.

When EU member states signed the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, they did not anticipate the manifold crises in store for them over the following years. Instead of the intended consolidation of a Union which had just gone through its most profound modernisation and biggest round of enlargements, the EU has…

Our project focuses on the analysis of decision-making processes in the European Union (EU) and explores how approaches and tools to understand decision-making found in both the Natural and the Social Sciences can be linked, knowledge between these traditions exchanged and synergies utilized. To explore…

Introducing five papers about of the impact of crises on the governance, decision-making, and institutional design of the Euro Area, political scientists Valerie D'Erman (University of Victoria, Canada), Paul Schure (University of Victoria, Canada) and Amy Verdun (Leiden University) summarise the 'lessons…

This article 'Shaping the European External Action Service and its post-Lisbon crisis management structures: an assessment of the EU High Representatives’ political leadership' assesses the role, influence and core aspects of the EU High Representatives’ (HR/VPs) “political leadership” in the context…

Does foreign aid promote human rights?

Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn, Chelsea Daymon and David Malet, wrote RESOLVE Network Research Report that examines career foreign fighters who have traversed from one insurgency to another.