Modern humans and Neanderthals may have co-existed in France and Northern Spain for up to 2,900 years until the Neanderthals disappeared. This is what archaeologists from Leiden University and Cambridge University write in a new publication in Scientific Reports.

The unemployment replacement rate data set, assembled by Olaf Van Vliet & Koen Caminada (version 1, January 2012), provides data on unemployment benefit schemes in 34 welfare states from the 1970s until 2009. The current data set includes all 27 member states of the European Union and 7 non-EU OECD…

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the most powerful indicator in the world. And that while a large part of the scientific community sees it as an outdated figure. Why are we only looking at economic growth? And why do welfare, sustainability and inequality not count? Environmental economist Rutger Hoekstra…

In June, the international conference "Practices of Copying and Imitation in Early Modern Architecture (1400-1700)" will take place at Ghent University. This conference seeks to direct attention to verifiable practices and material documentation of copying and imitation in the workshop and on the building…

Climate change, depletion of natural resources, loss of natural and cultural landscapes, and many other (ecological) sustainability challenges urge us to (re)evaluate human interaction with the natural world. This renewed environmental consciousness has invigorated not only scientists working on effects…

Animal experiments are not undertaken lightly; we are working with sentient beings. As scientists, we have great responsibility to handle laboratory animals with care. Read here how we consider and justify this.

‘It was a complete surprise to me to find the Emerald Citation of Excellence certificate in my pigeonhole,’ says Natascha van der Zwan. Her article ‘Making sense of Financialization’ has received an honourable mention from Emerald Publishing because it is used all over the world for research and edu…

Who had a say in making decisions about the natural world, when, how and to what end? How were rights to natural resources established? How did communities handle environmental crises? And how did dealing with the environment have an impact on the power relations in communities?

In the eighties the Umhlatuzana rock shelter in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, was excavated. Results from this excavation led to an understanding when the Later Stone Age started in this area. This archaeological period is often associated with the structural presence of modern human behavior. Now a…

Over the past few hundreds of years, the world has changed radically. However, cultural stereotypes from the 17th century are still alive and well today, and even academic researchers sometimes use terms coined centuries ago. Why do they do that? Herman Paul, Professor of the History of the Humanities,…

In this paper, Sarah Giest and Bram Klievink highlight the effects of AI implementation on public sector innovation. This is explored by asking how AI-driven technologies in public decision-making in different organizational contexts impacts innovation in the role definition of bureaucrats.

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…

Several studies into the prevalence of child abuse in the Netherlands were conducted on behalf of the Ministries of Security and Justice and of Health, Welfare and Sport, the Samson Committee and the WODC.

Find out where you as a staff member or manager can turn for support or a good chat.

Introductory courses, Seminars and Minor Economics and Dual Programs

How have British cities changed in the years since the Second World War? And what drove this transformation? This innovative new history traces the development of the post-war British city, from the 1940s era of reconstruction, through the rise and fall of modernist urban renewal, up to the present-day…

My current research focuses on criminality and gender interactions in nineteenth-century Europe. This project uses a comparative methodology to explain gender constructions in a criminal and in a court setting.

This book provides an overview of critical scholarly reflections on the history of Dutch slavery and colonization, as well as how this translates into critical cultural practices.

Andrew Littlejohn published the article 'Ruins for the future: Critical allegory and disaster governance in post-tsunami Japan' in American Ethnologist about the ruins left by Japan's 2011 tsunami.

Globalization, migration, technological innovation and climate change pose challenges to citizens in European countries. These challenges test the limits of cross-national and cross-generational solidarities, touching upon the very foundations of governance and society. This research program aims at…

Lecture

The Economics and Governance specialisation of the Master in Public Administration teaches you to formulate problem-solving approaches to concrete policy issues found at the intersection between economics and public administration, specifically focusing on welfare states and markets. This specialisation…

Anthropologist Anouk de Koning about the tottering welfare state and the dilemmas of a government operating as a nearby, friendly partner.

Social Citizenship & Migration (SCM) is one of the nine interdisciplinary programmes launched by Leiden University in 2020. It is led by the Faculties of Governance and Global Affairs, Law, Humanities, and Social Science.

The central question is whether the current regime of international humanitarian law governing the conduct of hostilities in armed conflict is still adequate to deal with modern conflict scenarios, or whether it needs revision or amendment.

Perception of material culture, design and digital knowledge applications

This dissertation explores how domestic political power struggles in Greece and Turkey during the Cold War engaged with the ongoing conflict in Cyprus and aims to demonstrate how socialist parties in Greece and Turkey struggled with the concept of the “nation” in battling for power and political positioning…

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.

Developments in globalization and industrialization continuously push governments, international organizations and NGOs to reexamine the opportunities available to people at all levels of society to attain basic socioeconomic necessities. Research into existing social justice initiatives has shown a…

The world we live in is changing in many aspects at an ever-increasing speed. And it will continue to do so. How do we anticipate these changes, such as the increase in atmospheric CO2, the extinction of species and industrialisation?

This book examines the impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on national and international jurisprudence, since its adoption in 1989.

Abdolreza Alamdar Baghini defended his thesis on 5 December 2019.

Part of ‘Moralising Misfortune: A comparative anthropology of commercial insurance’, an ERC Consolidator project of Erik Bähre.

Part of ‘Moralising Misfortune: A Comparative Anthropology of Commercial Insurance’, an ERC Consolidator project of Erik Bähre.

Kohei Suzuki is Assistant Professor at Institute of Public Administration. This study carries several important implications for understanding the policy impacts of a graying population and for studies of the welfare state, in general.

-