In the days following Christmas, Christa Tobler gave a series of interviews to Swiss newspapers and Swiss radio about the new Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and the UK and about what it might mean for Switzerland-EU relations and the draft EU-Swiss institutional framework agreement.

Snowball the cockatoo gained world fame on social media. Millions of people saw him dance to Queen and The Backstreet Boys. In the journal Current Biology scientists study Snowball's dancing abilities and what they teach us about the origins of dance. Professor of Animal Behaviour Carel ten Cate casts…

Why did India develop a strong military partnership with the state of Irael, after having ignored it for 42 years? How could both countries develop defense ties in spite of limited political leadership involvement? Finally, what are the prospects for defense relations as India grows to become one of…

In ‘Dimensions of Free Speech’, Devrim Kabasakal Badamchi (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) offers a new theoretical framework for free speech by critically analysing the major justifications for free speech. Kabasakal Badamchi argues for a justification: namely the double-grounded…

The starting hypothesis of the project is that secrecy is not always inimical to democratic governance as conventional wisdom has it.

The thesis is a major milestone for master students graduating in Political Science. It demonstrates their ability to conduct research independently and to provide a thorough, objective and sound analysis. That requires instruction, discussion, thinking and hard work. Lots of it. In some cases this…

Political scientist Wouter Veenendaal (Leiden University) provides an in-depth case study of clientelism in Malta, the smallest member state of the European Union. He reveals that not only that patron–client linkages are a ubiquitous feature of political life in Malta, but also that the smallness of…

Tradition has it that at the end of each academic year, the best master’s thesis in Political Science is awarded a prize. For 2021-2022, the jury is considering six nominations. All of great quality, but on different topics. These range from political party bans to questions regarding commitment within…

Tom Louwerse, lecturer and researcher at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, has been awarded a NWO Vidi grant. This will enable him to conduct research on how government and opposition parties cooperate in parliament and how this affects voters’ party choices and satisfaction with d…

Towards the graduation ceremonies, you sense an increasing nervousness. Not only because all the tradition and glamour surrounding the event, also because that will be the day that the winner of the Political Science master’s thesis award will be announced. For 2022-2023, the jury is considering seven…

As one of the most influential ideas in modern European history, democracy has fundamentally reshaped not only the landscape of governance, but also social and political thought throughout the world.

It is often said that the links between political parties in Africa and their voters are clientelist, rather than programmatic. The familiar image is that of African ‘big men’, displaying personal wealth while being respected and celebrated in the community for sharing their riches. Yet, political scientist…

The level of congruence between parties and their voters can vary greatly from one policy issue to another, which raises questions regarding the effectiveness of political representation. We seek to explain variation in party–voter congruence across issues and parties.

Political scientist Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University) explains why Mozambique is not (yet) a success story.

In the upcoming Dutch general elections, the focus of the party campaigns is on national issues. Luuk van Middelaar, Professor of Foundations and Practice of the European Union and its Institutions, argues in a column in Dutch newspaper NRC that foreign policy should also be on the agenda.

Leiden University’s Political Science and International Studies programmes have consolidated their firm academic reputation. In the 2017 QS World University Rankings, Leiden ranks 26th among the most valued institutes worldwide. Within the Netherlands, Leiden has retained the first position.

The environment also benefits when people follow national nutritional guidelines, Paul Behrens demonstrated in research published in PNAS. The publication attracted media attention both at home and internationally.

For the second time in six months, Hans-Martien ten Napel has been invited to write the opening essay for a series of international blog posts.

Stay tuned for updates on relevant media appearances of Anne-Laura van Harmelen.

Media in the Netherlands and abroad reported extensively about the drug research led by Leiden chemist Mario van der Stelt. In this research, Van der Stelt shows which unwanted side-effects a French drug candidate has.

As a Leiden University’s master’s student in Political Science you conduct independent research and report your findings to fellow academics and, who knows, to a larger audience. Your thesis is a showcase of your academic skills and personal interest, and perhaps even passion. Easier said than done,…

Robert Pee, William Michael Schmidli (Eds.) This book posits that democracy promotion played a key role in the Reagan administration’s Cold War foreign policy.

Populist opposition parties are less likely to engage in policy-making behaviour (participating in or directly influencing legislative production) and somewhat more likely to engage in scrutiny behaviour (monitoring and criticising government actions).

