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

This book explores the Indian tradition of liberalism through a critical intellectual biography of Valangaiman Sankaranarayana Srinivasa Sastri (1869–1946).

Acta Politica is the official journal of the Dutch Political Science Association.

How do technologies of computer vision, which promise to replace humans in the understanding of images, work in practice in the field of security, and what are their ethical and political implications?

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

Lecture, Sociolinguistics series

In this article, Gerrit Dijkstra and Jos Raadschelders from the Institute of Public Administration, argue that Bosnia-Herzegovina survives so far on the basis of negative legitimacy.

From colonial times through to the present day, large numbers of Javanese have left their homes to settle in other parts of Indonesia or much further afield. Frequently this dispersion was forced, often with traumatic results.

How do we define the works of a film director whose films cross many established boundaries at once?

Semantics and pragmatics are united in the study of linguistic meaning.

This special issue of Politique européenne 2019/4 (N° 66) contains, among others, a contribution by Astrid Van Weyenberg.

Sophie Ernst’s doctoral thesis is an artist’s contribution to media art theory.

Many thanks for visiting the Master’s Open Day on Friday 2 November! We hope that you enjoyed the day and that all your questions were answered.

More parties are standing in this national election than at any point since the Second World War. Simon Otjes, an assistant professor in Dutch Politics who conducts research into new political parties, explains why this is. He also predicts which new parties stand a serious chance of winning a seat…

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…

The Centre is the proud home of several research programmes.

Associates of Leiden University Center for Intercultural Philosophy

With regard to governance, policies and law, many Muslims and Muslim countries recognise the possibility that Islam has something important to say about the way society is to be ordered, governed, and regulated.

Dating back more than 400 years, Leiden University has the oldest continuous chair of Arabic outside the Arabic-speaking world. Today the MENA region is studied at Leiden from before the coming of Islam up to today from a wide array of disciplines. And Arabic is studied within the diverse linguistic,…

An investigation into how racial stereotypes were created and used in the European Middle Ages.

The present volume focuses on the political perceptions of the Hajj, its global religious appeal to Muslims, and the European struggle for influence and supremacy in the Muslim world in the age of pre-colonial and colonial empires.

Large carnivores and humans, along with their livestock, have co-existed for thousands of years. However, human population growth and an increase in economic activities are modifying the landscape for large carnivores and their prey.

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

Situated at the crossroads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Spanish Philippines offer historians an intriguing middle ground of connected histories that raises fundamental new questions about conventional ethnic, regional and religious identities.

In a podcast episode of 'New Books in History' Claire Weeda talks about her book 'Ethnicity in Medieval Europe 950-1250: Medicine, Power and Religion'.

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.

Transparency is seen as an important value for democratic government policy. Does that mean that we should do away with state secrets, such as confidential information involving intelligence agencies and political deals made behind closed doors? Political philosopher and ERC grant recipient Dorota Mokrosinska…

From 23-25 April 2014, a conference will be held on the topic of Buddhism and Social Justice. This conference confronts the common perception of Buddhism as intrinsically a tradition of peace and justice, and explores the various ways in which historically Buddhist societies of Asia have shaped, transmitted,…

On 15 July 2019 Hans-Martien ten Napel started a new series on freedom of religion or belief for the London School of Economics research-led interdisciplinary Religion and Global Society Blog.

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’.

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…

Citizens’s attitudes towards trade are not only about the (perceived) economic effect. Commerce also has a variety of security implications. Employing an original experiment, political scientists Matthew DiGiuseppe (Leiden University) and Katja Kleinberg (Binghamton University) demonstrate that security…

In theory, states can gain security by acquiring internal arms or external allies. Yet the empirical literature offers mixed findings: some studies find arms and allies to be substitutes, while others find them to be complements. Political scientists Matthew Digiuseppe (Leiden University) and Paul Poast…

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.

Point of departure of this meditation on the ethical role of sounds and silences within Christian rites and other religious practices is the documentary Into Great Silence. It is an intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, a monastery high in the French…

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…

Terrorism experts Daan Weggemans (Leiden University) and Beatrice de Graaf (Utrecht University) conducted one of the first scientific studies on the societal reintegration of jihadist former detainees. They showed that the reintegration process isn't without problems. Their conlusions are presented…

On 18 October, Armin Cuyvers, Associate Professor of European Law at the Europa Instituut, spoke at the Law School of Sydney University on reconciling political drama and legal realities in Brexit.

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.

How do insurance products transform intimate and personal relations? What are the consequences of the classifications that insurance companies use and how do these affect solidarity, morality and inequality?

In what ways and to what ends did Parisian buildings overwhelm the early modern public? This study is concerned with the experience of the sublime in architecture in seventeenth-century Paris.

Markus Altena Davidsen’s PhD dissertation is the first major study of Tolkien Religion. In it, he analyses the religion that is based on the stories by acclaimed British fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien. He also discusses how fiction itself can become religious. Davidsen will defend his dissertation on…

In the nineteenth century many Dutch people believed in the end of time and the coming of God's thousand-year reign. This belief effectively slowed down the process of modernisation that was taking place in the Netherlands at that time, concludes historian Rie Kielman. PhD defence 13 April.

This project looks at the current practices of marriage law in Indonesia. It examines the often ambiguous views different groups hold of marriage, from local villagers in Bengkulu to women’s activists in Jakarta, and how these relate to the development of national law on the one hand and local practices…

Systematic investigations into religious precepts, worldly rules of law and legal practices in the Muslim world show clearly how these societies deal with justice and injustice. Sharia, the Islamic ‘legal system’, plays an important role in this context.

How is tradition constructed and belief made plausible in fiction-based religion?

The Leiden Ancient History specialization concentrates on the study of the economies, societies and cultures of the large empires of the Graeco-Roman world, starting with the empires of Alexander the Great and his successors. The appearance of these empires led to the development of an interaction network…

This project investigates the full ecosystem of Middle Dutch prayerbooks in order to answer questions about their role in – and impact on – religion, culture, and society in the late medieval Low Countries.