Ramesh Ganohariti, PhD student and Ernst Dijxhoorn, Assistant Professor at Leiden University, researched the relation between international relations and sports, with sport and sports events increasingly being used for various diplomatic and political goals.

The nominees for the IRO thesis prize 2023 and the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2023. Who wrote the best bachelor theses in Political Science?

On 17 October 2022, Jan Aart Scholte contributed to a conference plenary roundtable on 'From Internet Governance to Digital Political Economy'. Click here to find out more about the event.

This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the Islamic State's use of images taken by drones, drawing on a dataset of ISIS propaganda images from October 2016 to December 2018.

For the next couple of years, Joris van der Voet, Associate Professor and researcher at the Institute for Public Administration will be heading a research project on top-level bureaucrats and how they go about making choices and prioritizing issues. He has been awarded a Vidi grant by the Dutch Research…

In less than a week’s time, millions of Turkish people are going to decide who will govern their country for the next five years. These elections promise to be the most closely contested in years, with the opinion polls showing very small differences and everything at stake, including for Europe. Alp…

Wouter Veenendaal, a political scientist at Leiden University, is an analyst for the Freedom House report. Freedom House is an American non-profit organisation dedicated to democracy, political freedom and human rights. In short, the report describes the degree of freedom and the state of democracy…

Political scientist Femke Bakker (Leiden University) is going to investigate whether meditation affects political behaviour. Bakker has been awarded a PEACE Grant by the Mind & Life Institute, which enables her to conduct innovative, experimental research. The aim is an answer to the question whether…

With the Dutch general elections just around the corner, it’s not always easy when political differences exist within your circle of friends. How do you not lose sight of each other in political discussions? We asked best friends Jort Schaafsma and Michiel van der Velde, both students at Leiden Law…

Political scientist Simon Chauchard (Leiden University) has been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This brings him recognition as ‘researcher with a promising track record’ and enables him to set up a research group in the coming five years. Chauchard et al. will analyse…

Many Western defence strategies concentrate on maintaining the status quo. Actively promoting universal values can also be a good strategy for resilience, according to Theo Brinkel, Professor by Special Appointment in Military-Social Studies. Inaugural lecture 15 January.

Lecture

How can we understand the implementation of EU policy and what challenges are involved?

Bart Barendregt, Ratna Saptari, and Annemarie Samuels co-organised a two-day workshop on

China is a one-party regime, yet elections are held for the local congresses. PhD candidate Wang Zhongyuan investigated how the Communist Party uses this democratic instrument to strengthen the authoritarian regime. PhD defence 31 January.

Looking back on 2024, Elon Musk and his impact on the global stage, political developments in the Netherlands and the war in Ukraine come to mind. These and other topics were discussed in ‘De Jortcast’, a podcast hosted by Jort Kelder on Dutch radio offering ‘radio therapy against hypes and hysteria’.…

This article examines to what extent bureaucratic responsiveness depends upon the source, the content and the salience.

The process of unification and the character of the union are the central topics of Magnanimous Dukes and Rising States. Robert Stein mirrors continuity and modernisation in Burgundian times with the bankruptcy of the former dynasties and the decline of feudal government. The powerful towns played an…

This book investigates how the rulers of the Habsburg world empire developed and implemented a central maritime policy for the Netherlands and appointed an admiral of the sea or admiral-general for that purpose.

Leiden University continues to do well in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. For the subject area Politics and International Relations, the 2018 edition ranks Leiden 67th in the world. This is not that far behind the ‘usual suspects’ (Cambridge, Stanford, MIT and the like). Among…

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.

The democratic rule of law is under pressure due to a series of scandals and integrity issues, as seen in the recent parliamentary inquiries. Professor Ronald Kroeze explains: 'Public office holders are expected to show complete dedication, but that norm is quite absolute, and what we mean by it is…

We are living through an age in which social media platforms have given way to entirely new forms of politics and politicking. It is no exaggeration to say: there is a before and after social media.

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

The ECPR summer school on Interest Group Politics is celebrating its 10th anniversary. To celebrate this especial edition, this year’s summer school includes many renowned researchers and professors from around the world. In addition, as a part of the celebration, we are organizing an exceptional one-day…

Relations within the Kingdom of the Netherlands are imbalanced, says Professor by Special Appointment Wouter Veenendaal. The Caribbean autonomous countries and special municipalities do not have enough of a say and have administrative problems to contend with.

It is with great sadness that we have learned of the death Professor Hans Daalder (4 May 1928 – 4 April 2016).

Recently, a new round of NWO XS grants was awarded. This grant is given to researchers with small, high-risk, innovative or promising research projects by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). In this round of the so-called Open Competition XS, no fewer than six researchers from the Institute of Political…

The Institute of Political Science has a multi-dimensional research programme that promotes the unity of the institute as an intellectual community rooted in the social sciences and especially political science, while enabling overlapping groups of colleagues to develop particular research agendas within…

As a student in the programme Politicologie: Nationale en Internationale Politiek, you will examine societies and power relations with the analytical eye of a scientist. You will deal with interesting, important topics such as elections, civil wars and international cooperation. In doing so, you will…

Ramsey Albers wins Political Science Master’s Thesis Prize 2022

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.

Lecture

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…

This book analyses the emergence of modern parties in nineteenth-century Europe and explores their connection with the slowly developing institution of democracy.

Terrorist groups adapt to environmental changes to maintain power. This project provides new insights by developing a theory of strategic target selection and using big data analytics and machine learning to test these hypotheses.

This winter the OZSW offers a special PhD-course in Political Philosophy. The course discusses state-of-the-art themes and developments in political philosophy, and acquaints students with a broad range of teachers in political philosophy in the Netherlands.

Since criticising the war in Ukraine, Russian author and cardiologist Maxim Osipov has fled Russia. Come September, he will be Leiden University’s writer in residence and teach a course on Russian literature.

Three new ministries have been formed in the Netherlands: Asylum and Migration, Housing and Spatial Planning & Climate and Green Growth. Of course, this is not merely an administrative act. These ministries carry a strong and political charge and play a crucial role in shaping a government's political…

In recent years, the question why citizens (do not) support democratic innovations has attracted increasing academic attention. In this research note, Van Der Does & Kantorowicz for the first time empirically verify what drives citizens’ instrumental considerations in their evaluation of a DI.

On 2 September 2021, Gert Jan Geertjes defended his thesis 'Staatsrecht en conventie in Nederland en het Verenigd Koninkrijk'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. L.F.M. Verhey and Prof. W.J.M. Voermans.

The land question had a crucial formative influence on Mayo politics in the decades before the First World War and this book shows the part played by many prominent nationalist figures such as Davitt, O’Brien, Dillon and MacBride in shaping the political landscape in Mayo.

The legitimacy and justice of political institutions and arrangements are among the perennial and defining subjects of the field of political theory. Political theorists who participate in the research cluster ‘Legitimacy and Justice’ engage in both systematic and historical reflection on the ways legitimacy…