Political scientist Simon Otjes (Leiden University) receives a grant from The Dutch Research Council (NWO). The grant is part of the SGW Open Competition XS, which aims to stimulate innovative scientific research within the Social Sciences and Humanities domain. Otjes receives the grant for his research…

Gisela Hirschmann, lecturer and researcher at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, has been awarded a 2-year grant of € 170.000 by the German Fritz Thyssen Foundation to study how international organisations react to budget cuts, membership withdrawals and systematic non-compliance by…

A comparative analysis of legitimation strategies in tree hybrid regimes: Russia, Venezuela, and Seychelles.

Adina Akbik has been appointed as a new member of the Young Academy Leiden (YAL) as of 1 September 2024. Akbik is Senior Assistant Professor of European Politics at Leiden University. YAL serves as a platform for early career academics, and Akbik is keen to promote the needs and interests of young researchers…

Several media published articles on the latest research from a team including Thijs Bosker, Associate Professor Environmental Sciences, last week. The research has shown that whales in the vicinity of Auckland New Zeeland consume three million microplastics a day.

Law and peace in the work of Hans Kelsen. A re-evaluation of Kelsen’s legal philosophy: legal pacifism as tacit meaning of his Pure Theory of Law

On 29 November Mariana Gkliati published an opinion piece in the Greek newspaper EFSYN, on the reorganisation of the greek asylum committees.

It is a full classroom: more than 30 pupils from 5 and 6 vwo are present to listen to political scientist Leila Demarest's lecture. She gives a brief introduction on the topic she is about to discuss: democracy in the global North and South. At first, the group seems a bit quiet, but when she asks questions…

How does the Chinese government communicate with its citizens? Yuxi Nie obtained her PhD with her thesis on communication strategies of the Chinese state media agency Xinhua. She discovered that on social media, Xinhua communicated in different ways, depending on the target group.

Opera, more so perhaps than most other forms of art, is deeply intertwined with philosophy and politics. For some composers this was explicitly so. Think of Wagner’s relation with Nietzsche and Schopenhauer or Verdi’s role in Italian unification. But almost any opera raises, and tries to grapple with,…

Ontwerpers en onderzoekers gaan bij het verzamelen van data vaak uit van mannen als ze mensen bedoelen. Dat is onhandig en onveilig.

In this article, Kuipers and Timmermans analyze the first lady's relationship with policy problems in the period 1945-2013.

Extremist users of Telegram are moving en masse to other chat apps, such as the anonymous SimpleX. In this way, they hope to avoid detection, now that Telegram founder Pavel Durov is going to share personal data of criminal users with authorities.

This PhD project analyses the politics and aesthetics of depictions of torture in American and European ‘war on terror’ films.

The latest book by political scientist Matthew Longo came out this spring: 'The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain'. In addition to its many favourable reviews, the book received the prestigious Orwell Prize this summer, which highlights exceptional books on politics.

In what ways can visual art play a vital role in countering the discriminating stigma experienced by transgender communities?

This week Dutch newspapers NRC and de Volkskrant consulted scientists from the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) about the impact of the Cambridge Analytica storm. This company gained insight into the data of 50 million Facebook users.

Monday 5 September 2016, the political science bachelor’s and master’s programmes kick off. We are looking forward to meeting our new students. And we will happily help them to find their way around.

El viernes 3 de noviembre a las 11.15 tendremos el gusto y honor de escuchar a la Prof.dr. Sayak Valencia en el marco del X Congreso Internacional de la AHBx. Prof.dr. Sayak Valencia (Tijuana, Mexico, 1980) impartirá la segunda conferencia plenaria del X Congreso Internacional de la AHBx bajo el título:…

Hoye proposes that concerns about virtues of the sovereign are essential for understanding Hobbes's both his political thinking and his political critique.

Research & Politics (RAP) is a peer-reviewed open access journal which focusses on research in political science and related fields through open access publication of the very best cutting-edge research and policy analysis. The journal achieved a high score for the impact factor, which puts it in 49th…

The recent consecration of India’s Ayodhya temple by Prime Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party figurehead Narendra Modi raises important questions. Is secularism giving way to religious rule in the world’s largest democracy? How does this resonate with India’s culturally diverse population? France 24…

The faculty's research on the ancient rock art found in Jordan's Black Desert has recently been covered by several news and science websites.

This study investigates how the tenure of security (proxied by both inter- and intra-party electoral advantage) affects the engagement and political performance of members of parliament.