In the track War and Peace Studies, you will gain a thorough understanding of the history, theories as well as the contemporary and future policy challenges related to war, warfare, and the multidimensional promotion of peace.

Are you thinking about studying Crisis and Security Management: War and Peace Studies? Learn more and watch the videos.

Bas Rietjens and his colleagues researched the Russia-Ukraine war, exploring this multitude of facets and their interconnections.

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Through a range of case studies spanning the post-Cold War period in Iraq, Moldova and Serbia, this book studies asymmetric conflicts where warring sides exhibit vast power differentials.

Frans Osinga has recently been appointed as Professor by special appointment of War Studies at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs in the Hague. Osinga is both professor and an officer of the Dutch Royal Air Force. Given current global developments, the concept of ‘war’ is far from an abstract…

Why do some civil wars experience quagmire, a situation in which belligerents are trapped in fighting? To explain this puzzle, Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) analyses the overlapping strategic interactions between foreign powers and the warring parties. Studying…

The research group War, Peace and Justice brings together scholars, researchers as well as current and former practitioners to explore issues related to the drivers, nature and (new) dynamics of war and conflict, comprehensive approaches to the promotion of sustainable peace, and the role of justice…

Saeedeh Shahnahpur defended her thesis on 13 September 2016.

In the last two decades, there have been heated public and scholarly debates in France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands on the violent end of empire. Nevertheless, the broader comparative investigations into colonial counterinsurgency tend to leave atrocities such as torture, execution, and…

This reflection for Critical Studies on Terrorism, explores two decades of the 'War of Terror' and what it means today.

In this article, Jasmijn Boeken, explores in which ways the defining characteristics of the different zones can be found in the digital sphere.

A new special issue on translation and the cultural Cold War sheds light on the understudied and yet important role of translation in cultural transfer.

Studies on the Ottoman Jihad on the Centenary of Snouck Hurgronje's

If Dutch cinema is examined in academic studies, the focus is usually on pre-war films or on documentaries, but the post-war fiction film has been sporadically addressed.

Leiden University commemorates its victims of the war and pays tribute to all members of the university community who resisted injustice. Rudolph Cleveringa, for instance, the dean of the law faculty who gave a protest speech in 1940 after his Jewish colleagues were fired. We honour their memory through…

Citizens in multiple crime-ridden countries strongly support the militarization of security—that is, placing the military in charge of traditional policing duties. Yet, we know little about the determinants of such support. Do people approve of militarization even in the face of human fatalities? Political…

This book explores the lasting legacy of the controversial project by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, funded by the CIA, to promote Western culture and liberal values in the battle of ideas with global Communism during the Cold War.

In 1940 the Germany occupiers ordered the dismissal of all Jewish staff of the university. This resulted in protest speeches by fellow academics.

Writing under Wartime Conditions is a study into North and South Korean literature written during the Korean War.

Information about the situation in Ukraine

This thesis seeks to examine the emergence of Persian novels and short stories during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).

Despite the wealth of historical literature on the Second World War, the subject of religion and churches in occupied Europe has been undervalued.

Investigating the relations between Tupi Indigenous Knowledge, Museum Collections and the Dutch Colonization of Brazil

This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

Cigdem Oguz defended her thesis on 13 June 2018

How was anti-communism organized in the West? New volume edited by Giles Scott-Smith, Luc van Dongen and Stephanie Roulin on the aims, arguments and associations of a range of transnational anti-communist activists during the Cold War.

On 1 September 2022 Güldeniz Kibris successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

War and peace studies. A topic that is more relevant than ever because of the war in Ukraine. In September, the MSc Crisis and Security Management (CSM) will start a new track: War and Peace Studies. CSM’s Programme Director, Ernst Dijxhoorn, discusses the new track, how it was created and what students…

Why do communities form militias to defend themselves against violence during civil war? Using original interviews with former combatants and civilians and archival material from extensive fieldwork in Mozambique, Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) explains the timing,…

From Apartheid in South-Africa to 9/11 in the United States: there is not a single culture that is not shaped by the memory of war or conflict. The minor Cultural Memory of War and Conflict focuses on how such memory cultures influence and shape societies today.

What makes peace missions succeed or fail? Which new technologies will determine the outcome of wars? In recent decades, insufficient use has been made of knowledge of modern warfare, when this is crucial to European security. This is what Frans Osinga, Professor by Special Appointment of War Studies,…

This volume provides an authoritative, cutting-edge resource on the characteristics of both technological and social change in warfare in the twenty-first century, and the challenges such change presents to international law.

Why does the past elicit this intense activity in the present? What does the past mean for the present, and what does it do to it? A WAR OF WORDS will engage this complex of Chinese claims to Manchu-Korean ancient history, South Korean reactions, public discourse and cultural expression in both states,…

The Revolt in The Netherlands erupted in 1566 and tore apart the Low Countries. In Memory Wars in the Low Countries, 1566-1700 Jasper van der Steen explains how public memories of the Revolt in the Habsburg Netherlands in the South and the Dutch Republic in the North diverged and became the objects…

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

This book offers novel perspectives on the national and international dimensions of the post-war welfare state in Western Europe and North America.

Tom Buitelaar is an Assistant Professor in the War, Peace & Justice programme of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. This paper discusses four important challenges to the involvement of UN peace operations in international criminal justice: its effects on host state relations, peace and justice…

In this article, Ben de Jong, research fellow at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, examines the relationship between double agents and their handlers.

Political scientist Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University) about the organisation of rebel and government auxiliaries in the civil war in Mozambique (1976–1992).

The Afro-Asianism of the early Cold War has long remained buried under the narrative of Bandung, homogenising and subverting the different visions of post-colonial worldmaking that co-existed alongside the Bandung project.

On 17 August 1945, two days after the Japanese surrender that also brought an end to the Second World War in Asia, Indonesia declared its independence. The declaration was not recognized by the Netherlands, which resorted to force in its attempt to take control of the inevitable process of decolonization.…