This project receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101054849 (PURANA).

On 30 January 2024 Jurre van der Meer successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Mr. S. Al Daghistani defended his thesis on 30 November 2017

The master's programme in Philosophy: Moral and Political Philosophy at Leiden University offers an excellent opportunity to explore fundamental issues in moral and political philosophy.

Religion and ethnicity are inextricably linked in discourse within and about Central Asia. One common narrative suggests that as a result of differences between historically sedentary and nomadic populations, ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks are naturally more religious and more likely to radicalise than their…

The role of religion in the identity construction of LGBTQIA+ folks

This book compares the policies of Australia and Italy towards boat people who have arrived in the two countries since the early 1990s.

Understanding the evolving landscape of extremism in the 21st century.

The specialisation Culture and Politics of the Master’s in International Relations at Leiden University encourages critical perspectives on complexities of culture as an inextricable part of global politics.

This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’. Its members study phenomena such as migration, immigration, citizenship, integration, ethnic parties, minority and caste-based politics, borders and migration,…

This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’. Its members focus on the democratic role of citizens and the representative links between voters and politicians.

Are you thinking about studying International Relations: Culture and Politics? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Researchers of the Leiden Leadership Centre are active members of the PUPOL network. PUPOL is an international academic network for public and political leadership which fosters exchange of ideas and inspires collaborative research among scholars focusing on the role of leadership in the public and…

This master’s programme introduces the student to philosophical issues arising at the intersection of law, politics, and policy. This master’s programme is meant for students who wish to combine a master’s in Law, Political Science, Public Administration, or an adjacent discipline with a master’s in…

The leading textbook on governance and politics in the Netherlands. The authors offer a clear and comprehensive account and have revised the text to provide full coverage of recent important developments.

A new paperback edition of Brian Heffernan's book Freedom and the Fifth Commandment. Catholic priests and political violence in Ireland, 1919-21 was published by Manchester University Press in September 2016.

This research will investigate which aspects of On the sublime received attention in the intellectual milieu of the seventeenth century and how the sublime found its way in the political and artistic discourse of that time. Thus I aim to shed light on the role of art in politics and society in this…

Press freedom in Indonesia is still under pressure, despite the demise of Soeharto’s regime in 1998

The presence of religious idioms in people’s responses to vulnerability and misfortune is not unique to Aceh, or to Indonesia. Yet the scale of the tsunami coupled with the historically deeply ingrained presence of religion in Acehnese everyday life has magnified religious discourses on misfortune,…

This thesis attempts to interrogate post-1991-2015 political development in Ethiopia, focusing on the political discourses espoused by the government and opposition, using the discourse analysis method and securitization theory.

In the master’s programme in Dutch Discourse Studies at Leiden University you will study rhetoric and argumentation, and you will specifically focus on research into pragmatics, stylistics, genre research and persuasion.

Dutch politics has long been a paragon of stability. Think, for example, of our party system until, say, the last decade. At the same time, we also see occasional changes and significant shifts. Society has changed and this is reflected in, among other things, how we vote and how policy is made. About…

Does becoming a public sector employee change a person’s political beliefs, behaviors and interactions with the state? Do public teachers hold the same values as other professionals and the general Brazilian public?

In this article, Meier & Nadler suggest that while non-citizen enfranchisement boosts participation across all citizens, citizens with immigration backgrounds are more reactive to the NCV rights in terms of higher turnout. In this way, the paper adds a critical nuance to individual-based explanations…

Are you thinking about studying Religious Studies? Learn more and watch the programme presentation.

This project examines the meaning of this historical place, and the way it has been used by the political institutions that have had their seat there.

Jasmijn Rana demonstrates in the article 'Secular-religious self-improvement: Muslim women’s kickboxing in the Netherlands' that young Muslim women who kickbox develop agentive selves by challenging gender norms and living out their religious subjectivities.

Political scientists John Gerring (University of Texas, Austin) and Wouter Veenendaal (Universiteit Leiden) evaluate the political implications stemming from the size of a political unit – on social cohesion, the number of representatives, overall representativeness, particularism ('pork'), citizen…

This study investigates and analyses didactical approaches in theory and practice of both scholars and expert teachers in Religious Education/Life World Orientation (for secondary level) in their role as Identity Agents in order to discover and develop didactical key components contributing to religious…

On February 20th, Gulnaz Sibgatullina succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Gulnaz on this great result.

Book launch

The Leiden Lectures in Media | Art | Politics (MAP) is a series of talks organized by Pepita Hesselberth and Yasco Horsman. Speakers from various academic backgrounds and in different stages of their careers reflect on diverging ways in which technological and social changes challenge and transform…

The MA Religious Studies at Leiden University is designed to equip students with the tools and knowledge required for studying, interpreting, and analysing religion as a diverse (human) phenomenon. With its world-class scholars and access to exceptional research collections, the programme offers the…

What moves an individual, a society or a culture? How does religion relate to politics, economics and morals? Religion is everywhere and often plays, unnoticed, a large role in the daily lives of yourself and others.

This study is a critical discourse analysis of the misogynistic narratives shared by three incel violent extremists.

Religion permeates our world and remains highly influential across all domains of human society, including politics, culture, and economics. Religion also plays a critical role in everyday life as it provides meaning, motivation, and social support for billions of people. The master Religious Studies…

Religion permeates our world and remains highly influential across all domains of human society, including politics, culture, and economics. Religion also plays a critical role in everyday life as it provides meaning, motivation, and social support for billions of people. The master Religious Studies…

Mr. Ade Jaya Suryani defended his thesis on 28 January 2021

Religions involve belief in the unbelievable: in evil spirits causing disease, in souls surviving death, and in gods punishing wrongdoers and blessing the just. Cognitive studies suggest that humans are predisposed to speculate about fate and divine agency, but support from so-called ‘plausibility structures’…

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…

We live in a data-drenched society awash with numbers. An inhabitant of the democratic polis of Athens (5th and 4th centuries B.C.E.) increasingly found himself surrounded by numerical data. This project aims to analyze the communicative functions and the political meaning(s) ascribed to these public…

The research group Politics, Culture and National Identities 1789-present investigates a wide range of national political cultures in Europe and the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries. Instead of only analyzing high politics (the acts of governments and political parties), the research group focuses…

This book discusses theories of crisis management and the radical right, to shed light on how responses to crisis influence radical right parties in their presence, discourse, and evolution. The book offers a comparative perspective by examining case studies with various traditions of radical right…

A Persistent Revolution: History, Nationalism, and Politics in Mexico since 1968

Political scientist Luzia Helfer (Leiden University) empirically tested claims about media-politics relatiopns using unique data from experimental studies with elected politicians and political journalists in Switzerland and the Netherlands.

This study looks at population response to government containment strategies during initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in four high-trust Northern European countries–Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden–with special emphasis on expressions of governmental trust.